It smells like a doctor’s waiting room in here, and it doesn’t help that the carpet is made to inspire vertigo.

Outside, it’s gray and drizzling and cold. Perfect November weather. Exactly what I’ve been waiting for (sans the drizzle, I should say — rainy days and Mondays always bring me down).

We (being the entire IT department of UAB, excepting a few server admins) just shifted all of our offices from across campus into a new building, and the new carpet and furniture and paint gives it that newly disinfected smell. And the pod set-up, while inspiring for a sense of community, makes me feel like I should be on the phone trying to close sales.

The community thing isn’t even a point for me, since my department numbers one plus a part-time intern…

Interesting as time passes to watch the way the world is changing around us. New theories about workers and productivity and morale spring up, and you have a generational shift of new trends in the workplace. Christmas decorations spring up earlier and earlier every year, and the coll season starts later and later; the time change is just icing on the cake of temporal displacement. Trick or treating seems to be more and more a thing of the past; when I was a kid, not so terribly long ago, you went house to house, every house in the neighborhood, and loaded up. These days, you see fewer and fewer kids in costumes outside of school, and fewer and fewer houses with welcoming porch lights or decorations.

These are the things that old people notice. The changes, today versus the good old days. And I’m not old, unless you ask my baby sister or the twenty-somethings in my crowd; my 34th birthday is coming up this Friday, but I still feel (and act, and apparently look) 25.

But I can feel myself seeking those familiar patterns in life, from habitual behaviors to seasonal shifts. And I’m aware of how quickly they are changing, disappearing, moving on to become the memories of my baby sister and my niece.

It startled me a few days ago to realize that, with only 15 years between us, how many pieces of technology separate myself and my youngest sibling. And not just things like video game systems, or width of internet pipes. She’s never known the world without remote control, the internet, cell phones, portable music players, video players, or microwave ovens. She wouldn’t know what UHF is without a hint or two.

These are all things we all take for granted, whether we have them or not (I know plenty of people who do without cable TV, computers in the home, and cell phones — but they’re aware that they could grab them at any time if the need or desire arose).

And of course, the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots, the ever-marching progress of the capitalist world. The insane greed that drives millionaires to swindle blue-collar workers out of the life savings, that sends countries to war and creates insanely intricate webs of deception and lies and blind faith.

This world has lost it’s focus, I often think. I’m no different, no better, except maybe in the sense that I’m aware of it.

It, and the cloyingly clean smell that I have to put up with 40 hours a week.

I guess it could be worse, though. I could be stuck making calls, trying to close sales, instead of just feeling like I should be.