一个人的空间 A Place to Stand_美文_双语阅读-查字典英语网

一个人的空间 A Place to Stand

I said, “Look. What about the rest of the people

He said. “Stop. What do those look like to you? He pointed down the row of toll booths.

“They look like tool booths.

“Nooooo imagination!’

I said, “Okay, I give up. What do they look like to you?

He said, “Vertical coffins.

“What are you talking about?

“I can prove it. At 8:30 every morning, live people get in. Then they die for eight hours. At 4:30, like Lazarus from the dead, they reemerge and go home. For eight hours, brain is on hold, dead on the job. Going through the motions.

I was amazed. This guy had developed a philosophy, a mythology about his job. I could not help asking the next question: “Why is it different for you? You’re having a good time.

He looked at me. “I knew you were going to ask that, “ he said. “I’m going to be a dancer someday. He pointed to the administration building. “My bosses are in there, and they’re paying for my training.

Sixteen people dead on the job, and the seventeenth, in precisely the same situation, figures out a way to live. That man was having a party where you and I would probably not last three days. The boredom! He and I did have lunch later, and he said, “I don’t understand why anybody would think my job is boring. I have a corner office, glass on all sides. I can see the Golden Gate, San Francisco, the Berkeley hills; half the Western world vacations here and I just stroll in every day and practice dancing.