I began renting a small office space in a big historic building downtown.
There’s a lot to appreciate about this beautifully rustic atmosphere, between the ancient university elevators plus the amazing view outside my window overlooking the river down below.
Most of the furniture downstairs is decades ancient as well. But after you quit focusing on the superficial features you begin to realize how needlessly run down this locale has become. Being inundated with a musty mold smell wherever you go in the building is the least of your worries. Periodically the locks on the doors don’t absolutely engage at night when you’re leaving, which is a large security risk. The plumbing can often back up, the lights go on plus off because the wiring is so old, plus there is a substantial ant problem even if you never bring food into the building. Even with all of these concerns on a repeat basis, I still stayed in my office and was foolishly resolute that someone would eventually work with these types of concerns. But oddly enough, the nail in the coffin for me is the climate control inside. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like outdoors, the building ranges from extremely sizzling to extremely cold on an afternoon by afternoon basis. I once walked into the building on a random June afternoon to find that person had flipped on the heat. My weather thermometer said the interior was 95 degrees that afternoon. You could find the opposite happen in December, with air conditioning on plus circulating throughout the whole building. And no matter what the temperatures are like, it’s consistently extremely humid indoors.