The Circle Read Free Page B

shepherds,
     she still would have arrived here, now.
    “Thanks Annie,” she heard herself say.
    They’d walked past a few conference rooms and lounges and werepassing through the company’s new gallery, where a half-dozen Basquiats hung, just
     acquired from a near-broke museum in Miami.
    “Whatever,” Annie said. “And I’m sorry you’re in Customer Experience. I know that
     sounds shitty, but I will have you know that about half the company’s senior people
     started there. Do you believe me?”
    “I do.”
    “Good, because it’s true.”
    They left the gallery and entered the second-floor cafeteria—“The Glass Eatery, I
     know it’s such a terrible name,” Annie said—designed such that diners ate at nine
     different levels, all of the floors and walls glass. At first glance, it looked like
     a hundred people were eating in mid-air.
    They moved through the Borrow Room, where anything from bicycles to telescopes to
     hang gliders were loaned, for free, to anyone on staff, and onto the aquarium, a project
     championed by one of the founders. They stood before a display, as tall as themselves,
     where jellyfish, ghostly and slow, rose and fell with no apparent pattern or reason.
    “I’ll be watching you,” Annie said, “and every time you do something great I’ll be
     making sure everyone knows about it so you won’t have to stay there too long. People
     move up here pretty reliably, and as you know we hire almost exclusively from within.
     So just do well and keep your head down and you’ll be shocked at how quickly you’ll
     be out of Customer Experience and into something juicy.”
    Mae looked into Annie’s eyes, bright in the aquarium light. “Don’t worry. I’m happy
     to be anywhere here.”
    “Better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than inthe middle of some ladder you don’t, right? Some shitty-ass ladder made of shit?”
    Mae laughed. It was the shock of hearing such filth coming from such a sweet face.
     “Did you always curse this much? I don’t remember that part of you.”
    “I do it when I’m tired, which is pretty much always.”
    “You used to be such a sweet girl.”
    “Sorry. I’m fucking sorry Mae! Jesus fucking Christ, Mae! Okay. Let’s see more stuff.
     The kennel!”
    “Are we working at all today?” Mae asked.
    “Working? This
is
working. This is what you’re tasked with doing the first day: getting to know the
     place, the people, getting acclimated. You know how when you put new wood floors into
     your house—”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Well, when you do, you first have to let them sit there for ten days, to get the
     wood acclimated. Then you do the installation.”
    “So in this analogy, I’m the wood?”
    “You are the wood.”
    “And then I’ll be installed.”
    “Yes, we will then install you. We’ll hammer you with ten thousands tiny nails. You’ll
     love it.”
    They visited the kennel, a brainchild of Annie, whose dog, Dr. Kinsmann, had just
     passed on, but who had spent a few very happy years here, never far from his owner.
     Why should thousands of employees all leave their dogs at home when they could be
     brought here, to be around people, and other dogs, and be cared for and not alone?
     That had been Annie’s logic, quickly embraced and nowconsidered visionary. And they saw the nightclub—often used during the day for something
     called ecstatic dancing, a great workout, Annie said—and they saw the large outdoor
     amphitheater, and the small indoor theater—“there are about ten comedy improv groups
     here”—and after they saw all that, there was lunch in the larger, first-floor cafeteria
     where, in the corner, on a small stage, there was a man, playing a guitar, who looked
     like an aging singer-songwriter Mae’s parents listened to.
    “Is that …?”
    “It is,” Annie said, not breaking her stride, “There’s someone every day. Musicians,
     comedians, writers. That’s Bailey’s passion project,