Working conditions

Steam heat descended on DC early this year, turning many office buildings into human freezer boxes. Meetings, however, remain at tedious to moderate levels of excitement, making the coffee pots ever more alluring. They beckon, even though I do not really like coffee that much. Coffee makes me anxious and nervous when the sky is blue; the breeze is gentle; my family, happy; my friends, kind. A German business leader appeared in a newspaper, she is a mother of eight and author of several novels, slyly hinting that all her note taking at meetings might have little to do with the meetings themselves. Maybe I have found my coffee substitute.