Not the Queen

Meet the entrepreneur no one is talking about

Illustration by Stephanie Davidson

From the sidewalk I turn my head up at the buildings of San Francisco. They all have crowns, like they house royalty. Everyone is up there changing the world, changing the world. Not me, though. Not me. I’m low in these streets, stomping around with my dirty boots and foggy mind. 

I stand at the entryway to one of the tallest, an old one, a wall of stone stretching to heaven, stone turrets at the top. Looking up the side I feel vertigo coming on, my stomach swims like I’m peering over the edge of a cliff. Will I jump? 

Inside the double doors, I find a grated iron window, ornate with curls, casting a complex lace of light onto the tile floor. It would be beautiful, if I could see any beauty here. But I have my head down—I’m not feeling well today, I'm never feeling well—trudging into the elevator, looking at my phone, going to my meeting. Meeting the royalty. 

Up. Up. Up. Twenty-first floor. There are long, narrow windows in the stone facade like the arrow slits in a castle. What? I'm up in this castle on a regular Tuesday? Might I feel special here in this vaunted place? No. Nope. Neck bent, bent down, looking down, hunched, collapsed. No, even in this building I’m not tall, even up here with this turret crown above.

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I sit in the lobby. I keep myself occupied, see? Excel Excel, Facebook, Excel, Facebook-Excel. My TO DO list: each item with a number of minutes next to it. Driving myself like a horse. I am most efficient this way. Scroll Scroll. The internet thinks I want to see articles about startups, so I am awash. Meet the Startup that Everyone in LA is Talking About. The woman pictured appears fresh and determined. In her slim ivory jumpsuit. With her magenta blazer. On that white oak floor. With all those clean, sharp lines. With that artful half smile: serious, but not angry. Pleasant but not weak. Smiling, but not happy.

If I were in a picture in that jumpsuit in that blazer in that office in an article with that face being shared on Facebook, then would I feel tall? I’m staring into the white light of the screen, hunched and squinting, tapping, hunched and squinting, tapping tapping, click click frantically clickity clicking and for what. 

FOR WHAT?!

That’s what keeps me up at night.

It’s Stanford Duck Syndrome. On top they are smooth and regal, gliding easefully along the water, but underneath the placid surface those little feet are paddling like hell, like hell. Someone thought of this duck metaphor to describe the nature of Stanford students, and it applies to the whole region. But it doesn’t go far enough. Underneath there are also alligators. There are sharks, there are sea urchins lining the bottom, there are the darkest depths of the unknown, there are nameless glowing beasts, there is one thousand times the pressure of gravity, there are our eventual deaths, snapping at our feet.

Even for the woman in the magenta blazer, the one that Everyone in LA is Talking About. Yeah, she’s doing some frantic paddling. She’s got some nasty alligators on her heels.

My meeting’s over. It was short, dismissive, I was unimpressive. I’ve come down again to the level of the world. I walk into a coffee shop and there is a row of wooden stools with glinting brass legs, brass flatware on the counter. It’s all gilded and glittering. I’m not sure what to say. How can I possibly be so unhappy with so much brass so available to me?

Back on the street I’m looking up again, and here’s a new tower of windows, still a construction zone, just a shell. I realize—and it knocks the wind out of me—that every single room on every single floor must be furnished. God, how many chairs. We put these up like it’s nothing at all.

My Google is telling me to turn right. People used to look at maps and see the whole world, and now I just see the very next turn like a horse with blinders on.

I’m looking at the news while I walk. It’s the #MeToo era and a few men around here are falling lightly from the fortieth floor to the eighteenth. One of these kings changed his LinkedIn title to: Janitor. He sexually harassed and assaulted women and was outed to reporters, and now he’s “cleaning himself up.” Get it? JANITOR. Another of these giants changed his title to: "Head of Self-Reflection, Accountability & Change.” In public. On LinkedIn.

Do they know people can see? 

I hate him, I hate them, I hate them, I hate them so much. 

I know some people feel that way about me, too.

Because I’m here. 

In this castle, technically. 

With this crown, technically.

You know, I should be happy here. I shouldn’t be happy here. I should be happy here. I’m not happy here. Happy is trite. Happy is losing meaning. Happy is not a pinball machine at the office. Happy is not made up of free company happy hours, misleading name aside. This place is fucking with me. This place is fucking with me and my brain is punched in. I chose this.

Sometimes I feel the sensation of barreling through time. The momentum sucks the breath from my lungs, I am powerless to stop bullet train of my life. I could pass the whole thing under the big rubber soles of these men. I must do something, urgently.

Instead, I walk back to the office hunched over my phone, cortisol spiking with each new email.

What would it take to make me feel like a crowned queen?

✍️ Join me in the comments…

What’s the most pointless thing you’ve seen in an office that was supposed to make people happier at work? A ping pong table no one had time to use, fancy espresso machine that always broke, etc…

When have you felt the most like a duck - serene on the outside, paddling like hell beneath the surface?