alt Hacker News> I hadn’t interacted with any of the office staff, but they’d seen me.
This story would have taken a very different turn if early on he had realized that befriending the office staff would have scored him a permanent place in one of those empty unused cubicles. No need to be best friends, but just being friendly and forthcoming now and then would have avoided their attitude of "who's that weirdo let's involve the site manager to get rid of him". It fits with his lonely wolf persona though which makes it easier for him to be a hero in his story and which he seems to cultivate in purpose.
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Someone who can write for the Paris Review and play politics would end up the site managers boss before he could stop it.
Former “scummy contractor” here. So, a “contractor” being in the office is considered a mortal sin.
I don’t know why this is, but it’s always been this way. Workers don’t go into the building.
The office staff don’t want you there and if you stay too long, your fellow workers will rib you for hours about going to “the dark side”.
In my few years at the job, I had only been in the office area for 5 minutes to fill out some sort of paperwork. Most of that from when I was hired.
Seeing as he was in there on multiple occasions, he probably did establish rapport with the office staff, but left that out because it messed with the flow of the story.
" if early on he had realized that befriending the office staff would have scored him a permanent place"
I feel like you don't have any first hand experience with the kind of classist horseshit that is endemic to these kinds of work environments.
Being the weirdo frees you from a great many time consuming pleasantries. Making friends might secure a permanent place but it also means a few minutes from every break will be lost to small talk and sometimes the entire break; you see a self serving lone wolf casting himself as the hero, I see someone just trying to find a way to do what is important to him. I am fairly certain that much of the eccentric artist image is just frustration over small talk.