The People Watcher

Hannah Dotzler

As soon as I clocked in for the day, I was ready to go home. I sat down in my boring, plain cubicle, and let out a big sigh. Being an accountant at an insurance company was not fun, but it was my life. Let’s be honest, I wasn’t there for the pure enjoyment of math and numbers. I was there for the money. Isn’t that why anyone works? Ideally, I would have opened my own bakery. Baking was my only real passion and happiness in the world. But I didn’t have the money, time, or motivation to actually make that happen. So, there I was, sitting at my desk, dreading the day ahead of me. There was one good thing about my job, though. I was given the cubicle in front of the window, and our company was on the first floor, allowing me full access to people-watch as much as I pleased, which consumed about 80% of my work shift each day. And being in the heart of New York City allowed for some pretty interesting people-watching. This day, I was feeling particularly unproductive and decided to spend the whole morning studying the pedestrians. There were two types of people, I realized, in the world. The sad, and the happy. The sad were way more common than the happy. There were depressed-looking businessmen and women who wore suits and carried briefcases. I swore out of all the years I watched people through that window, I never once saw someone who wore a suit smile. Then, there were people on their cellphones, screaming at the person on the other line. Or there would be people who walked down the street crying, or had puffy, red eyes because they had just finished crying. There would be friends or partners who walked side by side but didn’t say a word to one another. Almost everyone I watched each day looked unhappy. Every once in a while, though, I would see someone from the happy group. Most of them were young people. Kids would be oohing and ahhing over a bird they saw across the street. College students would be laughing at something they had seen on their phones.

Couples would be smiling at one another and telling each other stories about their day. When I really thought about it, I realized that I belonged in the sad group. If someone had seen me walking down the street, I wouldn’t be smiling. Especially if I had just got done with another eight-hour shift at work, which was almost every day. I didn’t like the idea of being associated with these depressed people, but I knew it was the truth. My life didn’t have to be like this, and the only person who was making it boring and sad each day was me. I daydreamed about the idea of opening my own bakery, and it seemed like the best, most perfect thing in the world. ‘That’s it,’ I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ Just then, my wandering mind got interrupted. “Have you gotten anything done at all in the last hour?” my boss asked. This was my chance, I thought. It was now or never. I could either spend the rest of my life being an accountant, living a sad and depressing life, or I could be a baker, living a happy and fulfilling life. “I quit,” I said.