Take about 200 short-term employees. Humans of varying ages, health, gender, size, temperament, color, background, sexual orientation, interests, tastes in clothing. Some hiding out in this transitory job, some there to socialize, regain self-esteem, some very in need of the pay. Shut down their machines. Leave the employees in the large open workspace for five or so hours, not knowing if or when they’ll work again. What do you get?

One very strange day.

I handed out LifeSavers, one Wint-O-Green here, a handful of red, orange and purple there. Learned about volcanoes in Costa Rica. The right earring for a square-jawed face. Military weapons made by toymaker Mattel. Poetry night at Café Caffeine. Making sand castles on one’s porch. Where to find crawfish étoufee in Austin. People were uncomfortable. People woke up. People had theories about assymetry of body parts and HR experiments. Oh, it was one entertaining and unnerving day. Time redefined. One row of people stared at their computer screens, black or the ubiquitous Windows blue.

As though wishing for the machines to, Please! come back to life. Anything better than this eerie earning money doing nothing.

Believe me. I was not immune to that feeling.