There’s an atmospheric bomb cyclone out there, and office workers all over the Bay Area are simply not having it today. Buildings downtown, usually teeming with hard-won return to office victories, are dotted with dark windows, as their usual Thursday occupants hunker down at home.
Sasha Orloff, founder and CEO at fintech startup Puzzle (which operates out of the same SoMa coworking space as yours truly), did not want to be at the office today, he told Gazetteer SF. His only reason for showing up to the office was because he owed his direct report something.
“I went to the store to get it for them and I came in, I braved the rain and they didn’t show up,” he said. “Why didn’t they show up? Because it’s raining.”
The nerve.
“It’s going in their personnel file,” Orloff joked. “It’s going in their review… it is not good for their career. The rain is messing with people's careers in San Francisco right now and this bomb cyclone or tropical whatever we’re talking about is just messing everything up.”
Mindspace, the coworking space where Gazetteer and Puzzle have offices, looks like a scene straight out of that post-apocalyptic HBO show with the mushroom zombies that I can’t remember the name of.
Czarlette Martin, community associate at Mindspace, told Gazetteer she typically notices “a lot less people coming in when it’s raining here.” And for those who show up on a rainy day, “everyone’s just trying to get through the day and then get out,” she added.
Ben Goldhaber, a director at FAR.AI in Berkeley, told Gazetteer there’s “definitely a depressed turnout” in his office today. Goldhaber, who is from North Carolina, said he thinks people “get soft here.” As a native, I can confirm that every year we are lured into frailty by three seasons of weather between a “chilly” 60 degrees and a “blazing hot” 80.
“Then four weeks of the year I’ve got to find my umbrella, which I can never find,” Goldhaber told me. A devastating cycle.
Goldhaber, who lives a short distance from his office, resorted to driving to the office today instead of his typical walk or bike commute because the rain is “super annoying,” he said.
At least he made it to the office today, unlike some of my coworkers, who shall remain unnamed. As Orloff said, “anytime there’s water coming down from the sky, it makes me nervous for society.”
The weather has brought some good news, though: This morning, Dane Cook announced he would be canceling his upcoming show due to the “bombastic rain river.”
