Between Teak Doors and Paint Cans

The alarm blared at 6:45 a.m., and I nearly threw my phone across the room to shut it up. First days are supposed to feel exciting, right? But all I felt was a caffeine hangover and the weight of a 45-minute bike ride looming over me. Titan Storage Co. was clear across Metrospire, out where the city's glitter faded into gray industrial sprawl. No bus went that far, and my bank account wasn't ready to flirt with a rideshare. So, I dragged my ancient mountain bike out of the dorm basement, threw on a hoodie and my least-wrinkled jeans, and pedaled into the dawn.

The ride was brutal. Metrospire's downtown zipped by in a blur of honking cabs and coffee carts, but the closer I got to the edge of town, the emptier it felt—pavement cracked, warehouses squatting like silent giants. My legs burned by the 30-minute mark, and a delivery truck nearly flattened me when I swerved around a pothole. By the time Titan's massive steel facade rolled into view, I was sweaty, panting, and 49 minutes deep into a playlist of lo-fi beats that did nothing to calm my nerves. I locked my bike to a rusted pole, wiped my face with my sleeve, and trudged inside, ready to be a working man.

The lobby was still spaceship-sleek, but Amanda wasn't at the desk this time. Instead, a guy in a reddish uniform waved me through a side door with a grunt of, "New guy? Grayson's waiting." No clipboard, no orientation video—just straight into the belly of the beast. The warehouse stretched out like a football field on steroids, shelves towering to the ceiling, stacked with everything from lumber to toilet seats. Forklifts buzzed like angry bees, and workers darted around in that same ant-like rhythm I'd seen last week. Grayson met me by a stack of cardboard boxes, his suit as crisp as ever.

"Ryan, good to see you," he said, clapping me on the shoulder hard enough to make me wince. "We're slammed today, so no fancy training. You're on the floor—selling to customers. They come in, you help 'em find what they need, load it up, send 'em off. Easy. Questions?"

"Uh, selling? Like, retail?" I asked, brain still half-fried from the ride. I'd figured I'd be moving boxes, not playing salesman.

"Exactly. You're a logistics guy, right? Figure it out." He handed me a name tag—RYAN, in block letters—then pointed me toward a cluster of shelves. "Start over there. Bathroom fixtures. Customers'll find you." And that was it. He was gone, leaving me blinking in the fluorescent haze.

I wandered to the bathroom section, dodging a forklift hauling a pallet of sinks. Customers were already milling around—grumpy contractors in tool belts, harried moms with shopping lists. My first "sale" was a guy in a plaid shirt who wanted a showerhead. I fumbled through the aisles, found it on a shelf I could barely reach, and handed it over with a shaky, "Here you go, man." He nodded and left. Cha-ching. Eighteen bucks an hour felt real now.

An hour in, I was starting to get the hang of it—pointing people to faucets, hauling towel racks—when a supervisor loomed up behind me. He was short, stocky, with a thick beard and a name tag that read KHALID. His accent was sharp, clipped, like he'd grown up somewhere hotter than Metrospire.

"New guy. Ryan, yeah?" Khalid said, arms crossed. "Got a customer over there. Needs a bathroom door. Teak, 36-inch. Move it with the forklift."

I froze mid-step, clutching a pack of cabinet knobs I'd been shelving. "Forklift? Uh, I don't have a license for that."

Khalid's eyes narrowed. "You don't need one today. Just do it. Customer's waiting—old lady, gray hair. Go." He jerked his head toward a beat-up yellow forklift parked nearby, its keys dangling like a dare.

I opened my mouth to argue—logistics 101: unlicensed forklift use equals lawsuits and crushed toes—but Khalid was already walking away, barking orders at someone else. The customer, a tiny woman with a cane and a scowl, tapped her foot by a stack of doors. I was halfway to the forklift, palms sweaty, when Jake—bless his chaotic soul—rolled up out of nowhere, grinning like an idiot.

"Dude, you lost?" he said, hopping off a forklift of his own. His uniform was wrinkled, but he moved with the swagger of someone who'd been here longer than a week.

"Jake, thank God. Khalid's got me moving a door with that thing," I said, pointing at the forklift. "I don't even know where the gas pedal is."

He laughed. "Chill, I've got a license—Lars hooked me up weeks ago. Teak, 36-inch, right? I'll grab it." He slid into the driver's seat, fired up the machine, and maneuvered it like it was an extension of his body. The door—heavy as hell—lifted smoothly, and he dropped it by the old lady's pickup in under a minute. She muttered a grudging, "Thanks," and hobbled off. Jake winked at me. "You owe me a taco."

"Deal," I said, relief flooding me. Crisis averted.

But the forklift drama wasn't over. Another supervisor jogged over—tall, pale, with a buzzcut and a faint accent I pegged as maybe German or Dutch. His tag said LARS. "Ryan, right?" he asked, eyeing me and Jake. "You didn't try driving that, did you?"

"Nah, Jake saved my ass," I said. "Khalid told me to, though. I don't have a license."

Lars sighed. "Khalid's a hardass. You're fine—Jake's certified. But we've got a course next week—free, company-run. I'll enroll you. Get you licensed, bump your pay a buck or two. Sound good?"

Relief hit me like a cold drink. "Hell yeah, that's awesome. Thanks, Lars."

He grinned. "Don't thank me yet. It's a half-day of boring safety videos. But you'll survive." He clapped my back and strode off, leaving me buzzing. Forklift license? Pay bump? This gig was already paying off.

But the vibe shifted fast. I caught a cluster of workers near the lumber section glaring at me—three guys and a woman, all in those reddish uniforms, faces sour. One muttered, "New kid gets a course? I've been here two years, nothing." Another spat, "Freakin' favoritism," loud enough for me to hear. I pretended to study a stack of shower curtains, but my gut twisted. A year without that "luxury"? No wonder they were pissed. I'd barely clocked in, and I was already the golden boy by accident.

The weirdest part, though? Not everyone cared. Scattered across the warehouse were a dozen workers who didn't even glance my way. They moved like ghosts—stacking doors, hauling cardboard, piling lumber—with the same dead-eyed focus as that nine-foot freak from last week. One guy, wiry and pale, slid boxes onto a shelf in perfect rhythm, back and forth, no pause, no blink. A woman with stringy hair dragged a pallet of plywood, her steps slow and mechanical, like she'd been programmed. Another hulking figure—eight feet, maybe?—stood motionless by the paint cans, staring at nothing until a buzzer snapped him into motion. Zombies, all of them. No chatter, no grumbling, just… work. It made the angry stares from the normal staff feel almost comforting.

By the time my shift ended, my legs ached, my hoodie was damp with sweat, and my brain was a mess of customer orders and that eerie, silent crew. I shuffled toward the changing room area, ready to ditch the name tag and bike home, when something caught my eye. Over in the paint department, high above the racks of color swatches and cans, a girl stood on a mini scissor lift. She was maybe my age, with short dark hair and a reddish uniform that actually fit her—unlike the zombie giant's baggy disaster. She was fiddling with a shelf, but when she glanced down, our eyes met, and she flashed a smile. Not a dead-eyed stare, not a scowl—a real, warm smile, like she'd been waiting to see something human all day. I froze, half-expecting her to vanish like a glitch, but she just waved, then turned back to her work as the lift hummed softly.

I shook my head, ducking into the changing room. Khalid's pushiness, Lars's lifeline, the resentment simmering around me—it was chaos. And those zombie workers still haunted my brain, their blank faces flickering like a bad dream. But that girl's smile? It stuck with me, a tiny spark in the weirdness, as I grabbed my bike and pedaled into Metrospire's dusk glow.