The problem was Basil, the newly appointed deputy store manager. A tall black guy with perfect posture and dry-cleaned work shirts, he’d been targeting Amy ever since his promotion. He was always coming into her shop to second-guess her decisions and offer advice she didn’t want. She knew he was building an HR case against her, accumulating a long list of missteps and failures. When the staff cuts came—and everyone knew cuts were coming; you could sense a weird sort of tension in the air—Amy knew she would be at the top of Basil’s list.

So she was on her best behavior while her transfer request made its way through the system. She arrived on time every day. She smiled at customers and didn’t blink at last-minute schedule changes. She made sure her uniform (beige polo shirt, blue jeans, Chuck Taylor sneakers) was impeccable. She fought her natural tendency to talk back. And, most important, she steered clear of Basil, determined to stay off his radar.

With a high-pitched mechanical scream and the shredding of gears, the escalator came to a halt, then reversed direction. Basil tried to pat the operations partner on the back, while the operations partner tried to high-five Basil. The result was awkward.

“Way to live the ethos, man!” Basil cheered, clapping a few times.

Then the crowd of floor partners funneled onto the slotted steps, ascending to the second-floor Showroom.

Rather than follow everyone and walk right past Basil, Amy decided to go the long way. Defying the intentions of an entire think tank of retail psychologists, she walked backward through Orsk, starting at the rear (the checkout registers) and moving clockwise through its entire digestive tract toward its mouth (the Showroom entrance at the top of the escalator). Orsk was designed to move customers counterclockwise, keeping them in a state of retail hypnosis. Going the opposite way felt like walking through a carnival spookhouse with all the lights turned on: the effect was ruined.

She ran past the registers and down the massive central aisle of the Self-Service Warehouse, with its soaring fifty-foot ceilings and towers of shelves. Flat-packed furniture rose up on tiers of industrial shelving, disappearing into the misty distance down endless gray rows. A bleak, prefabricated city built of cardboard and fourteen-gauge steel, the warehouse loomed over her for forty-one belittling aisles before she reached the sudden drop in ceiling height that marked the border crossing onto the Market Floor.

She rushed through the perfumed air of Home Decorations and its crates of scented candles, sped past the bland-tastic art of Wall Decorations, and pushed through the swinging-door shortcut that teleported her from the bulb-warmed air of the Lighting Gallery into Tableware, where she reached the staircase leading up to the Showroom.