Like most of the people I know in Seattle, all three of us work in tech. Sort of. Mandy is a project manager, keeping people doing things and controlling her team with a terrifying iron fist out of proportion to her pixie-scale body. Lucas is a programmer, which is how he’s able to afford silly things like “an actual house,” even if he needs the rest of us to feel comfortable with his ability to pay the mortgage. Me, I’m in customer service. I answer phones, answer email, and get yelled at for a living, usually by people who don’t understand how not paying their $25 bill for four months results in them owing more than $100, or how a tree falling on the phone lines means their internet stops working. It’s an endless grind, but it pays. Quite well at this point, since I’ve been there for more than five years, while most customer service drones quit after two, if they make it that far.

As the lowest-tier worker in the house, I’m also the only one who has to go into the office, which makes no sense to anyone other than the corporate overlords who get paid for timing my bathroom breaks.

I like solving problems. There are so many problems in this world that can’t be fixed. At least when somebody’s cable goes down, I can generally make it better, or dispatch a technician who can. My call times aren’t the best in the company. My customer satisfaction scores, on the other hand, are through the roof. Best of all, my job doesn’t come with a dress code. I can wear whatever I want.

Today, as with most days, “whatever I wanted” was jeans, a nerdy T-shirt—this one with a silhouette of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors and the slogan “Don’t feed the plants”—and a pair of comfortable shoes. Mandy and Lucas worked from home but still had to buy nice shirts for their many videoconferences. I may not make as much money as either of my housemates, but what I don’t get in my bank account is more than balanced by not being forced to wear business formal five days out of seven.

I followed the smell of waffles down the hall to the dining room, where Lucas had cleared half the miniatures from the previous night’s Pathfinder game out of the way in order to set up the plates. Mandy was already planted firmly behind hers, a plastic bag tied around her neck to protect her dress as she mowed through her breakfast like she thought the meal was going to be canceled.