Having people just outside your window all day is a bit unnerving. We don’t have central air and I keep my windows open when possible in the summer. My office overlooks the porch roof but the porch was converted into two interior rooms over the years. (The house was build about 1890.) With the extreme weather we’ve been getting (rain storms that routinely dump three or four inches of rain in a short period, especially), leaks have developed. As of this summer, after five years of ownership, we finally have a completely new roof—we had to have it done in parts because it’s not like we have professors’ salaries. That meant that roofers were outside my office window all day back in August. Now this is weird. I was literally six feet away from some of them some of the time, sitting at my laptop, trying not to watch them instead of working. The roofers, meanwhile, completely ignored me. Never once when I glanced up did I see any of them looking in the window.
By the end of the day I was freaked out. You see, as much as I like performing (as any good teacher does), I don’t like being looked at while I’m working at a desk. I deeply dislike desk jobs and my posture throughout the day becomes, well, idiosyncratic. Being forced to act as if I were in a sea of cubicles again was difficult. Of course, I work longer hours now than I did as a commuter (one of the reasons, I expect, many employers don’t insist on people coming back to the office). Knowing that someone could be watching you, even if they’re not, makes me uncomfortable.
I considered how it must be for a zoo animal. Yes, they’re given some privacy, but it’s often limited. Animals don’t like to be stared at. (Despite what materialist tell us, we all know what that feels like and it makes us fidgety.) When I’m out jogging I find that if I don’t look directly at them, I can get pretty close to many animals. If you make eye contact, however, they more quickly scurry away. Those in zoos must eventually become inured to the staring over time, or at least come to realize that nobody’s going to hurt them. Still, given their druthers, I expect most of them would rather be in the wild where they can do what they do, no matter how boring, without being watched. And no roofs over their heads at all.
