Daily Dabble:Corporate by Day, Bud by Night

A Remote Stoner’s 36-Hour Office Odyssey

Listen, I didn’t ask to go back. No one does. You get used to the remote life — the silence, the sweatpants, the mid-morning coffee brewed in your favorite chipped mug, and the freedom to stretch out on the couch between calls without anyone judging your sock choice. You become high-functioning in the purest sense — clear-headed, productive, and deeply dialed into a rhythm that works.

And then an email shows up.

“Hey Bud! We’d love to see you in person at HQ next week. Just a quick in-and-out — two days, one night.”

Corporate speak for: “We’re not sure you’re still real. Please wear pants and confirm you’re not an AI with sarcasm settings.”

So yeah. I packed. I drove. I buttoned up. I re-entered the world of fluorescent lighting, awkward eye contact, breakroom coffee sludge, and being asked, “So what do you actually do for the team?”

Let’s break this down.

🚗 Day 1 – The Drive of Dread

The Uber ride to the office was three hours of motivational self-talk, lo-fi instrumentals, and multiple internal debates about whether I really had to wear a collared shirt. Spoiler: I did. Clean. Slightly wrinkled. Emotionally dishonest. Somewhere past the halfway mark, I realized I hadn’t been farther than Trader Joe’s in months. Remote work has made me territorial. Even the Uber driver seemed confused, glancing in the mirror like, “Office? I thought people like you only traveled for weed and Thai food.”

👔 Arrival – I Am a Professional™

Pulled into the lot. Deep breath. Locked the vape in the glovebox. Tucked away all traces of my real self like I was going undercover. Which, in a way, I was. I checked into the front desk like it was TSA. “Hi, I’m Bud. Here for the team sync.”Badge printer jammed. Naturally. I stood there for six minutes nodding at fake plants and avoiding eye contact with a poster that said “Make Today Count!” like it wasn’t silently judging me.

☕️ Office Culture Shock

I walked in and immediately felt like I was in the opening scene of Office Space.Everything too bright. Too echoey. Too beige.Even the walls looked like they gave up trying.People just…talk. Loudly. While typing. Someone microwaved fish. Someone else sneezed like a cannon.I missed my dog and noise-canceling headphones within six minutes.

By 10am, I’d accepted three different types of coffee and forgotten where the bathroom was twice. There were actual in-person meetings. With chairs. And dry-erase markers. And PowerPoint decks with animations.

The manager running our 10:15 looked like Lumbergh if he’d found yoga and a Patagonia vest. He leaned in and said, “Let’s circle back on that,” and I swear I had a full out-of-body experience. “Yeahhh… if you could go ahead and put that in the tracker, that’d be greeeaaat.” There was also a Bob Slydell type from corporate who kept asking, “So what would you say… you do here?” And I had to fight every urge in my body not to whisper, “I take the specs from the customer and bring them to the engineers.”

At one point, someone offered me their third coffee refill and I swear it felt like Milton handing me a stapler with his soul attached.

🏨 The Hotel – Post-Work Exhale

I checked in, walked into my room, and dropped everything like I had just finished a shift at a coal mine. The air conditioning rattled. The art above the bed featured a mysterious geometric shape I named “Existential Hexagon. But I wasn’t here for the aesthetics.I was here to exhale. Out came the vape — sleek, discreet, and blessed. I cracked the window, turned on the bathroom fan, and took one perfect hit like I’d been holding my breath for 36 hours. This wasn’t recreational weed. This was survival-grade decompression.

📺 Night One – High in a Hotel, Watching Frasier

Nothing hits like a vape pen in a room that isn’t yours. I sank into the stiff hotel mattress, pulled the covers halfway up like a man in emotional limbo, and turned on the TV. Frasier was on. There’s something comforting about rich, neurotic men with deep voices arguing about wine and psychology. It’s like the thinking man’s ASMR. Ten minutes in, I was giggling like Niles dropped a bong. I missed Kushie. I missed my couch. I even missed my weed drawer. But in that moment, it was just me, Dr. Fras, and a vape pen lighting up like a lightsaber of peace.

🍿 Snacks & Paranoia

I crushed a mini bag of trail mix and a $4 bottle of Sprite like it was a five-course meal. Then I sat cross-legged on the bed, stared at the popcorn ceiling, and thought about how weird it is that hotel rooms never have clocks anymore. Like time doesn’t exist here. Just keycards and regrets.

I checked my email four times. Stared at one text from Mary Jane that just said “How’s it going?” and took it way too personally.

“Fine. All good.”

Delete.

“Doing great!”

Delete.

“Alive.”

Send.

💤 Sleep, Sorta

Hotel pillows are suspicious. Like they know something about your posture that you don’t. I rotated through four of them like I was speed dating disappointment. Around 2am I got stuck in a spiral thinking about whether I’d used the word “synergy” ironically or not in that last meeting. Then I passed out mid-scroll with one sock off, vape still in the charging port, and Frasier reruns quietly playing judgmental piano music in the background.

☀️ Day 2 – Fake Fresh

Woke up puffy. Confused. Vaguely disoriented by a dream where Brent from sales was in a toga. Got dressed. Threw on the collared shirt again, now slightly more honest about its wrinkles. Dabbed under my eyes with a hotel towel like I was on a movie set and muttered, “You can do this, Bud” to the mirror.

I crushed the final meetings. I nodded at the right times. I even answered a Slack message in person like a high-functioning wizard. But the minute the last “great to see you!” was said, I was done.

🚗 The Ride Home – And Breathe…

I slid into the back seat of my Uber like I’d just survived a corporate escape room. Shoes loosened. Shirt untucked. Vape discreetly in hand. Boom. Window cracked, seat reclined, lo-fi in my earbuds — I took that first post-office puff like it was my birthright. The city rolled by, streetlights blurring, and yes — I absolutely queued up the Office Space soundtrack like a man who’d just metaphorically taken a baseball bat to a fax machine. For the first time in 36 hours, I could finally breathe, buzz, and be Bud again.

🐾 The Return

When I got home, Kushie launched herself at me like I’d been gone for years. She sniffed me, sneezed, then stared like, “You smell like sadness and Febreze. Where’s my treat?” Mary Jane asked why I had three granola bars and a travel-sized mouthwash in my laptop bag. I told her it was “just in case” and she accepted that. Back in sweatpants. Vape reloaded. Frasier queued up. Kushie curled up beside me like she never doubted I’d return.

I survived. I adapted.

I never want to do that again.