CHAPTER 1Escaping the Status Quo

This is like déjà vu all over again.—YOGI BERRA

A four-by-six, brownish-gray cloth cubicle waits. It waits there … in the middle row, on the middle floor, in the middle of the building, in the middle of the street, in the middle of the city.

Perhaps it awaits you.

Somewhat sarcastically and with an underlying, embarrassed resentment, you call it your “achievement center.” The outer walls look no different from the next cubicle with the exception of a nameplate announcing your location in a faceless crowd of other coworkers in the same cookie-cutter, four-by-six, brownish-gray cloth achievement centers. You have placed a mirror there, by your keyboard, to alert you when some quiet passerby stops to peer uncomfortably ...

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