You Don't Get It (You're A Space Man)

"I knew I'd be a bad fit at Rodale. To no small degree, I knew this even before I was hired. Certainly I knew it with a rare clarity by the time I'd gotten settled in at my executive-editor's desk,...said desk was positioned so that I faced out the window, with my back to my office's glass-paned entry door. This meant (1) I had to work while facing into the daylight and (2) I'd never know when people were about to enter my office or might simply be hovering outside in the hallway, watching me. I find it impossible to work comfortably like that, and I soon found other Rodalians who felt the same way,...But I was told I'd have to make do; all of the desks at that campus were positioned according to the dictates of feng shui, a personal passion of Ardie Rodale (above) the eccentric matron who then still ran the company, at least for the record. See, the important thing was that the building was in harmony with the universe, even if the employees contained therein weren't. There's an important lesson right there about some of these New Age types..."

- Steve Salerno, writing on his SHAMblog about his regrettable time in the NewAge publishing business