Hello there, neighbor. We are your friendly corporation moving in next door. We’re taking over this six-story building that used to house various small businesses, artists, and families. Integrating into your community is extremely important to us during this transition, so we’re removing all your parking for the next month.
We’re working with the best designers and engineers to ensure that we bring value to your community. It’s obvious that you don’t need any public spaces, cafés, restaurants, dog parks, playgrounds, or a new fire station. Your nearest grocery store is a mere thirty-minute drive away. What you’re lacking here is corporate offices.
We are committed to keeping you 100 percent in the loop about our construction plans. In fact, we mailed a certified letter to all you abutters—sorry, neighbors—about a Zoom meeting to discuss the project and voice any concerns you might have. You’ll receive this letter promptly three days after the meeting has occurred.
We won’t be a disturbance to you unless you live or work here. The repairs will be hardly noticeable except when we knock out all the windows and use a giant crane to haul various tools through the holes where the windows used to be. We can’t wait to wave “hello” to you from our new, more enormous windows and brighten up the neighborhood by leaving the fluorescent lights on all night to shine directly into your bedroom.
Speaking of holes, we will also need to dig a giant hole in the middle of your street. We can’t tell you why; you should’ve attended the Zoom meeting. Technically, we’re not supposed to begin work until 7 a.m., but we’ll start backing up our load-carrying equipment at precisely 6 a.m., so we’re ready when the clock strikes 6:58. We will also do some yelling to add to the soundtrack of the trucks beeping and the tools dropping. You know, “classic” regular old neighbor stuff.
It looks like you’re busy because you work from home. Nah, not today. And probably not for a while. Remember when we said we’re shutting down your street for a month? We meant for three months. And that giant hole is actually going to be a massive hole. And there will be two of them.
Your building will vibrate from all our digging, and you’ll often wake up to what feels like an earthquake. Just think of this as us, your friendly neighbors, mowing our lawn. With ten thousand mowers.
Once we’re done with construction, we will add so much to your neighborhood by bringing in one thousand commuters daily. But don’t worry, you’ll never have to wait in line at your local establishments, because we’ll cater their lunch and will let them leave the office only during rush hour.
We also thought you’d appreciate how green we are—we won’t provide any parking for our employees; they will all take the train, we promise. Trains come out here, right? We don’t know—we don’t take the train. We just park illegally in the spots marked RESIDENTS ONLY, because we’re basically part of the neighborhood now.
If you woke up today and noticed all the trees on your street were gone, you’re welcome. Now, you don’t have to deal with those annoying bird-attracting eyesores. Instead, you’ll see huge electrical poles everywhere, which we’ll install so we never have a power outage. Speaking of power, we will have to shut yours off for the next twelve to ninety-six hours. We mailed a certified letter and told you about it in that Zoom meeting you blew off.
As you can see, we know what it means to be a good neighbor. Feel free to reach out or stop by anytime. Our doors are always open. Except when they are locked, which is always.