First things first: Way to take back the house!!! Lots more work to do now, turns out, but phew. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

On an album called, “Tell Me How You Really Feel,” you might guess that a song called “Small Talk” is scathing. On this little narrative gem, Courtney Barnett opens with a stumble through some awkward space-filling small talk over an ambling bassline. “Do you have any siblings? I got a brother, Blake, he’s four years older than me and I guess he always will be…” She keeps it up for a while, then admits it’s excruciating and cuts the lyrics for some instrumental improv, which is, if not what you were here for in the first place, a totally decent escape, the likes of which you wish you could execute at every mediocre party. Keep it real, Courtney.

If you’re visiting the right Sweetgreen locations, then you’ve seen a gaggle of it-sneakers and stylish coats congregated on a set of wooden bleachers in back. Designed to promote social interaction on their steps, those stadium seats have become their own cult design element, spreading from salad chains to “forward-thinking” offices in droves. And you have to hand it to them: they have us nailed. On a bleacher, you 1. become the natural focal point of the room, establishing the stardom you’ve always known you deserved, and 2. can usually take a pretty good bird’s-eye photo. So I think we’ve accomplished two things here: we found a reliable way to catalyze social [media] interactions, and we’ve established the defining aesthetic of our time: narcissism.

We’ve gotten so good at designing social offices, in fact, that we’re having to design our way out (here’s looking at you, open plan). In that vein, I present the human blinder. Near identical to the equine version, its makers urge us to “think of it as a sign for potential bothersome coworkers that broadcasts, “I’m busy.”” It’s a little hard to read that way when you’ve already interpreted the sign as broadcasting, “this is dystopia,” but do your best and maybe you’ll get some work done.

If so, it’s an expensive one at $260 per unit. As a cheaper alternative, I found this great collar and leash bondage kit for only $10. Ships free from Amazon!