What Keeps Me Clocking In (Besides the Paycheck)

7:59 AM

The time clock swallowed my index fingerprint. Next to me, Xiao Lin yawned and muttered, "What the hell am I even doing here?"

No one answered. The air held the warm toner smell from the printer and the crackle of winter coats brushing together.

The question cycles through social media every few months: "Forget the salary—why do you still show up?" The replies are always the same. A few laughs. A few likes. Everyone scrolls past. Hardly anyone sits with it.

On the fourth day of the National Day holiday, I crouched in my living room, prying open leftover takeout boxes. The fridge held half a jar of fermented tofu and an empty melatonin bottle. The TV was running the same variety show for the third time. I couldn't tell breakfast from lunch. My phone screen kept lighting up and going dark—no one on the other end. That afternoon, I calculated the actual cost of stepping outside: shoes, keys, the walk to the elevator. I stayed down.

Monday morning, I stepped through the office door. A strange solidity rose from my feet. The elevator dinged, we all squeezed in, silent, but everyone drifted left or right with automatic precision. Cogs clicking into grooves.

I don't call that passion. I call it someone else laying down today's tracks.

Taxi drivers always ask what you do. I say the company name. They usually go "oh" and size you up in the rearview mirror. In that split second, I reach for my ID badge or pull up my work chat—not because they actually care, but because I need to hear the weight that lands in the air after I name my job. Without that weight, I'm just a passenger who paid the fare.

Inside the office, fame, money, power, and desire all shrink to pocket size. But they don't vanish.

Fame is the person at the next desk saying, "That slide was definitely yours," and me clicking save. Money is the referral link that pops up in the internal group chat, and me bookmarking it without overthinking. Power is everyone asking at 3 PM which coupon to use for the milk tea order, and me swiping for three seconds before picking the cheapest one. Desire is the person across the conference table glancing up one extra beat when they flip open their notebook—and me turning a page, neither of us going deeper.

Small things. They hold up the whole day.

There are also the quiet stretches. The old printer jammed—again. Everyone slapped its side twice and walked away. I popped open the side panel. Gears and rubber rollers locked in a stubborn tangle. My fingers worked around the torn paper scraps, tugging out the crumpled bits one by one. Restarted it. Green light. The sheet slid out clean. I looked up—streetlights already on outside. Toner smudged on my fingertips. The entire office had emptied out. Twenty minutes, and I hadn't checked my phone once.

That isn't something you can buy.

Still—let's not romanticize it. During the weekly meeting, the boss talked about "young people needing dreams." The room stayed quiet. Someone spun a pen. Someone scrolled through their phone. My own phone buzzed—payroll notification. The number matched last month. Dream and digits sat on the screen together. Both real. Neither cancels the other.

I used to think work was just a way to save enough so I could stop. Then I realized: give me three months with nothing to do, and I probably wouldn't even wash my hair every day. Freedom is heavy. When you can't carry that weight, you actually want to go back to that time clock—let a machine decide when you sit down, when you stand up, when you walk to the same noodle shop for the same bowl at the same hour.

So the next morning, 7:58 AM.

Same time clock. Same elevator. Same Xiao Lin in front of me, rubbing his thumb against his index finger out of habit. Only difference: I stopped at the convenience store and bought a bag of soy milk. I poked the straw in. It burned my tongue for a split second.

The machine beeped. I walked in.

The door closed behind me.