“Are energy issues at your business impacting your bottom line?” said the commercial on the radio.

Immediately I imagine a disheveled worker, round shouldered and shuffling, head downcast and eyes half closed. A human cheese curl with tousled hair. Thinking more about napping than deadlines, his shirt tail is half untucked, and not in a cool way. An important paper dangles from his fingers, begging not to be dropped. He’s reminiscent of the the humans in the movie Wall-E but in white shirt and mussed khakis. The worker of my imagination can still walk, but barely. The Wall-E people were apparently permanently affixed to movie theater recliners in full recline; the red jump-suited roly-polies floated supine in their loungers without the strength or energy to stand or walk. My mind’s eye energy-issue worker isn’t quite such a marshmallow; he leans whenever there is the opportunity but so far isn’t too tired to stand. But he’s close.

All this jumbles through my mind in the seconds it takes for the announcer to get from the words “bottom line” to a suggestion that Philadelphia Electric will do an energy audit to help reduce office energy usage. I realize with a half-smile that I conjured my entire cartoon imagery for nearly nothing (but fun).

I’m slightly saddened too at the realization that there isn’t a solution for the low-energy office worker shuffling exhaustion and pushing papers through his day.