“Even Drones Can Fly Away”

3-D prints designed in Fusion360

“Worker bees can leave.
Even drones can fly away.
The Queen is their slave.”
―Chuck Palahniuk

Interlocking. Conjoined. Trapped. Pieces that can freely move, but cannot be separated. To me, this sounds like a cage. A cell. A cubicle.

Working in law firms for the past two years has nurtured within me both a comfortable hatred of the cubicle, the nine-to-five schedule, the normalcy and order, as well as an uncomfortable appreciation for structure and routine. Coworkers frequently described themselves as “drones,” half laughing, half grimacing. As a female, scientifically I could only be a worker bee. Or perhaps a queen if I happened to be fueled by the correct combination of exercise, coffee, electronic music, and meds. But I digress. Most days, I was a drone.

In my family, the women are all teachers and the men are all attorneys. I opted to be a lawyer. Art was my passion, but legal discourse was my future. Plus, I was smart, good at test-taking, able to research and write. The general consensus was that I was genetically designed for a quarter-million dollar degree and the subsequent debt, ninety-hour work weeks, nannies raising my children, and mild substance abuse (fun fact: about one in every three lawyers is a problem drinker and one in every five is an alcoholic).

So I became that drone. I got straight As. I started saving for college at fourteen, and applied for any and all scholarships that I qualified for. I volunteered, joined student government, ran cross-country and track— anything to show just how “well-rounded” I am. I painstakingly studied for months and took my LSAT (Law School Admissions Test). Then, I started working in an actual firm.

Here’s the thing about law: people will say that it’s a creative, challenging, and dynamic field. It’s not. It’s pushing endless stacks of paper against ever-looming deadlines. It’s cubicles and shitty coffee, birthday cake once a month and awkward holiday parties. Humorless jokes about how we’re all just “drones.” It’s often even irrelevant — just look at how scaled-back women’s rights to bodily autonomy are despite the ruling of Roe v. Wade. Here’s the other thing about law: I fucking hated it.

So here I am, haphazardly clinging to the tiny ledge I managed to grab during my insane leap of faith. Sitting in the grad lab for hours on end, trying desperately to understand digital design, coding, physical computing, 3-D modeling….all those things that quietly beckoned to me in the past, but which I forcefully ignored in the pursuit of that esquire suffix.

Don’t misunderstand my tone; I do not regret any of my choices or experiences, as they have all been necessary steps along my life’s path (and I am, as it turns out, quite “well-rounded”).

I’m still a worker bee.
Building my cells, shitting out honey, trying to fit in with this new hive. But at least I’m not a fucking drone. And, unlike that little bee in my 3-D print, I am no longer trapped.