More than just moonshine

The fact that I love shopping centres is no secret to anyone who knows me. But what happened to me some time ago was surprising even to myself. I had a vivid and prophetic dream. It started like this: I was at work, sitting in front of the computer and reading emails. At some point I opened a press release sent by the PR department of a large developer (to make things clearer I will add that this is a large Polish developer). It turned out that this was an invitation to the opening of a shopping centre. None of this was strange: the autumn collection season had already started, and this is also the time of the year when new centres are often opened. There would not have been anything even slightly weird about this, had it not been for the fact that the Polish company was opening a mall... on the Moon! The location did initially take me aback. However, I am a very rational person – I love logical explanations, which was why I was able to explain this to myself without fearing that I had finally lost my grip on reality. After all, it is obvious that Polish cities are becoming ever more saturated with retail, while the market in the country becomes ever more mature (I had just finished a rather in-depth conversation on the topic with someone working for a German developer). So I just considered the invitation to the opening of the mall on the Moon to be the natural result of the development and evolution of the Polish retail market. I don’t remember the actual journey, but when I got there the shopping centre was wonderful! It looked like a huge steel structure covered in panels that resembled black varnished MDF tiles. By the way, perhaps this could actually be a good idea for architects to adopt? The view from the food court was both exhilarating and sublime: our beautiful Earth shone like the clock face on top of the Palace of Culture in Warsaw seen from the 50th floor of Orco’s neighbouring Złota skyscraper. Breathtakingly beautiful. And if you’re thinking that the mall failed the old “location, location, location” test – then you’d be wrong. It was fully leased! Retailers on the Moon, as it happened, lease 2,000–3,000 sqm with no thought for the economic climate and simply trust in the fact that if the Polish developer (who happened to be from Kielce, if you would excuse the indiscretion) had been brave enough to build on the Moon, then it must have known exactly what it was doing. In fact, the location would have to be the best in the entire galaxy. After all, one day humanity will have to come to the conclusion that the world is too small and so a migration to the Moon could take place – perhaps in search of new retail offers. What more could we need for a happy life? Everyone knows that it is first come, first served in retail. Coming back to the dream, however, it was dark on the Moon and I thought (the voice of reason popping into my head once again) that it would perhaps be a bit silly to do my shopping in the dark... but I never found a solution to this puzzle because my sleep was broken by the crowing of my neighbours’ cockerels as usual. So I woke up a little bewildered, but when I remembered my wonderful dream I started laughing, albeit a little nervously. Because I had not realised until then just how much of my life was taken up by work. Work, which is my passion, can however disrupt one’s logical thought processes. Has this been your experience, too? I am sure that it must have been. Research carried out by the European Risk Observatory shows that work can impair your mental health, which is why you should not overdo it. It can even result in post-traumatic stress disorder in some workers. I hope that the dream about the developer was not one of these symptoms, but I am going to stop thinking and writing about the retail market for a while just in case. Instead, I’m going to turn my attention to other things, such as the Argentine version of ‘Strictly Come Dancing, for example – whose therapeutic effects I heartily recommend to any of the workaholics among you.