You emerge from the elevator on any one of our remaining floors. (There were 6 when we moved in, now 4, soon to be 3 as the organisation shrinks.) On both sides of the lobby, you see a wall of indoor plants like these. (The fact that you have the same layout on both sides causes a lot of people to get disoriented, particularly if they are a person who has just moved floors after their old one has been sub-leased to another business.)

These plants are of course blooming with health, with thick, luscious, verdant foliage.

The dirty little secret, of course, is that the indoor, fluorescently lit environment that separates them from the natural world causes them stress and they start to wither and die. But nobody ever sees that because before it happens, they are hoiked out of the array and replaced by a new, fresh blooming plant so that the appearance of continuity remains.

Tell me there's no metaphor here.