Being freelance, I’ve worked at a lot of locations. From regular offices spaces to hip trendy places to hole in the wall offices near the beach. The craziest place I worked was in an office building in a very seedy part of town.

The first thing to know was that at night, the main street nearby was the go-to spot for transvestite prostitutes. The first few late nights leaving work, my thought process went like this, “Wow, that woman is dressed really fancy for this neighborhood. Those are really tall high heels. And she shouldn’t be alone. Oh wait, I think she’s a prostitute. She has really big hands. Oh wait, I think she’s a dude!” By the end of my time there, I had developed the rarely needed but very important radar for sexy women who are really men.

There was the time a regular prostitute (as opposed to a transvestite) wearing go-go boots, hot pants and a tube top came into the office looking for change for a 10-dollar bill. When we told her we didn’t have change, she yelled down the street in what can only be described as a very Rosie Perez accent, “Jou gonna ‘ave to wait, honey.” Of course, the big question was, “What was Rosie doing for less than $10?”

Once an assistant editor who started a film in our building kept saying the building looked familiar, but he knew he hadn’t worked here before. Finally, it dawned on him, “I saw this building on COPS.” Yes, that COPS. “Bad boys, bad boys. Whatcha gonna do.” The police had chased a crack addict to the front of our building.

Which reminds me of the time I came back from lunch and found a police man sitting in a squad car in our parking lot. I asked him what was up. He explained that he was waiting for a raid. “Should I go inside?” I asked.

“It’s probably a good idea,” he deadpanned. Shortly after, sirens blared and tires squealed out of our parking lot.

Despite the surrounding law-breaking, it was a pretty entertaining place. Everyone there seemed to take the theoretical danger in stride. And I ended up with some great stories.