One of the more random occurrences in adult life is discovering the company one keeps in one’s office building. Companies rent space, and the neighbors can be all sorts of interesting.

I haven’t had all that many exciting office situations over the years, but a few stand out.

1. Viacom. Specifically, MTV, in the Viacom building when I worked in the Viacom building (also in the music industry). Working for a medium-size company in the headquarters of a huge company was all right, because it meant we could sneak into the huge company’s cafeteria and get subsidized cheeseburgers with curly fries and eat on a swanky roof terrace in the middle of Times Square. And I worked at 1515 Broadway during the height of TRL’s run, so we could hear screaming crowds daily at 3 p.m. For all the noise, though, the MTV crews were surprisingly unintrusive.

2. XM Radio, which had half a floor in The Economist’s headquarters when I worked on Economist.com. Having left Billboard to go to The Economist, I was pleased to find myself down the hall from a radio network, and I even auditioned for a job on their alternative radio station. (The program director called me decent but unpolished.) In 2002, XM was where smart, cool, fringe-of-the-industry types worked, so I got to meet folks like Pat Dinizio from time to time. And, of course, Gene Simmons.

3. Butterfly Salon. My current job is on the same floor as a beauty parlor, which means my colleagues and I are subject to any of the following on a given afternoon: lots of strangers on our floor. Embarrassingly dirty bathrooms, often covered in fresh cut hair. Pretty, standoffish young stylists. Chemical smells from permanent wave treatments. Then again, we have a standing discount at the salon, and they periodically ask us for models who get free haircuts and highlights, so it’s not all bad. Our CCO has a standing offer from me that for the right price I’ll volunteer and dye my hair black, but he hasn’t pulled the trigger yet.

(And by unexpected, I mean no listing stuff like the time I had drinks with The Pursuit of Happiness at the bar at Mercury Lounge after their gig. That’s too easy.)

1. Gene Simmons, in the XM Radio studios in New York. Unexpected not for the location but for how I wound up hanging out with him. I think he had come in to do some promos. I worked down the hall so at the radio tech’s suggestion I stopped by for no particular reason. This was late-period dickwad Gene Simmons, not mid-period cool-as-fuck I-wish-I-were-in-Kiss Gene Simmons, so he was grouchy and bewigged and all sorts of imagination deflating, but still, Gene Simmons.

2. Ira Kaplan, selling his own band’s T-shirts before one of the Yo La Tengo Hanukkah gigs at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. I was all “hey, whoa, you’re Ira! from the band!” and he was all “well, yeah, I am.” We hung out for a minute or two, mostly because he was selling me a T-shirt.

3. My Sister’s Machine, at the Cheesequake rest stop on the Garden State Parkway at 3 in the morning after their gig opening for King’s X at Tradewinds down the Jersey shore, which I had just seen. They never made it, but I still recall the juxtaposition of a band in full metal mode, off stage, buying lukewarm fast food. And milk, if memory serves. We were all “hey, we just saw you! nice gig!” and they were all “yeah, um, we’re not here ok?”

4. Taj Mahal, at a summer camp, hanging out with a bunch of us CITs after he performed for the camp as a favor to the owner, who was a friend of his. This meeting forever changed how I listened to music and was reprised 18 years later, but those are stories for another day.