Mencius Moldbugman

The mother asks when you are going to have a baby. You don’t even have a girlfriend because you work late every night and are too depressed to leave the house at weekends. The mother then tells you she is expecting again and will have another year off. You will do her work.

An email lands into your inbox. “Can we have a quick meeting at 4pm” You reply: “Yes” They reply: “Thanks. Please send me an invitation and book a meeting room.” It’s already 3pm. There are never rooms available at 4pm.

You reply that there are no rooms available but she is welcome to swing by your desk. She never replies. A week later you discover she complained to your boss that you were unprofessional.

A girl from Comms stops by your desk. She is taking photos for the company website. She asks you to hold up a sign saying “I support women in leadership!" 90% of your management are already women. You hold up the sign and give a thumbs up. You’re tired. Your smile hurts.

You turn back to your PC. A message has arrived that this Sunday will be Family Day and “they” hope “you” will be there. You look at the names of the people organising the Family Day. They are all childless middle-aged women. You read more and note that attendance is compulsory.

David from Contracts replies to the email that he can’t attend the Family Day because his son has a football match that day and it’s the finals. The childless middle-aged women respond to David that attendance is mandatory. There can be no family fun outside Family Day.

A supplier emails you about a long-overdue invoice. You email the invoice to Jane from Finance and ask on the status. She replies and asks you to attach the invoice. You grit your teeth, reattach the invoice, and click send. Jane then asks why have you sent her an invoice.

You try to concentrate one last time, but somebody has hit a sales target and the song “We Are The Champions” blasts over the speaker. It’s impossible to focus. You look at the overweight tired people high-fiving each other by the sales desk. They don’t look like champions.

You never wanted your life to be like this. This is not how you imagined life to be aged 35. You studied hard. You worked hard. You did all the right things. Said all the right things. Yet here you are being asked to give $5 for Zoe’s birthday cake in an open-plan office.

You wonder if there are other better jobs. You check LinkedIn. You notice your company has posted a photo of you smiling, holding up the “women in leadership” sign with the hashtag #greatplacetowork written underneath. All the other companies say they are #greatplacestowork too

You realise there is no escape. Even though you have unfinished work you decide to leave on-time today and just go home to lie on the bed. Jane from Finance notices your sad frown as you leave. “Somebody had a bad case of the Monday’s today!” she jokes. Everybody laughs.

At least tomorrow will be Tuesday you tell yourself. But it will be the same. It will always be the same. It will always be Monday. Until you die.

Your alarm goes off and you force your head from the pillow. It’s Tuesday. You half-recollect faded dreams of childhood summers and flying like a bird but it’s Tuesday so there’s no time for that. Today you must complete your work. Maybe Tuesday will be your good news day.

You arrive at the office early so that you can get a head start. You switch on your PC and immediately a screen pops-up saying you must restart in order to install essential updates. It gives you no choice to refuse. You click restart and wait. And wait and wait and wait...

You are staring at a blue screen and your PC won’t turn on again. You call the IT helpdesk but you’re early so nobody answers. You go buy a coffee to kill time. The coffee queue is long with the morning rush. Your supervisor scolds you for being 3 minutes late when you return.

You call the IT helpdesk and a heavy accent tells you that you must use your PC to log a helpdesk ticket. You explain you cannot open your PC so you can’t log a service ticket. The heavy accent says you must log a ticket. After 10 minutes you hang up.

You walk physically to the IT department. Deepak & Prakash ignore you while they have a fervent conversation in Hindi. Eventually you raise your voice and ask for help. Deepak says you must raise a ticket. Saira from Sales arrives and asks for help. She is assisted immediately.

You stand your ground as you have no other choice. Deepak asks if you have tried turning your computer on and off. You roll your eyes, swear under your breath, and say “yes”. Finally Deepak agrees to check out your PC.

Deepak sits down at your desk. He turns the PC off and then on again. The PC now turns on immediately with no problem whatsoever. Deepak glares at you. When he’s gone you notice that one of your French chocolates have disappeared. It’s now 11am.

You open Outlook and wait for the folder to update. Suddenly you hear a “Hi!”. It’s Zoe from HR. She wants to thank you for the birthday cake and then proceeds to monologue about how her husband (who works in banking) plans to treat her for her birthday weekend. It’s now 11.30.

Politely - meekly - you gently tell Zoe that you have enjoyed the conversation but have work to do. She looks at you and says “Well you have a nice day.” Finally you open your emails. 5 minutes later you receive an email from Zoe saying she did not appreciate your tone just now.

Zoe thinks that you could work on your workplace language and that tone “is something you can work on”. She thinks it will help to make the office a #greatplacetowork. She sends you an invite for an all-day training on “Respect” for tomorrow. She signs off with “Kind regards”.

For a moment you sit silently pondering the meaning of the words “kind regards”. You receive another email that says it is a “gentle reminder” about the compulsory Family Day this weekend. You try to think when was the last time somebody wrote sincerely to you.

It’s lunchtime. You buy a sandwich as all you want to do is eat at your desk and zone out watching an anime episode for 30 minutes. Just as you’re about to put on your headphones someone taps you on your shoulder. It’s Ian from Sales. He tells you how he is “smashing it” in Q4.

After 20 minutes of Ian telling you how much he is “knocking it out of the park” you make your excuses and go to the toilet for some peace and quiet. The male toilet has disappeared overnight. Now there is an “All-Gender Toilet” and the door is decorated in rainbow hearts.

You go through 3 stalls before you find one that hasn’t got a used tampon floating in the basin or discarded on the floor. You put on your headphones and watch 10 minutes of anime in the toilet. This is the best part of the day. In the next stall you overhear Ian crying.

Ian starts to mumble to himself between his sobbing. “You’re a corporate tiger, Ian! You’ve got this! Q4 is gonna be your quarter!” You wonder how much Ian is really “knocking it out of the park” and leave. A woman glares at you as you leave the all-gender toilet.

You get back to your desk and you can’t enter your PC again because you’re 30-day password has expired and you must create a new one. You try the name of your first dog, mother’s date of birth, primary school address... all are rejected for not being strong enough.

You try them all again with added capital letters and symbols but they still fail. Eventually you give up and input a string of 20 random letters and numbers. You’ll never remember it so you write it down on Post-It and stick it to your desk for future reference.

An email arrives from Jane in Finance. They won’t process your invoice because there is a new procedure and you failed to follow it correctly. You ask where this new process was announced. She tells you it’s on the intranet’s Finance page. You never knew you had an intranet.