I pried the edge of the door open with my fingertips, then pushed it aside and walked through.
I stepped into the foyer of a bright modern office, all glass dividing walls and funky furniture. But not just any modern office.
Oh no.
There were the same orange lilies the director liked. The pictures on the wall displayed work for past clients. I’d worked on a good few of them myself.
I walked down the corridor to the left as if on autopilot. My bruised skin and dirty clothes stood out against all the clean, bright lines of the open-plan office.
There were the red sofas where the rest of my team would gather for lunch and talk about what TV show they were watching or what trainers they wanted to buy. The secretary’s liver-spotted spaniel came bounding past my legs, followed quickly by the secretary herself in one of her rainbow jumpers. I’d always hated those jumpers, though I could never quite pinpoint why. Now I knew it was because she always looked so happy. It felt like a front. A lie. I never thought that maybe she just liked rainbows and wearing one made her smile. Or that she liked her job. Or the people she worked with. I’d always assumed that everyone was secretly just as unhappy as I was, only they were better at hiding it.
Come to think of it, she’d always been nice to me. The Dev Team, too, had never seemed shy about chatting with me. Maybe I’d been a little too focused on my own misery to see it.
A happy chattering bubbled in the air. It was coming from a bank of desks in the corner. I followed the grey carpet round, knowing what I’d see.
All of my colleagues were gathered around their workstations in the afternoon light. They held bottles of beer and cans of cider. Some were wearing beanies. Some had forearms covered in tattoos. Some wore bright clothing inspired by the girls of Harajuku. Bright and talented and chatting among themselves. It was four o’clock on a Friday, or “Beer o’clock” as the team called it. They had all gathered around a top hat full of folded papers.
As if on cue, the director passed by my shoulder, shining bright in a fitted sunshine-yellow suit. Her prematurely grey bob was streaked through with neon blue, and her lips were sporting her trademark matte lip paint. She was the very picture of feminine confidence. A girl-boss. A she-ro. A grade-A leaner-inner. The director of my old work was the paragon of what a post-feminist woman could be. At least, that’s what she emanated. She could tell dirty jokes just as well as the bawdiest men. Her go-to drink was a Cosmo. Her nails were short but always immaculately painted.
That day, they were hot pink.
She was everything I thought a modern career woman should be. And everything I was not. Maybe she sensed that tension coming from me. Maybe that’s why I was never one of her favourites. Maybe it was because I’d been a bit of a nervy weirdo, and she had no time for nervy weirdos. Maybe it was because I overthought everything around me. Just like I was doing now.
I followed her over to her waiting audience.
Let’s get this over with.
“Alright, you shower of bastards,” she addressed the crowd, wide-mouth smile projecting her it’s-actually-a-compliment-get-a-sense-of-humour greeting.
The congregation raised their drinks to her and brayed.
“I know what you’re all gathered here for, and it’s not clips from Alan’s latest porno appearance. Wink wink!”
She laughed. Alan, muscular arms crossed over his barrel chest, laughed. Everyone laughed. I didn’t. The me-in-this-moment probably did laugh. Wanted to ‘get it’. The me-here-now didn’t laugh. I didn’t even pretend this time.
“You know I love you, Alan. Meet me in the car park later.” This time she managed to wink without saying ‘wink’.
Cut it out, Tamsin, I scolded myself. Don’t be like that. You know what we’re here for.
I knew what perceived rejection I was waiting for.
“It’s Star Awards time!” the director announced. “And I’ve got fifty quid in digital vouchers for our lucky winner.”
The Star Awards was our version of Employee of the Month. In essence, it was exactly the same though, as if a topping of cherries might change the stinking shit pile of presenteeism and poor work-life culture that usually got rewarded.
That said, I had been feeling pretty confident that month.
I’d worked with the Dev Team to come up with a word processor template for our clients’ CRM programmes. Instead of having each email go through the creative department to be designed from scratch, I could use tags in a document to populate a pre-designed template complete with layouts, colours and client branding. All it would need was a quick tidy from an art worker, a check from QA, and it was good to go. I’d calculated I’d shaved twenty-five per cent off our production costs. It also saved the designers’ time for more creative work than replicating the same emails over and over. It was a small idea, but it made us more competitive, more innovative and more efficient—everything the director had waxed lyrical about in our monthly all-hands meeting.
I had envisioned myself giving talks at the biannual conference in London about how innovation could be something small and clever like this. I’d already planned my outfits. At the very least I was convinced I’d be a shoe-in for a Star Award, or at the very least some amount of praise. Perhaps the beginning of a conversation about a raise, a promotion. Perhaps my standoffish-ness would work better in management. It’s okay, I was never meant to be everyone’s friend. But I could be a good boss.
For the first time in a while, I’d felt hope. I’d felt like maybe there was a place for me here after all.
The director picked up the top hat.
“Let’s see who our nominees are this month,” she announced with a smile.
God help me, I still felt the rising spark of excitement in my chest.
