>Jane

You weren't looking forward to returning to work after your week off, but the atmosphere in the office feels really positive. Staff sharing selfies from an amazing-looking team brunch; you have some photos of you and your son at Disney World to show. Even the glum young man who works a few desks down chimes in to say he had a walk in the park, which sounds nice.

On the way out you spot he has 120 unread messages in his inbox. When you get Outlook open you only have forty from a week off. What does he do all day?

>Sophie

It's a busy Monday morning, as usual. Lots of bleary-eyed office workers looking for a pick-up. One young man is especially annoying; he refuses to give his name so you can't enter his order onto the system. You try to explain that the last time you put in fake info you got your pay docked, and that he can give any name he wants, it doesn't have to be real, but he's on a self-righteous rant about freedom and privacy. Eventually he spots the queue behind him and sheepishly gives a name. Now you've gotta work twice as hard to clear the queue. Some people are just jerks.

>Jack

On the way to the coffee bar you spot the sad-eyed young man who works over in Marketing, and decide to strike up a convo with an eye to getting him on the company social committee. You ask about his weekend - he mumbles something about a park - and show some pics of your latest family outing. He doesn't seem especially enthused, but he doesn't object to your proposal of a lunch meet at X Benedict, a fun little place that serves different takes on Eggs Benedict. You put in 12.30, which he accepts.

Because it wasn't entirely clear to you that he actually knows the location of the restaurant you drop by his desk to pick him up and take him down to X Benedict in your Volvo. He still seems out of sorts and makes a comment to the effect that 'anyone who asks for a lunch appointment always wants something more than lunch'. The horrible thought crosses your mind that he might think this is a date. Slightly flustered you compliment him on his sense of humour ('Well done Jack,' you think, 'now he definitely thinks you're coming onto him') and blurt out the committee invitation. To his credit, he accepts. It'll be nice to have another guy on the committee; currently you're the only one.

>Jane

It's Zoe's birthday today. Zoe's a bit of a hard-ass but today she bought in masses of cake for everyone ('must be a big one,' Jessica said, and it occurs to you after the fact that she means it must be Zoe's 50th, or 60th, you're not sure how old she is.

You volunteer to dispose of the rest of the cake before you all become Type 2 diabetics. Marketing are usually a sure-fire cake sink, but today everyone seems reticent. Even the young guy in the corner - you're not quite certain of his name - said something about being on a diet, but he was still eyeing the cake so you leave him a slice just in case. You reflect on your role as Satanic temptress and check your profile in the mirrored wall on the way back to the Finance desk, frowning at the slight accumulation of cake and cake products around the waist.

"Did anyone do a collection for a present?" asks Bryan suddenly. Zoe isn't in the room. A number of panicked glances are exchanged. No-one has remembered.

After some back and forth it is reluctantly agreed to send an email to the departments who got the cake, asking if they would like to donate to get her a $5 bottle of Sherry, but obviously your email wasn't clear as you get almost $100 on ShareSpace. Looking back at the email it says 'donation of $5' not 'for $5'. Oops.

You end up getting Zoe a new plasma TV. No-one is sure how long she's been with the company so the card just says 'for many years of service'.

>Rachel

You decide to drop into the office with little Ralph. In general the reaction is extremely positive - even, for some reason, Zoe, who is normally a stone-faced cow. Hopefully it doesn't put too much a crimp in everyone's day as work essentially stops and everyone crowds around you and Ralphie.

The attention is intoxicating and you end up doing a little tour around the office. The people who are still working look up and shake Ralph's hand or talk to him. His eyes are very wide but he's well-behaved.

A young guy with dark hair looks at Ralph like he's an alien from another planet. 'Do you want to kiss his head?' you ask before realising that sounded stupid. He does his best.

'So, do you have kids?' you ask. He has that vaguely new-dad look; tired eyes and a rumpled collar.

'Oh no,' he says, 'way too busy at work.'

'Well, now I feel awful,' you say in mock-horror, 'I'm expecting again!' A chorus of coos from around the office.

'I suppose you won't be back in for a while then,' says Jack, with what you can't help but feel is a note of chilliness.

After you leave it occurs to you that the young man was probably covering some of your work and feel a little guilty - for real this time - but Ralph occupies most of your attention anyway.

>Sandra

You try to get in a meeting that afternoon with the guy from Marketing who is handling the product campaign. He sends back a one-word reply 'Yes' and makes no effort to suggest a time or book a room.

You respond 'Thanks. Please send me an invitation and book a meeting room.', thinking it would be a courtesy to them.

Instead, you get a really terse, unpleasant response:
'Sandra, as I have repeatedly stated' (to whom? certainly not to you) 'there are never rooms available at 4pm.' (there are at least two which you can see on the booking app) 'If you really need to talk to me, I strongly suggest you visit my workspace' (who talks like that?) 'in person' (this is bold and italic) 'and discuss it.'

You forward the email to his line manager.

'Hi Steve,
FYI. I apologize for the short notice but I don't think this is quite on; this is an ongoing project which he said he would help with. Let me know if there's another tack I can take.'

You never get a response from Steve.

>Kelsie

Monday afternoon and you desperately need to get the photos done for the web developers. You resort to walking around the different departments trying to get people to hold up the signs.

The men *really* don't want to have to hold up the 'I support women in leadership!' sign for the Corporate Values page, but it just looks silly with women - well *duh*, of course you do. Eventually you get the guy from Marketing to do it. His is one of the better photos and you tell him it's a shoe-in for the site. He mumbles something. He strikes you as quite shy.

You wonder if he's single. You resolve to ask Steve discreetly if he knows. What's the office policy on dating co-workers? There's probably something on the intranet somewhere, but you forget to look by the end of the day. HR need an email sending out that was supposed to go out last week.

>Jane

The Family Day email went out late again - just five days' notice - but at least Zoe's copy is intact and not chopped to pieces by Kelsie in Comms. You do notice it says 'They hope you will be there' instead of 'We hope you will be there', but decide 'they' can mean the families of employees.

David from Contracts replies to all like an absolute buffoon. His email is barely comprehensible but he seems to be implying that he wishes to take time off at late notice to attend a football match.

You respond with a tersely-worded email about how this is an important event which has been on the intranet calendar for some time and that he had already agreed to be the responsible person for the coach trip. He also needs to give a week's notice for leave, but honestly no-one abides by that policy, so you don't mention it.

You only notice after clicking 'Send' that you have also responded to all. Great job.

The young man in Marketing - he of the 120 unread emails and reluctant cake consumption - forwards an email from a supplier mentioning an unpaid invoice. There's nothing attached. You ask him to attach the invoice.

He sends it back, and you quickly look over it, but on closer inspection it doesn't actually pertain to your company but a third party. You email the Marketing staffer back, asking if there's anything you need to do, but he doesn't respond.

He looks especially glum as he walks past Finance on the way out so you try to make a light-hearted joke about the Monday blues, but it falls flat. You get a titter from Alex and Claire though.

>Deepak

Tuesday is the worst day from the Helpdesk point of view. Staff have had their meetings for the week and are trying to get down to work, but updates have just rolled out (Monday, 6pm) and all the bugs immediately become apparent. You've suggested changing the update time to Thursday 6pm but Patrick is adamant he doesn't work outside office hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Someone from Marketing phones up with a confusing request about updates not having installed. You ask them to log a support ticket, but he says he "cannot open 'My PC'". You explain very slowly and carefully that he doesn't need 'My Computer' - or any local files - he needs to open up his browser and open the helpdesk ticket, but he doesn't seem to be fully with it. You're sure these Marketing guys are on drugs half the time.

Prakash swings by. There's a big problem. The ecommerce site broke yesterday evening and no payments are going through. IT Ops are going ballistic and have no idea what the issue is. While you're trying to thrash this out, the guy from Marketing shows up and is still going on about his updates. You again tell him he has to put in an IT support ticket. The process has specifically been implemented to stop people phoning or walking into IT, unless their computer isn't working at all.

Saira from Sales runs in to ask about the ecommerce payments and Prakash says he has to go and deal with it. You can see the Marketing guy visibly bristling at not being the centre of the universe, so you humour him and run him through all the basics. Turns out he couldn't log on at all which is why he was phoning. The idiot turned his computer off and back on again during the update, so of course it's taking ages.

You walk through and sit down at his desk. The process is at 100% so it *should* be safe to reboot now. You do so and watch him deflate like a balloon as it immediately boots up without any issues.

"See?" you say, "All sorted." The master of all he surveys fixes another problem. To be honest, at twenty-five you had hoped you would be doing something a bit more exciting with your life. But here you are, fixing 'problems' for stoner email jockeys who can't wait fifteen minutes for an update to go through.

You help yourself to one of the chocs on his desk on the way out. Frankly, you're going to need it with eight hours of ecommerce downtime in the pan.

>Zoe

Still riding high from the present you decide to swing through the office and thank everyone for the gift. Some people ask if you have birthday plans - you say you can't afford to take any time off from work but your husband is treating you to a spa weekend.

The young guy who sits on the corner of the Marketing desk rolls his eyes and says - no joke - 'Well, Zoe, I've enjoyed this conversation' (he didn't say a word) 'but I have work to do.'

'Well, you have a nice day,' you respond, unable to keep the note of surprise and disappointment out of your voice. What a jerk.

When you get back to your desk you find the Director is asking about the Respect seminar tomorrow. You had entirely forgotten you were supposed to be organizing it. That's your morning up in smoke, and probably all of tomorrow.

You quickly throw a list together of staff and take special pleasure in putting on the unpleasant guy from Marketing.

You send him an email - copying in Steve, it's passive-aggressive but you don't care. You say you didn't care for his tone and that you think he could work on his workplace language, forwarding him the invite.

Your birthday good humor is almost gone already, and it's 11:40.

The email reminder about Family Day briefly perks you up - it'll be great to see how Prakash and Sandra and Peter's kids are doing.

Somehow you and John never ended up having kids, and now, at fifty, you find yourself parenting vicariously though friends and co-workers. Sad. But that's life, I guess.

>Ian

Things are bad. Not so bad you can't turn them around though. You got this.

First stop is Marketing. If you can get someone to do an ecommerce campaign you might be able to make your targets for the month. Steve is conspicuously absent so you target down the guy who works on the corner and give him the full spiel; we're really knocking it out the ball park in Q4 but there's huge potential in France and Germany. You have all the copy, all the contacts, we just need to get into the send rotation. He makes a half-hearted scan down the list and says they can't send because they have some shitty little newsletter or something going out and you can't 'over-saturate' contacts. You redouble your efforts, but he makes a sudden excuse and leaves. Great.

That's email down. The next option is to try and get Kelsie to do something on social media, but she's not at her desk. Come on, Ian, think. Right now you're ten percent behind on your targets. It should be so easy, the target is less than five percent up on the same quarter last year, but people aren't buying. What's worse, the other product leads aren't having the same problems. Everyone knows it's not individuals, it just fluctuates, but right now you're looking at dead last on the sales leaderboard this month and you really need the bonus if you're going to spring for the holiday with Lucy. Thoughts of having to ask her to pay float through your head and you cringe relexively. That's now how a young, upwardly-mobile salesman's life should be.

"Hey, Ian," says Peter, startling you out of your daymare. He raises a grey eyebrow. "You think you can get back to your desk? Phone's ringing off the hook" -this seemed unlikely- "and I think you're behind this month, aren't you?"

You apologise profusely and head back in the direction of Sales, in the process bumping into Zoe, who looks pissier than ever.

"Sorry," you say again. She waves a curt hand which could mean 'it's okay' or 'I don't want to talk to you'.

Through the door you can see Michael - the 19-year-old wunderkind - chatting his heart out on the phone with a client. And Puneet - you're not sure how old he is but probably north of sixty - is putting his seventh star on the board. The board, that shows how far behind you are. Your vision suddenly flashes white with anxiety. It's another panic attack.

You duck into the toilets, your heart pounding. The new unisex toilets aren't as nice as the old ones - and it's true what they say, women do not respect their bathrooms. There are discarded tampons in the toilet basins and some brightly-colored cosmetic liquid floating in the sink.

All you want is a bit of peace and quiet, but some asshole is listening to a fucking cartoon show through tinny headphones in the next cubicle, and it goes on, and on, and on. It doesn't sound like English so you strongly suspect Deepak or Prakash, they strike you as the nerd types.

Come on, psych yourself up.

"You're a corporate tiger," you mutter, clenching and unclenching your hands. "You've got this! Q4 is gonna be your quarter!"

The squawking voices stop and the occupant of the next stall leaves. He doesn't even wash his hands from the sounds of it. Jeez. Gotta be Deepak. That's not racist, you quickly add to yourself, it's just he strikes you as the sort of person who doesn't wash his hands, that's all.

>Jane

Another five minutes, another invoice. This time it's from the young guy in Marketing (he of the reluctant cake and the 120 unread emails and the unelaborated supplier complaint). And for the fourth time in a row it's the old form. How is this so hard? Everything goes on Oracle now, everyone *knows* it goes on Oracle now. Sometimes you think they do it just to annoy you.

You email him back to say it won't be processed until it gets it on Oracle. He plays dumb and asks where he can find the process and you spoon-feed him the intranet link.

>Deepak

Nearly 5pm and you're still dealing with the fallout from the outage. Everything's back up and running but you're having to interleaf the unresolved requests with new ones manually and it's a long, painful task.

The Head of Sales, Peter Moray, drops by, resting his hand on the top of the desk divider.

"Hey, Ch-chakrabarty, is that it?" Chakrabarty is your last name.

"Deepak," you say, hoping you don't come off as too drained and suspicious.

"I've been having some trouble with my updates. Haven't been able to get on my emails all day."

Dear God give me strength, you think.

"Have you tried turning it off and on again." He has. "I'll be over shortly to take a look at it."

Just as you're about to get back to the clear-up the guy from Marketing phones. He clearly hasn't got the message. This time he can't install Oracle and needs someone in IT to input the admin password. You tell him to submit a service ticket and thankfully he agrees.

Peter's computer is still updating. Looks like he's been repeatedly cold restarting by holding the power button. God knows what will be left of it when it actually finishes  updating. You say you'll give him a laptop for tomorrow and he makes a sniffy little comment along the lines of 'if IT did their jobs we'd all get more done'.

You leave the cleanup unfinished in spite, then regret it for the rest of the evening and obsessively check your email to see if anyone notices.

>Marvin

It was 5pm but the guy from Marketing showed up and said he needed to submit an invoice on Oracle, but he cannot install Oracle, and he needs to do it tonight. He said he would give me a Lion Chocolate Bar if I helped him get it fixed. I like chocolate but am not allowed too much.

I am not supposed to know the admin password but I remembered it from when Prakash typed it in front of me once, and they don't change it ever, which is bad. So I installed Oracle for the Marketing guy and showed him how to use it.

I like him, he is nice to me, but I have forgotten his name.

Because of that I missed my bus which means I did not get to my speech therapy class on time. I had to say sorry in front of the class which made me very angry. I do not like Kate who is the therapist, she is evil.

My mother says the company should pay me more because I am doing IT and website and other jobs, but I am on a disability scheme so I do not get much money. I am happy though because I can afford to pay to go to the cinema with Carmen on the weekend. She has Asperger's too, like me. I'm Marvin.

>Jane

It's super-late by the time you finish all the invoices. By the time you go home there are only a few people left in the office.

The guy from Marketing is still there, looking tired and grumpy. You think it's probably his 'brand' as you rarely see him smile.

"I can't work late like you," you joke as you leave, "I've got a family to look after." You wonder who you're trying to justify it to, and why you need to.

He responds kindly and you think you should probably exchange a few more words before you set off. You ask him if he has a girlfriend, which you realise sounds weird.

He says no.

You say "Well, you should get one!" and then worry if that sounded like you were coming onto him. You make your excuses and leave.

That night in bed you have a sudden and nightmarish thought that the guy in Marketing may be gay and that your kindly-meant remarks could have been interpreted as homophobic. What a minefield, you think. You're suddenly glad you don't have Zoe's job.

>Kumar

First thing Wednesday is never a good time to be pulled into a data security meeting. The security team noticed some lunkhead in Marketing had stuck a Post-it note with his account password on it to the front of his freaking computer tower. The standard process is to immediately lock that user out of the system and manually supervise them resetting their password and give them a spiel on keeping the company safe. You put in a calendar reminder to do it as soon as he comes in.

But there's a problem. Deepak Chakrabarty on the IT service desk had been in charge of getting all the outstanding ecommerce requests fed back into the system after the outage yesterday, and something has gone wrong. There are requests building up on the system. Prakash is adamant they are all the old requests - the ones that weren't actioned on Monday night - but Customer Support say people are calling in for sales made on Tuesday. The Director has noticed.

You decide to put in an emergency huddle with the Service Desk, IT Ops and Customer Support. On the way in the Marketing staffer confronts you - actually grabs your wrist as you're walking.

"What's going on," he says, in an aggrieved oh-woe-is-me-the-whole-world-is-against-me voice, "now it says I'm locked out of my computer for data security reasons."

"Yes," you say, patiently. "You wrote your password down on a Post-it note. If anyone sees that we have to lock your account. It's basic security protocol. Don't write your passwords down."

He denies it even though the password on the Post-it note matches his account.

"Well, when am I going to get access back?!" he yelps.

"I really need to go to this meeting," you say. "I can get Prakash to drop by after he gets done with the ecommerce system checks."

"I have all-day training," he says. "I really need to get in now." Jeez, this guy must be at least mid-twenties and he's whining like a teenager.

You can see through the glass meeting-room walls that the Director has invited himself to to the meeting and talking to the Head of Customer Support. You need to be in this meeting right now, before someone promises something you can't deliver.

"Then pick it up tomorrow," you say. "If you're not even going to be on your computer today it doesn't need to be reset." Harsh but fair, you think.

"You're fucking kidding," says the Marketing guy before storming off. Nice guy. You revise his mental age to 'toddler'.

By the time you get in, the senior managers have already formed an idea of the problem that in no way corresponds to reality and you spend most of the morning correcting their misconceptions and pushing a course of action that won't result in more downtime.

>Susan

You duck into the tearoom to try and get a bit of peace and quiet. A supplier is threatening the company with legal action because it says it misrepresented a product's integration capacity. You are sixty-three and it goes way over your head. 'APIs' and 'system calls' and 'access requests'. You're reliant on baby-language summaries produced by Kumar and it leaves you with the sinking feeling that you're relaying Chinese Whispers. Can you still say that, or is that racist now? PC gone mad.

No peace and quiet. A young marketeer is moaning because the new paper cups have soaked through and stained his trousers. You aren't in the mood.

"You should bring your own cup," you say, flashing your own trusty mug. You roll your eyes at the photo of the climate change girl some prankster has affixed above the hated new cups. "Gotta go green." You laugh at your own joke. Of course, the company doesn't care about that. The paper cups are half a cent cheaper.

The Marketing guy doesn't laugh though, he's still swearing to himself trying to clean lukewarm tea off his white chinos.

Fuck him then, you think, and get your coffee.

When you return to your desk, the supplier has sent back another harshly worded email. In effect, he's saying what you've relayed from Kumar is nonsense and accusing you personally of being incompetent and the company in general of being scam artists.

You wonder if anyone understands how much shit Legal takes day-in-day-out and decide probably not.

Let 'em take away the cups, you think, let 'em make the toilet paper as thin as they like. In two years I'm out of here and I'll never have to write another begging email to IT to ask them to explain what a 'webhook' is again. Final salary pension, y'all.

>John

Frankly, it's bullshit. Erica took your comments the wrong way - you didn't mean to be crass, you just wanted to say her legs looked nice. Is that a cardinal sin? But she complained to Zoe and Now you gotta sit through a 'Respect' seminar. You respect women. No doubt about it. People need to be less sensitive.

To your surprise, the room is almost a 50-50 split, men and women. Everyone looks vaguely embarrassed. Welcome to the chain gang, you think.

Zoe is there. She looked alright on Monday but now she's back to her usual stony-faced demeanor. What's got up her nose?

"Welcome!" she says. At this moment a young-ish guy with dark hair blunders in. He's wearing cream trousers with a big yellowy stain at the crotch. You can't look away. He doesn't even apologize for being late.

"Looks like someone had an accident," says Zoe archly. There are a couple of chuckles. What if he's actually pissed himself, you wonder? Is it OK to mock the incontinent? You decide it's probably tea.

Everyone is asked to introduce themselves and it's actually OK. After the first couple everyone starts adding 'and I looove my coffee', making the 'loooove' longer every time, and it's an in-joke that makes the process bearable. A little bit of rebellion.

The guy from Marketing, of course, gives his 'three fun facts' and the first one is about, you don't know, philosophy or something, and the others are about how much he likes booze. Way to break the mood.

You hear someone, a woman, say "Does he have a drinking problem?" and you choke back a laugh.

Zoe goes through the intro, which is lengthy and boring. You know they gotta do it, but you could be out there making money for the business. At this rate even Ian's gonna beat you on the monthly figures.

It's almost a relief when she throws in a cat meme. Anyway, Zoe says the team have to do a mind map, and your team gets assigned 'Excellence'. Your team consists of three women - Kate (trim, attractive), Morgana (older, dumpy, short hair - you have her pegged as a lesbian) and Adrianna (vaguely Hispanic-looking woman with long dark hair, mid-thirties, not pretty exactly but what you'd call 'handsome'). Anyway, Kate volunteers to jot down the group's ideas about what 'excellence' might mean to the company and you quickly make a game of it; cheering every time someone put down something like 'synergy' or 'competitiveness' and yeah, admiring Kate's rump when she stretches up to add a note to the sugar paper.

You glance over at the other teams. They don't seem to have having as much fun but this is OK.

For lunch the team goes to Pizza Express. You ask if they have a gluten-free option but it looks horrible and plastic-y, so you just have a coke and chat to Katie. Turns out her boyfriend broke up with her recently. She took the call in the office and Zoe overheard her screaming in the stationery cupboard. You say "Honestly it's probably a bit cheeky on a Respect course, but d'you want to swap numbers? You know, if you want to talk?" She did.

Turns out the pizza was free. You think you should have gone for the dough balls and to hell with the diarrhoea. At first everyone was told they had to pay themselves and put it on expenses, but the waiter couldn't split up the bill on credit card and we didn't have enough cash. To his credit, Stain-Crotch Guy put it on his card and said he'd claim the whole thing back, which suits you just fine.

>Zoe

You feel the afternoon session went as well as could be expected. Everyone was riding high on Hawaiian pizza (not your favorite) and the role play sessions were just about tolerable.

You put in the effort and tell them all they're doing well. You use the phrase 'passionate, intelligent and dedicated', though you want to say 'perverts, ignoramuses and disasters'.

The Laughter Yoga session is mediocre and to be honest you don't see how it's going to help them be more respectful to co-workers. How much is the company paying for this, you wonder?

After the seminar finishes you have to give all the trainees feedback forms about how useful the training was. Most give it five stars, of course. You can't really criticize a course you have to attend because you've made sexual comments to a co-worker or randomly mouthed off to senior staff. The Marketing guy who showed up late gave a particularly fulsome (and, you suspect, deeply sarcastic) comment.

*****

"I found the session a fantastic and absorbing use of my day!!!!!!! In particular I felt the discussion on Equity to be intensely useful for my regular work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yes, that is - you count - seventeen exclamation marks. You feel you should probably log something about the kid, he strikes you as the sort of person who is so tightly wound one day they'll explode or go postal. But you're already massively behind with recruitment ads, so you file the documents.

>Janet

You wake up in the middle of the night, stomach heaving. Something is terribly wrong. You stagger to the toilet and void, but you feel something horrible coming the other way as well. You sit wedged between the sink and the toilet until your boyfriend comes to the door, face lined with worry.

"Get my phone please," you say. You don't call 911. Instead, you open the company WhatsApp and leave a message on the 'group announcements' page.

'Really sorry am v. sick. Can't talk on phone. Please can someone cover my reports for the Group CEO visit today?'

As six o'clock rolls around the group begins to fill up. Richard, Adrianna, John, Morgana, Steven... you see the common factor.

"I'm never eating at Pizza Express again," you moan as your boyfriend brushes his teeth above your head.

>Jack

You get out of bed with incredible energy for the first time in weeks. You feel great.

You get in extra early to be able to talk to people as they enter and ask if they would sponsor you to do the Iron Man challenge next month; 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bicycle ride, 26 mile run.

It's a great cause - Hearts Across East Africa offers medical aid to people in Somalia - and you feel confident that you're gonna get some great sponsorship. It's become an annual thing for you to keep fit and raise money for charity at the same time.

Nada. As team members drift in from their Thursday commutes you try to flag them down, but they all give non-committal responses. Some are initially interested, but when you say the minimum donation is $50 back out. Why do they set it so high, you wonder? If people could just put change in a box like you used to be able to do you'd probably be doing better.

The gloomy-looking young man from Marketing gets in right on time, just as you're about to give up and go about your work. You decide to give him a try.

"Hey," you say, "want to make me do 138 miles of swimming, bicycling and running? I'm doing Iron Man for Hearts Across East Africa."

"Wow," he says, slightly warily, "what's that?"

You go into detail. He doesn't seem super into it and he especially bristles at the mention of it providing support to the LGBT community in repressive countries. You are ready to give up.

At this point a gaggle of visitors show up with Peter. He has a slightly odd expression on his face but claps a hand on your shoulder and says "Well, whata great cause - and what a good way to keep fit," then, addressing the visitors "we're hoping for 100% participation amongst employees." Fat change, you can't even get any to donate, let alone join you.

The Marketing guy is obviously keen to look good in front of the Head of Sales so he says he'll put in $20. You quietly point out the minimum donation is $50, and he counts out five oddly pristine Hamiltons.

Quids in, you think. 36 cents a mile.

>John

The Group CEO, Linda Drummond, came by today to do a team talk. She wants the company to be 'higher energy', whatever that means. You suspect it's code for 'younger'.

Amongst the initiatives they're rolling out - standing desks. They put them in this morning - Deepak and Prakash in IT look utterly shattered from re-wiring 200+ monitors and keyboards, and a bunch of *very* pretty Marketing girls from the group head office showed you how to use them.

The guy from Marketing - you know, the one who stained his chinos then announced he was paying for everyone's pizzas - made a bit of a scene. First he didn't want to put his chair over in the corner, then he refused to raise his desk height so he spent the afternoon hunched over like Quasimodo. Funny guy but I don't think he's gonna last long.

>Jane

No-one wanted the reporting structure meeting to happen, which is probably why it started half an hour late and overran by two and a half hours. You helped Helen put together her PPT outlining the new reporting requirements and showcasing the new spreadsheet where everyone had to go to enter their key performance indicators, and the output report it produces, which is standardized for every department.

It took Helen one hour to go through the whole presentation. Short, snappy, to-the-point. She said 'Any questions?', and everyone sat there quietly, wondering if there might still be some Dunkin' Donuts from breakfast at the snack bar.

Then, you made a huge mistake. You raised your hand and said 'Shouldn't this be changed to Helvetica?'. Helvetica is the approved company font. It's in the branding guidelines, which you have actually read. You like Helvetica and whenever you see a document on the intranet in Calibri or Arial you make a point of changing it. The output report is in Times New Roman. That's a serifed font. It doesn't even look like Helvetica.

And that opened the floodgates. The Marketing head, Steve, got up and started critiquing the whole thing - like, completely tearing it apart, in the nastiest and most passive-aggressive language. And the Sales guys joined in. Suddenly, even though all the requirements had been nailed down ahead of time and this was just supposed to be showing staff how the system would work, everything is once again up for grabs.

And you can see Helen getting more and more upset as the *months* of work she has put into getting all this put together and actioned by IT unravel like wet yarn. Even Maria - what are her KPIs, percentage of the office clean? Cobwebs removed per month? - chimed in to say actually, she prefers Arial. And that makes *you* upset, and you find yourself standing up and yelling at the top of your voice "I just said it needed to be in Helvetica! That's all I'm saying! That's what it says in the Style Guide! I didn't mean any of this other stuff."

In the end Steve says there will be a review of which fonts the company is using and that he will set up more meetings to go over the specific functionality of the reports, bit by bit by bit. Helen looks like she's ready to quit.

After the meeting you take her aside and apologize as sincerely as you can for unleashing the pandemonium. She seems understanding but is still upset.

>Jack

After the abject failure of the Iron Man sponsorship you feel it necessary to go back to the drawing board. You need something simple, fun, and quirky, with a low entry cost. You decide on 'Walk A Mile In Her Shoes', whereby men in the office can come into work wearing dresses and high heels for charity if they donate $10. You text your wife and ask if she has a spare dress she doesn't mind getting stretched out. She responds with three question marks and an exclamation mark and you rapidly explain it's for a work charity do. She says yes.

Since the charity itself seems to have (generally) met with good reception you keep Hearts Across East Africa and put together an all-staff email.

After sending you are struck by the thought that the activity could be considered slightly... non-PC. 'Only men? Sexist.' 'Is this mocking trans-people? Appropriative!' 'My sex is not your costume.' Visions of bar-burning Valkyries dance through your head. Or worse, Washington Times headlines: 'Crazy company forces employees into drag', with the obligatory Rocky Horror Picture Show stock image. Did you check if there are any major clients in that day? You can't remember.

Zoe swings by your desk, her face black as thunder. Uh oh.

"I saw your email," she says.

"Uh, OK."

"What a great idea! If you need any spare dresses in-" she paused "-a more mature size, I can lend them for the cause."

You let out an audible sigh of relief.

"Thanks Zoe," you say. "Sounds great."

Maybe she isn't as bad as people say.

>Maria

On Friday morning you get in just as the sun gets up. The toilets are your number one priority; the men pee on the seats and the women leave nail polish on the taps and try to flush sanitary towels which block up the plumbing. Unisex means twice the fun.

As you clean you remember the all-hands meeting yesterday. You don't see why Steve and Jane had to be so rude about your suggestion about the report.

When you get into the office you are surprised to see one of the Marketing staff already in. He's lying under one of the new standing desks with his head on a little pillow.

"Come on sleepy head," you say enthusiastically, sweeping around him as best you can, "I need to get this aisle swept up."

He makes an impolite-sounding mumble, gets up and, inspecting his rumpled shirt, heads in the direction of the toilets.

It occurs to you that he may have actually slept in the office overnight. Security are meant to turf everyone out at 11pm. You wonder if you should tell someone but decide that's above your pay grade.

>Linda

The whooping and hollering from outside the office is deeply distracting. Some sort of charity event is going on and it's apparently hilarious. All you can think about is you have eighty staff assessments to get through today, another eighty on Monday and another forty on Tuesday.

Steve sits in the corner, wearing a studiedly neutral expression. None of his staff really submitted SMART (Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-related) goals. The next staffer, however, is in a class of his own. This is what he wrote, entered in the first box of the assessment:

'I just want to be left alone.

If I'm left along I can do my job fine.

That's all I ever wanted. I have never bothered anyone else. I only want to be left alone. Why can't anyone understand that? I'm good at what I do. But no-one leaves me alone enough to prove it. All I ever wanted was to work hard and do a good job.'

To be frank, it strikes you as a cry for help. You're not sure whether Zoe should be in this meeting. Or the security staff.

In previous assessments he has done well - but recently his work has disintegrated and he has had multiple HR complaints. Steve knows this, but hasn't suggested a course of action.

There is a knock on the door.

He enters. He is wearing what appears to be a short gingham dress, several sizes too small for him, and walking as though he has something in his ass.

The words 'fucking gay' drift in from the room beyond as he closes the door. What on Earth is going on at this office?

You invite him to sit. You go over each of the concerns you and Steve have.
 - His aggressive language towards Zoe in HR - he says she was stopping him working, which seems unlikely
 - The data breach and the incident with Kumar - he blames IT for his computer not working
 - His late invoices - he blames Jane, but he shouldn't even be emailing her, he should be using Oracle now
 - His expense claims, which apparently included twelve Pizza Express pizzas - he says Zoe told him he could put them on expenses. You know Zoe and she would never tell staff they could put so much food on expenses.

You tell him he has a lot of potential, and he's a smart guy. His work has been good in the past.

He nods, rapidly, and says he's been with the company four years and is ready for promotion. You choke back a half-laugh half-gasp of disbelief at his chutzpah.

You say something about the company's commitment to equity and that there is only one managerial position, that is reserved for a woman.

He says, "I'm a woman."

You question him - do you mean you're transgender? He says yes.

You fall silent. You had been ready to let him go. Now he - sorry, she - is claiming a protected category there are all sorts of potential problems if he - sorry, she - claims unfair dismissal. And his - sorry, her - assessments had always been good before. And it explains the recent drop-off in his - sorry, her - work, the cry for help in the assessment. And the clothing, of course.

A little uncharitable thought crosses your mind that he has literally thought of this gambit right this moment for exactly that reason. No. You can't think like that. If it's not currently illegal to think like that, it probably will be in a few years. And it *would* look good on the 'About Us' page...

"Okay," you say. "Of course, we will support you in your transition. I agree you have outgrown your current role and I can see you are restless and want to do more. The Head of PR position is open, if you want it."

He does, which is to say, she does.

Steve is a funny color. This has not gone the way he intended. You don't particularly care.

You dismiss Steve and the transgender girl from your office.

"Fuck," you think pulling out your phone. You open Twitter and switch to your other account, the one you doesn't list on your LinkedIn profile. If you were ever confronted about it, you would have to claim the number at the end of the account name was a nod to your Scottish heritage and the Battle of Sauchieburn. You chuckle at a couple of rather mean-spirited memes and retweet them.

Just one hundred and ninety-nine more work assessments to go. Thank God it's Friday.