First day. New desk. New lanyard. New login that didn't work.
"We're like a family here," they said. All of them. At the same time. Smiling. Isn't that lovely, I told myself.
Someone gave me a mug that said Go Get 'Em. I put it next to my monitor and thought: this seems like a nice place. I was young. I was naive.
First meeting with no agenda. Twelve people. Fifty-five minutes. Nothing decided. Everything "taken offline." Nobody knew what offline meant. Everyone nodded like they did.
Someone shared their screen. Wrong screen. We all saw a Rightmove listing for a cottage in Northumberland and a Facebook Marketplace conversation about Doctor Who bed sheets.
Nobody said a word. But we all knew.
Met Graham.
Graham is my manager. Graham has never been on time for anything in his life. Graham sends emails at 11pm that say "no rush" and follows up at 7am asking why you haven't replied. Graham smiles at you in the kitchen and undermines you in the meeting room.
Graham once scheduled a "wellbeing check-in" at 7:45am. Before the workday started. To ask if I was coping with the workload that Graham created.
Then sent a follow-up at 9:30pm asking me to "capture the key takeaways" from our conversation about my mental health.
Every office has a Graham. You know yours. You're thinking about them right now. That twitch you just felt? That's them. Living rent-free in your head since the first time they took credit for your work.
The company brought in a mindfulness consultant. Her name was Misty. Linen trousers. Wooden bead necklace. The kind of person who has never had to sit next to Martin and his tuna sandwich.
"Close your eyes. Take a deep breath in."
I breathed in Martin's tuna.
"Set an intention for the afternoon."
My intention was to survive it.
The session was scheduled during my lunch break. The only thirty minutes that belonged to me were now Misty's. I returned to my desk. Fourteen new emails. Three from Graham. One from Misty with a feedback form.
The company that created the problem was now using my free time to teach me how to live with it. And then asking me to rate the experience out of five.
Didn't get the promotion.
Not because I wasn't good enough. Because the person who got it was louder. They were in the right meetings. They laughed at the right jokes. They cc'd the right people on the right emails at the right time. They played the game I didn't know existed until I'd already lost it.
My manager said "maybe next time." Next time. Like promotions are buses. Like if you stand in the rain long enough, one will eventually come.
The person who got promoted had been there eight months. I'd been there three years. They couldn't do my job. But they could do the performance of doing my job, and apparently that's the same thing.
I smiled. I said congratulations. I went to the toilets and sat in the cubicle and thought about every single thing I wanted to say but couldn't.
Started fantasising about revenge.
Not real revenge. Office revenge. The kind where you reply-all to something you shouldn't. The kind where you accidentally forward Graham's private Slack messages to the entire company. The kind where you stand up in the middle of a meeting and say everything you've been thinking for 127 days in one long, glorious, career-ending sentence.
I didn't do any of it. Obviously. Because I have a mortgage and a baby cactus to support.
But I thought about it. In detail, and designed a PowerPoint that will never see the light of day but lives in a folder on my desktop called "Recipes."
Everyone has a "Recipes" folder. Don't pretend you don't.
Colleague took credit for my work. In a meeting. In front of everyone. Used my exact words. My exact slides. Presented them like they'd had the idea in the shower that morning.
Nobody said anything. Graham nodded along. Said "great work." To them. About my work. While I sat there watching my own sentences come out of someone else's mouth.
I thought about saying something. I thought about standing up and calmly explaining that those were my slides, my research, my late nights, my weekends. I thought about being professional and measured and adult about it.
Instead I went to the kitchen. Made a tea. Stirred it for four minutes. Stared at the fire evacuation poster. Took notes on the fire evacuation poster. Read it twice. Came back to my desk. Said nothing.
Sunday night. 2am. Lying in bed.
Googled "should I quit my job." Got an article about pros and cons lists written by someone who has clearly never wanted to throw a laptop through a window. They suggested gratitude journaling. Closed the phone. Went to the kitchen. Ate a raw carrot standing up in the dark in my pants.
Googled "how to get revenge on a coworker without getting fired." Got nothing useful. Apparently the internet wants you to be the bigger person. You make me laugh internet.
Googled "is it normal to hate your job this much." Every result said yes. That didn't make it better.
Got passed over again. Different role, same result. Same "maybe next time." Same person who's been there five minutes getting the thing I'd been working towards for years.
Graham said I needed to "demonstrate more leadership." I said I'd been leading the project they just promoted someone else to run. He said "that's different." I asked how. He said he'd "circle back."
He never circled back. Graham never circles back. Graham says things like "circle back" and "let's align" because it sounds like action without requiring any. Graham is a sentence that never ends.
I updated my CV that night, because updating your CV at midnight is the adult version of packing a bag and threatening to leave your wife and kids. "Don't test me." You're not going anywhere. But it feels good to know you could.
The colleague who stole my slides got promoted. To a role I applied for. Using work I did. With a presentation I built.
Graham congratulated them in the all-hands. Said they "embodied the company values." The company values are written on a poster in reception. One of them is "integrity." I looked at the poster. I looked at the colleague. I looked at Graham.
I went to the car park. Sat in my car. Didn't drive anywhere. Just sat there with the engine off and the windows up, staring at the building, adding slides to the "Recipes" folder in my head.
Slide 48: a pie chart titled "Who Actually Did The Work" with one colour and one name.
Started writing things down. Not a journal. Not gratitude. Just everything I wished someone had told me on Day 1.
How to deal with the colleague who smiles at you and stabs you in the meeting room. How to survive the promotion you didn't get. How to sit in a room with people who took your work and act like a professional when every cell in your body wants to flip the table.
How to answer "are you okay?" without screaming.
How to go home at night and not carry the building with you.
How to want revenge and not do it. How to want to quit and not be able to. How to sit at a desk you hate and still be yourself by the time you leave.
Nobody was writing this stuff down. The internet had mindfulness. LinkedIn had hustle culture. The bookshop had self-help books written by people who've never been passed over, stolen from, or patronised by a man called Graham.
So I wrote it myself.
Handed in my notice.
Didn't send the letter I wanted to send. The one with the bullet points and the bit about Graham's face and the detailed timeline of every piece of work that was stolen and presented by someone else. Sent the professional one. Two lines. Grateful for the opportunity. Last day is the 14th.
Graham said "sorry to see you go." He wasn't sorry. He was already working out who'd absorb my workload.
I walked out of the building for the last time. Stood in the car park. The same car park where I sat with the engine off adding imaginary slides to a PowerPoint called "Recipes."
Didn't feel triumphant. Didn't feel free. Felt tired. And angry. And like I should have done it 488 days ago.
The notes became a book.
233 pages. Not written by a doctor. Not written by a therapist. Not written by a life coach with a podcast and a ring light. Written by someone who ate a cereal bar from November at his desk, hid in the toilets to escape meetings, and once spent an entire Thursday pretending to be on the phone so nobody would ask him for anything.
I called it The Dead End Desk Survival Guide. Because that's what it is. Not a fix. Not a cure. Just everything I learned the hard way, written down so you don't have to.
Started Dead End Desk.
The book became a journal. The journal became art for the walls of people who are sick of motivational posters. The art became t-shirts that say what your resignation letter should.
Everything in this shop exists because work nearly broke me. And instead of flipping the table, I wrote it all down and turned it into something for the millions of people still sitting at that desk, wondering if it's just them.
Still here.
Still writing.
Still getting messages at 2am from people wondering if it's just them.
It's not.
It's never just them.