I must have had one drink too many, because that morning I slept through my alarm, if you can call switching off your alarm and going back to sleep for an hour ‘sleeping through’ it. When I reawoke, I looked at the time, scrambled into the shower, microwaved a cup of coffee from Aoife’s cafetière, drank it with some of her almond milk and left, already making up an excuse in my head to explain being over an hour late.
Zesty Design was a moderately successful agency located on the second floor of a building down a leafy side street in Camden. On their website, they claimed to be ‘experienced purveyors of world-class content’, but what this really boiled down to was short ads for dishwasher tablets or sanitary pads, sometimes an internal reel for a car manufacturer or a supermarket chain, congratulating itself on how eco-friendly its practices were.
‘Morning,’ I said as I reached the designers’ desks and switched on my iMac, which was in a corner mercifully out of most people’s view. Outside, the spring sun filtered through plane trees and shone sharply on my dusty screen. I fumbled with drawing the blinds. ‘Sorry I’m late. Did you get my message, Stephen?’
‘I did, Mal, thank you.’ Stephen glanced up. ‘Did you get your boiler sorted?’
‘Yeah, all good.’ I exhaled deeply, as if it had been a proper ordeal, dumped my tote bag on my desk and removed my jacket.
‘They don’t usually break down in the summer, do they?’ said Alison.
‘No, I guess not. It’s weird.’ Shut up, Alison.
I switched on my iMac, which emitted a loud start-up sound, alerting every last person in the office to my lateness.
‘Well, at least you’re here now,’ said Stephen, typing something. ‘When you get time, I think Keisha is very keen to get going on that Shell reel. She was looking for you… ’ He pointed vaguely in the direction of the producers, as if I’d somehow forgotten after three years where they sat.
‘Oh, sure. I’ll get right on that. Thanks.’ I opened up the graphics project and my inbox, which already had an e-mail from Keisha, ominously titled Some notes. I felt I knew what it would say before even opening it. Make it bigger, bolder, more dynamic. Etcetera etcetera. As a junior designer, every day you were inundated with logos and statistics needing to be animated according to vague briefs calling for something ‘flashy’ and ‘attention-grabbing.’ Zesty Design also described themselves as ‘a diverse team of vibrant, madcap creators’, but all I saw when I looked up and out over the sea of desks was a quiet, British, mostly white gathering of thirty to fifty-year-olds in Oxford shirts and cashmere cardigans.
I breathed a small sigh and got to work.
That afternoon I had my monthly 1-2-1 with Stephen. As always, we sat in the smallest meeting room, armed with pens and notepads even though neither of us ever had any notes to take. The conclusion being, usually, that I was doing fine, that I should keep doing what I was doing, and did I have any questions or concerns? No, not really.
My attention drifted while Stephen ran through broader company news. I watched the way the milky-white daylight reflected off his bald pate and the zipper of his fleece jumper. I watched people walk past in the hallway outside the glass front. A cabinet opposite contained rows of trophies, won at various design award ceremonies. I’d not been involved in winning any. Had always smiled and clapped when the wins were announced, or watched the congratulatory Reply-All e-mails trickle in, or listened as people discussed their recent trips to conventions elsewhere in the UK. I didn’t feel bitter about any of this. Just sort of… detached.
‘And how are you doing with your new responsibilities?’
I straightened in my chair. ‘Which, uh, which new responsibilities?’
‘Approving the freelancers’ projects.’
‘Oh, of course. Yeah, that’s been fine. It’s been fun, actually. Getting to, uh, apply a critical eye to other people’s work.’ I cleared my throat. ‘I’m just a bit confused, because that’s usually a task for midweights? Not juniors. But as far as I know, I… haven’t been promoted?’
Stephen shifted in his chair. ‘No, well, as we said in the meeting with Alistair —’ Alistair was the creative director — posh, rarely around. ‘You can consider this a stepping stone towards becoming a midweight. It’s good experience for you.’
‘Oh, sure.’ I nodded. ‘I’m just wondering, how big is this stepping stone that I’m on? Is it, like, a stone or is it more like, an island that I’m… slowly crossing?’
Stephen was unamused. ‘It’s good experience,’ he repeated. ‘It’s a way for you to broaden your skill set.’
‘Sure.’
I followed his gaze to the hallway outside, as if something interesting were happening there. With perfect timing, Rory passed by — Rory who had recently been promoted to midweight, and who’d started last year, while I’d started three years ago. He was straight and blandly handsome, good at socialising and being chummy with everyone, even Alistair. He was currently walking past with a girl from Finance who he’d been relentlessly chatting up.
I took a breath. ‘It’s just, you know. Rory got promoted to midweight. So I’m just wondering, like. What are my chances? I mean, I’ve been putting in good work for… three years now.’
Stephen made a strange face, squinting as if trying to pick up an odd smell in the room. ‘Well, to get promoted you have to show that you really go above and beyond. That you’re a team player, you know, you’re not afraid to pull those late hours, you’re reliable… ’
‘Yeah, and I am. All of those things.’ And more importantly, I’d really like to start earning enough that the last week before payday doesn’t have to mean cheapo pasta and no drinks out. If that’s all right with you, Stephen.
Again my manager made that strange face. ‘Well, I mean. If you want to get specific, I could mention that… just this morning, you were over an hour late.’
I gaped in outrage. ‘But that was because of the boiler repairs!’
‘I know, of course,’ said Stephen, immediately backtracking in that terminally polite way of his. ‘And we all have lives to lead outside the company, Mal, I do understand that. We all have reasons why we’re sometimes late. We miss our train, you know, sod’s law and all. But… I do have to tell you, it has been noticed how often you’re late. Or leave early. You know, the office hours are nine-thirty to six. And it is only three days a week you’re required to come in. It’s not a mammoth ask, to stay the full amount of time on those days, is it?’
‘No, yeah. Of course.’ This was ridiculous. I could get the same amount of work done whether I came in at nine-thirty or nine-fifty.
‘And apart from that… ‘ He grimaced, preparing to deliver another tough diagnosis. ‘It’s been noticed how often you deliver projects past their deadlines. Or incomplete. With the producers having to come back to you for missing deliverables.’
I stared at him, speechless. I didn’t like that passive sentence construction. Been noticed by who? By him? By Alistair?
‘Some of the producers have been communicating that… they would prefer not to work with you.’
‘What?’
A hot cloud of shame filled my chest. I didn’t care about this job, but still. I liked to think I’d been doing it competently.
‘Which, uh… which producers?’ I shot a look outside the glass wall.
Stephen waved a hand. ‘That doesn’t matter. The point is, Rory got promoted because he was able to very quickly demonstrate that he was a major asset to the company. He showed us that he really lives and breathes Zesty Design. And I’m sorry, Mal, but if you want to be a midweight as well, then you have to do the same. There aren’t any shortcuts.’
Yes, there are! Rory got chummy with Alistair! That was a shortcut!
‘This is a good job, you know,’ said Stephen. ‘It’s a good company to work for. And I know you can do it.’ He gave an ickily paternal smile. ‘You definitely can.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, forcing a smile. Wishing I could just walk out of here and start working somewhere, anywhere else, with a clean slate. ‘And I will. For sure. Thanks.’
A silence stretched. I gazed at my blank notepad.
‘Right,’ said Stephen, ‘another point I wanted to discuss is… How have you been getting on with the new AI tools? Flightpath, Nirvana… ‘
‘Oh, good, yeah. I love working with something that’s going to eventually take over my job.’
Stephen glowered.
‘Sorry,’ I added, ‘bad joke,’ while thinking that yes, it really was all a bad joke.
