Image by LaurMG (license CC BY-SA 3.0)
I looked at Jade, wondering how long it’ll take her to realize she has only one friend in her life, and even that friend is a fucking moron. Her business partner, Susan, is sitting in the other office, musing over some Huffington Post listicle about how to lose lower belly fat.
She’ll never do any of the exercises so why is she wasting her time?
Susan is Jade’s only friend.
“It’s just that… you’re distracting the other guys in the office.” Jade says to me, her spectrum-level awkwardness seeping into the atmosphere of the office.
I look back at Jade, forcing the eye contact. There are two men that work in my office. One is Latino and loves black women. His latest squeeze is LaShawna, and she’s spending all day at his apartment waiting for him to come home. The other is happily married with three children, and his wife is a friend of mine.
In response to this insulting, degrading, and downright patronizing comment from Queen Cretin, I want to say, “Shut the fuck up, Jade. You’re just pissed cause you know we all think you’re an awful person and the guys don’t want to hang out with you.”
In reality, I laugh playfully and pretend like Jade and I are best friends.
“Yes, that is the reality of modern work. I am underpaid, overworked, amazing at my job, and talked to like shit all day.”
This has been my life for the last few weeks. I wake up at 6:45AM, get on my gorgeous new Schwinn bicycle, and cycle down the beach to Venice pier. That’s where the copywriting company I work at sits. The building that houses the business is dilapidated, and the stairs up to the buzzer smell like piss from the homeless people that use them as a public restroom. The windows are filthy, coated in layers of scum that await the three days of rain we get here in southern California. All in all, one minor earthquake would send this place into dust. However, the work is easy and they offer health insurance!
Yes, that is the reality of modern work. I am underpaid, overworked, amazing at my job, and talked to like shit all day. I’m not asking for Jade, Queen of Bitches, or Susan, the Slug of Venice Beach, to acknowledge my work or congratulate me on making them loads of money. I just want them to leave me alone so I can get on with my job.
I work in an office with two men; Andrew and Ernesto. Both are super cool guys. I think we get along so well because we all get what life in this place is like. Andrew and I are both copywriters. We have scientific undergraduate degrees from excellent universities, and gave up on corporate life for a more creative approach to our adulthood. Ernesto spends every week partying with beautiful women, wearing incredibly expensive suits, and is arguably the coolest guy I have ever met. The three of us get on like a house on fire, and I think that annoys Jade.
She’s a typical boss. Stereotypical, really. When you’re doing great work, she’ll tell you, but she’ll also point out one minor thing that really doesn’t make a difference to the quality of said work. Most recently, I was handed a piece of copy on a new skinny tea brand that Andrew and I are meant to be redeveloping. Jade asked me what I would change about the copy.
This is how it read:
“Everyone wants to be skinny. It is important for health. If you’re into being fit then you should drink this tea because i lost lots of weight drinking it. Grils (not a typo) should be skinny…” and so on….
What could I change about this copy? How about absolutely fucking everything! When I answered Jade, she told me the quality of the writing wasn’t important. I caught Andrew’s eye from behind her. He shrugged, rolled his eyes, and turned back to his computer. Jade had written the copy, and I had just told her it looked like a disabled monkey had thrown letters in any order.
What? I’m not wrong… that’s exactly what it looked like.
However, this is Jade’s company and Jade knows best. Except, Jade doesn’t know best. She doesn’t know anything. This is part of specializing in any field. If you’re good at one thing, like I am at putting words in sentences, having an illiterate idiot for a boss is a nightmare. Whether you are a scientist, an accountant, a shelf-stacker, a trainer in a gym, a sales person, you know how this feels. You’re paid less. You’re treated like less. Your only comfort is the knowledge that your colleagues feel exactly the same way.
I do feel sorry for Jade sometimes. She can probably pick up on the way the three of us think about her. We never invite her out to our after work drinks. We have in-jokes that she doesn’t understand, but still tries to laugh at. It can’t be easy with us being the way we are at work. Then again, she’s the worst.
I’m still sitting opposite Jade when I contemplate pulling an Office Space, and burning the whole place to the ground. Of course, they would just get one of their wealthy parents to buy them another chunk of space. Or sell more drugs. Or cash in more stock. As I’m sitting there, I realize I have no idea how the hell this company makes any money.
We sell natural hormones replacements online at massively reduced prices. Sometimes we have erectile dysfunction pills that one of the lads in the office, who doesn’t talk to me, has said don’t work. Our products suck. I mean, they seriously fucking suck. How do Jade and Susan make money?!
Oh wait, I don’t care.
“So are you okay with, you know, being less of a distraction?” Jade asks me, her face shriveling up like a prune as she awaits my answer. Her passive aggressiveness is revolting, making my stomach churn like I never thought possible. As my eyes settle on hers I wonder whether it’s worth it. What if I bitch slapped her right now and choked her out, as I ranted to her about manners and being a human fucking being.
“Absolutely. No problem at all.” I grimace.
As I turn to leave, I mutter a fairly violent word under my breath. She doesn’t hear me because she’s not listening. She’s looking at skinny tea supplements online. She’s pricing them out to see how low we need to go before anyone will bother buying from us.
No wonder Andrew hasn’t had his raise yet…
Kay Smythe, The British Bitch in America.
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