Jobs rarely break you all at once. They work slowly, like water on rock, or a colleague who says “quick one” before something that is never quick and is barely one.
Here’s how to tell if it’s happening to you. It is. It’s happening to everyone. That isn’t comforting. That’s just the scale of it.
1. You say “per my last email” out loud
To your partner. About the bins.
2. You’ve started dreaming in spreadsheets
Last night you were trapped in cell F14. You couldn’t get out because someone had locked the formatting. You woke up and went to work, where the same thing happened, but paid.
3. Your Sunday starts on Saturday afternoon
The dread used to arrive at 6pm Sunday. Now it books in for Saturday lunch, eats your crisps and asks what you’re doing with your life.
4. You know your colleagues’ typing sounds
You could pick Gary’s keyboard out of a line-up. You’ve spent more hours listening to Gary type than you’ve spent with your own parents since university.
5. You felt genuine joy when a meeting was cancelled
Not relief. Joy. The kind you used to feel about holidays, first kisses, snow. That joy now goes to a cancelled 2pm. This is what it was saved for.
6. You’ve said “it is what it is” more than three times this week
It is what it is. And what it is, is Wednesday, for the rest of your career.
7. Your “quick lunch” is eaten over the keyboard
Your keyboard contains enough crumbs to be classified as a dependant. It has better job security than you.
You don’t have a work-life balance. You have work, and then a brief intermission where you think about work, and then you’re 64.
8. You use “bandwidth” to describe your emotions
“I don’t have the bandwidth for this,” you tell your mum, who just asked if you’d like tea. She will remember this.
9. You’ve mastered the art of the green dot
You know exactly how long your status can sit idle before it turns yellow. You nudge the mouse at precise intervals like a hostage blinking in Morse code. The message is the same: still here, still here, still here.
10. Your out-of-office feels like a holiday in itself
Setting it is the best part of your break. Turning it off is the worst part of your year. The company ran fine without you. That should worry you.
11. You flinch when your phone buzzes on a weekend
It’s a pizza offer. Your heart rate takes forty minutes to recover. Your heart has a finite number of beats. Pizza offers are getting them.
12. You refer to the office kettle as “a colleague”
It is the most reliable member of the team. It has never called a meeting. When it breaks, they’ll replace it by lunch. Same as you.
13. You use exclamation marks to sound less dead inside
“Thanks!” “Sounds great!” “No worries at all!” Each one is a flare sent up from a very quiet island. No ships are coming.
14. Your annual review praised your “resilience”
Resilience is the corporate word for “we kept piling things on and you didn’t technically fall over”. The pay rise was 1.5%. Inflation was 4%. Do the maths.
15. You now have a work personality
Work You is cheerful, says “super” a lot and has opinions about the new logo. Real You found out about the logo from Work You.
16. Your houseplant knows your schedule
It droops at 3pm, same as you. You’ve never been more connected to anything. It’s a cactus. Even the cactus is struggling.
17. You read this list during work hours
Good. That’s the only thing you’ve done this week for yourself. It was reading about how tired you are.
So, What Now?
Nothing. Every job is a little bit destructive. That’s why they pay you. Nobody gets a salary for things they’d do for free, like napping or judging other people’s parking.
Take your lunch somewhere that isn’t your desk. Go outside. Look at a tree. The tree was here before the company and will be here after it. Neither of them will remember you.