You know when you’re sat there. Somewhere you don’t want to be. It could be a conference at work that you are obliged to attend. You sit there staring at your boss with the occasional nodding of your head to show that indeed you do have full consciousness and indeed you are intently listening. It is at times like this when your mind begins to think about events much more interesting just to pass the time. Looking around the room it is very easy to tell who in fact is listening (that would be only the dull secretary Margaret who follows our boss around like a loyal cocker spaniel) and who is joining you in the journey of another world, a world you would much prefer to be in. Suddenly I am snapped back into reality. ‘Won’t you Emily?’ my boss and the whole room turn to me. Crap. I have no idea what he just said. I am just staring at him, trying to think of what could have possibly come before it. He repeats the question again this time with a slightly higher intonation in his voice ‘Won’t you Emily?’ Surely whatever he has asked me to do won’t be that big of a deal. It is probably just getting all the staff their daily Starbucks order or doing mind-numbing paperwork that nobody wants to do. ‘Sure Mr Freeman’, I say with what I think resembles a confident smile. Clapping his hands together he gets up from his seat and turning to me says, ‘well that’s settled then, if you come to my office around 4 we can discuss the details’. Oh god what have I let myself into. Discuss the details?! Since when was getting Margaret’s Skinny Chocolatte ‘discussing details’?! Soon the conference room emptied and I was left to wonder what predicament I had gotten myself into this time.
Sophie Chekruga 