There are all manner of “assessments” you’ll be subject to in the workplace. Not just the one you must endure for your annual review, often jam-packed with backhanded compliments, but the ones that come out of nowhere during your day-to-day work existence (time spent that is more abstract in terms than being outside of the cube). From the way you load the K-cups to the way you load the paper tray, an undercutting insult lies in wait at every possible turn when you’re trying your best to skulk quietly about the gray-carpeted (maybe with some stripes or geometric patterns thrown in on top of the gray for fake good measure) hallways. And yet, it’s strange, if you wanted someone to tell you how to live your life better, you would have just remained living at your parents’ house, never short in supply on critiques for all the manners in which you’ve fucked everything up.
In essence, the wage you’re getting for being condemned at random would probably balance out. Free food and rent at Mom and Dad’s paired with thinly veiled jibes versus struggling to get by on your paycheck with anything left over and throwing all your youthful years down the hourglass in exchange for always being told you could do better. Strive for excellence. Excellence at what? How to ignore the stamping out of your soul and the surrender of dreams that can only be allowed to flourish in the years before twenty-five? So excuse one, if, after one too many “constructive” criticisms, she starts to feel a bit fragile–batty. One wrong comment away from dancing drunkenly with a loaded gun.