Is there any travesty greater than having to show up at work, let alone having to show up at work and attend a “very important” meeting that’s actually very pointless? Yes, if it happens to take place on a Monday, which it so often does as a result of management’s boner for sadistic behavior. But you, champion of stifled emotions and hastily put together looks that you are, manage to come through. To pull it together in time to show up in a fashion, if not exactly bright-eyed, then at least glassy-eyed (hey, it’s better than just slumping over in your chair and falling asleep).
And while your master and fellow slaves might regard you with snide glances and thinly veiled snickers, you honestly couldn’t give a fuck so long as you can make it to your next cigarette break (smoking being a practice you took up expressly because it is a legitimate excuse to take a break). You’ve done your job in offering up your body to the non-gods of corporate Hades. You’ve even gone the extra mile in not vomiting all over your sweat-stained tank top and cutoffs. What the fuck else do they want from you? Because your soul already dissipated when you traded it for a paycheck.