LOUIS BURKE | Culture | CONTACT
With up to 70% of Australia’s population either going in or coming out of lockdown, the nation’s officeworkers are operating at peak efficiency, as most people are at home.
“Maybe those Scandinavian countries where they work for four hours a day, four days a week have the right idea?” mused office worker Chelsea Ko (32) in her tracksuits she ordered especially for lockdown.
“The boss cooks you all lunch and then it’s straight home.”
Idyllic working conditions aside, Ko admits she is one of thousands of Australians who have perfected the art of working from home while working about half of the hours they do when they are in the office.
“It’s because I don’t waste half of my day telling Marian I don’t care about star signs before reluctantly saying I am a Taurus and please stop trying to set me up with you nephews.”
According to Ko, it is due to colleagues like Director of Office Administration Marian Burns that working days are the dolorous drudge we all know and hate.
“I told her I’m not watching Masterchef this year and rather than stop talking to me about it she’s taken it upon herself to recap every episode to me! It’s on every night! Every night!”
Such is Burns’s commitment to being the most annoying of co-workers, Ko claims that Burns has even been going into the office just to use Ko’s mug, even though she knows it’s not hers.
“I can just tell she is making her bloody peppermint tea with three sugars in my mug while she’s chatting the ear off some courier who drew the short straw and had to deliver her post.”
Although Ko cannot confirm that Marian is using her mug to drink a series of diabetes-inducing hot drinks from, she believes she has a sense for knowing when it has been used.
“It has her high-vis pink lipstick stuck around the rim of it! I could just buy a new mug or use one of the communal mugs but if I can’t win a petty office squabble against someone who I literally don’t have a single shred of respect for, how am I ever to succeed in anything in life?”
MORE TO COME.
