When it all just gets a bit much.

Never, ever, ever, work in an office full of women.

After two days of bitching, and dirty looks and people walking out of the office en masse to get a new ID card and then not coming back with an ID card, I have had it.

We have spent the last six months trying to create an atmosphere of calm productivity, where people get the job done but can have a laugh while they do it, and this is what we get for it. The last boss there ruled with a rod of iron, scared the shit out of the staff and worked herself into a nervous breakdown but was never, ever spoken to the way I have been spoken to today.

So fine, if being personal and getting on with people just gets you walked all over, then I won't do it anymore, they can take their pleasant conversation and shove it up their jellified arses.

I have tried so hard during the last week to maintain a dignified front, to not appear upset, to just get on with the job. I have cried at home, in the car, and once in Boots by the feminine care products, but I have never, ever let them know that they made it personal, and it actually hurt.

Fuck them, fuck them and their 25 tea breaks a day, fuck their fucking danish fucking pastry days, fuck their "what do you mean duck? me? nothing wrong with me!", fuck their dirty looks and their conspiracy theories and their assumed hatred of me and what I represent to them, fuck their unwillingness to do anything that seems like work, fuck their cheap fucking polyester trousers and gold jewellary, fuck their tesco jeans.

It's times like this when I miss Tom Starkey. When, more specifically, I missed Tom Starkey living in the room below my room, when I could just run downstairs and knock on his door and tell him what was bothering me, and he'd listen, and probably forget everything that I said pretty much the second I said it, but nod in an understanding sort of way that always made me feel instantly comforted.