The Burnout(2)

Asher is head of marketing and therefore my boss. He’s also the brother of Lev, the founder of Zoose, the famous one. Lev is the one who came up with the idea. He was arriving at an airport when the notion came to him, and he sat in a café in the terminal all day, missing six flights to Luxembourg while he sketched out the first concepts for Zoose. That’s the story, anyway. I’ve seen him tell it on a TED Talk.

Lev is wiry and charismatic and charming and asks everyone questions all the time. Whenever he’s in the office, he walks around, a distinctive figure with his wild hair, asking people, “Why this?” “Why that?” “What are you doing?” “Why not try it this way?” During my interview, he asked me about my coat and my university tutors and what I thought of motorway service stations. It was random and fun and inspiring.

But I never see him now—I only see Asher, who could be from a different planet than Lev. Asher has this thin layer of polished charm, which bowls you over at first. But then you realize he’s really self-important and prickly about Lev’s fame and very sensitive to anything he sees as criticism. Which is pretty much any response apart from “That’s a groundbreaking idea, Asher, you’re a genius!”

(In every meeting, whatever stupid thing he says, Joanne exclaims, “That’s a groundbreaking idea, Asher, you’re a genius!”)

Anyway. So you have to be careful around Asher and equally careful around Joanne, who is Asher’s old friend from uni and strides around like his henchwoman, looking for heretics.

“I fully support Asher’s joyfulness program,” I say hastily, trying to sound sincere. “I attended the Zoom lecture by Dr. Sussman yesterday. It was inspirational.”

The Zoom lecture by Dr. Sussman (Downward can be upward! A journey to personal fulfillment) was compulsory for all employees. It was two hours long and was mostly Dr. Sussman talking about her divorce and subsequent sexual awakening in a commune in Croydon. I have no idea what it was supposed to teach us, but at least because it was on Zoom, I managed to get some work done at the same time.

“I’m talking about the online aspirations mood board, Sasha,” says Joanne, folding her toned arms like a scary gym teacher who’s about to make you do twenty press-ups. (Is she about to make me do twenty press-ups?) “You haven’t logged in for ten days, we notice. Do you have no aspirations?”

Oh God. The online bloody aspirations mood board. I completely forgot about that.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’ll get to it.”

“Asher is a very caring head of department,” Joanne says, her eyes still narrowed. “He’s keen that each employee takes time to reflect on their goals and note their everyday joyful moments. Are you making notes of your everyday joyful moments?”

I’m dumbstruck. An everyday joyful moment? What would one of those look like?

“This is for your own empowerment, Sasha,” continues Joanne. “We at Zoose care about you.” She makes it sound like an accusation. “But you have to care about yourself too.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that six more urgent emails have arrived in my inbox while we’ve been talking. I feel nausea rising as I see all the red exclamation marks. How am I supposed to have time to reflect? How can I feel joyful when I’m constantly gripped by panic? How am I supposed to write down my aspirations when my only aspiration is stay on top of life and I’m failing at that?

“Actually, Joanne …” I take a deep breath. “What’s most bothering me is, when are Seamus and Chloe going to be replaced? I asked that on the aspirations board, but no one answered.”

This is the biggest issue. This is the killer. We just don’t have enough staff. Chloe was a maternity cover who lasted a week, and Seamus stayed for a month, had a flaming row with Asher, and walked out. As a result, everyone is overloaded, and there’s still no news on any replacements.

“Sasha,” says Joanne condescendingly, “I’m afraid you’ve rather misunderstood the function of the aspirations mood board. It isn’t about technical HR matters; it’s for personal goals and dreams.”

“Well, it’s my personal goal and dream to have enough colleagues to do the work!” I retort. “We’re all snowed under, and I’ve spoken to Asher so many times, but he just won’t give me a straight answer, you know what he’s—”

I cut myself off dead before I can say anything negative about Asher that she’ll report back to him and I’ll have to retract in a cringy meeting.

“Are you twitching?” says Joanne, peering at me.

“No. What? Twitching?” I put a hand to my face. “Maybe.”

She’s blanked my actual question, I notice. How is it some people can do that? I can’t help glancing at my monitor—and Rob Wilson has just emailed yet again, this time with four exclamation marks.

“Joanne, I have to get on,” I say in desperation. “But thanks for the empowerment. I feel so much more … powered.”

I need to do something, I think frantically, as she finally walks away and I resume typing. I need to do something. This job isn’t what it was supposed to be. Nothing like. I was so excited when I got it, two years ago. Director of special promotions at Zoose! I started off at a sprint, giving it my all, thinking I was on a solid path toward an exciting horizon. But the path isn’t solid anymore. It’s mud. Deep, gloopy mud.