There I am at the front gate, dressed like a junior cabinet minister, leather folder in hand, ready to turn on the bullshit. I give my name to the security guard (who, a year or so down the line, would become one of my prime sources of banter) and nervously proclaim I’m a new starter in the IM (Information Management) team, due to meet such-a-body at 9 a.m.

“Oh, he’s not in yet. Have a seat over there.”

Great, I thought. I’m here all keen, ready to make an impression, and my new boss couldn’t even be arsed to turn up. He’s probably still sat on the motorway cursing at all the rubberneckers in the other lane—like I was about 20 minutes ago. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

This was the first time I’d left the public sector and joined a rather large multinational company, and I had no idea what to expect (more on this rather controversial subject later in the book). The first thing to hit me was how nice everything looked. The furniture in reception actually functioned (there was actually furniture), and the fake plants made the place look decent. The flat-screen TV oozed modernity, showcasing a multitude of the company’s products they’d flog at an inflated price. This was my first glimpse of the sheer amount of money these organisations could make—and spend.

I want you to remember a ridiculously pointless word at this point: polymorphism. Don’t do anything with it. Just make a mental note so that I can come back to it later in the book and associate it with this job. All will make sense.

I was eventually greeted by a chap who I could only presume had arrived to man the car park barrier. A small, cheerful individual grinned at me and said, “Hey, are you Such-a-body?”. I stood up like a startled soldier when his warrant officer walks into the room (still naked), ready to take on the day and be a version of myself that I’m not. There I was, dressed in that suit—like I was about to go down for 15 years in court—and this fella was in jeans and a casual shirt.

Fine, I thought. I could get used to that—I hate wearing ties anyway.
Little did I know, this was to be my introduction to the concept of business casual attire in the office, whereby you can wear comfortable pants and a shirt (i.e., jeans) and not have to bother with a suit or tie. As long as you don’t look like a football hooligan or someone who’s just come back from the Ashes, you’re OK. He took me up to the office and introduced me to the team. A small room, very intimate. Shit, I thought. I’ll have to behave myself here.

Everyone was nice.

After my initial why am I wearing a suit meltdown, I started clocking the people I’d be spending my days with. First impressions count, and in an office, it’s a bit like blind date (remember the TV show?) except instead of picking a life partner, you’re assessing who you’ll be able to tolerate for eight hours a day without committing a crime. First up, the keyboard smasher. This guy—let’s call him Dave—typed like his fingers were at war with his laptop. Every email sounded like he was furiously drafting a manifesto. If you told me he was coding the entire financial system from scratch every morning, I’d have believed it (when in reality he was probably chatting to his missus on ICQ). Then there was the walking policy document. You know the type. She’d memorised every single workplace rule and had probably drafted most of them. I once heard her say, completely seriously, “Well, actually, the handbook states we should log off at 5:27, not 5:30.” Amazing. A human Terms & Conditions page.

Every office also has the tea hoarder, and mine was no exception. Oh no, that was me.

Then there was my desk neighbour. He was the kind of guy who could get away with wearing jeans to a funeral, and within about ten minutes of meeting him, I realised he was one of life’s good ones. Funny, chilled out, the sort who just gets it. If you’re lucky, every workplace has one. If you’re unlucky, you get Richard from Accounts, who breathes loudly and asks if you’ve “got a minute” just as you’re about to leave.

And finally, my manager. He had an office off to the side—classic middle-management move—but he wasn’t a total clipboard wanker. He was one of those people who had clearly given up caring about office politics years ago, but had to pretend that he still cared, which meant he was refreshingly blunt and somewhat stiff.

It was clear from the get-go that this wasn’t going to be one of those miserable, soul-crushing workplaces where people communicate through passive-aggressive emails and steal each other’s milk. It had its quirks, sure, but my first impression was simple: I could work with this lot. That was my immediate thought at the time anyway. And let me tell you, as you get older, you’ll realise that this is pretty much the only thing that matters when you move to a new place—not being surrounded by complete Neanderthals. More on this later, and the types of people you’ll encounter.

After the usual crap of getting my username and password (which, I can tell you, is always something along the lines of “pa55word”), I started to settle in, knowing that within a few minutes I’d be in my manager’s room going over all the potential ways they could torture me—erm, I mean, the things I would be working on.

Out of the blue, the chap who brought me in (who actually sat in front of me) said casually, “Wanna go get some breakfast?”. I blinked. What? Breakfast? But we’re in the office, ready to work. I’m chained to this desk and I must perform! I can’t move from this spot unless it’s lunchtime or I’m about to piss myself, surely? In my head, I was thinking: Fuck yes, I’m starving. I could eat a bag of spiders. Naturally (and still wanting to be impeccably polite at this point), I said, “Yeah, sure! What you got in mind?” I thought he’d take me to some crappy sandwich van outside that resembled the old rag-and-bone man (UK readers at least 40 years old might know what I mean) or some vending machine that only took gold bars.

No.

This was a private company, with actual money to spend. A company that actually wanted a nice, decent working environment for its employees. This place had a CANTEEN. A few minutes later, I was sat in the most amazing-looking canteen, making love to a full English. Holy shit, I thought. I hit the jackpot here. Here I was, at work, getting paid to make my eyeballs bleed in front of a screen all day—and I was in a canteen, eating bacon and eggs, with a really nice chap (who would later become someone I’d call a friend). There was even a damn TV in the canteen with the news on, the NEWS! What the fuck is going on?

So, what’s the point of this chapter? Is it the fact that the places I’d worked in prior may have resembled a mosh pit in Aleppo? Or that the public sector I’d come from really was crap and didn’t have any money to spend? Or was it just the fact I’d found an organisation that had plenty of money and made it so that employees actually wanted to stay and work there? Maybe it’s a combination of all of that—but it certainly was a culture shock to me. I was only ever used to finding a vending machine for lunch or sprinting outside to grab a sandwich in the limited time I had before returning to my desk like a cartoon prisoner. (More on public vs private later on).

Either way, I thought I’d hit the jackpot.

It’s sad, really. Something as small as being allowed to go and have breakfast excited me at the time—but it goes to show that some pretty bad work cultures were out there. (And we’re only talking roughly the year 2008.) Or perhaps it was just that some organisations did it better than others? Who knows.

Either way, this is where the chapter concludes with something I want you to not only remember but apply to every single aspect of your working life: don’t take the piss. Yes, simple.

What do I mean by this? Well—when in doubt about anything, don’t take the piss. When your mate says to you, “Wanna go get some breakfast?”—don’t sit there for an hour and a half talking about the footy. And at the same time, don’t buy every last single piece of bacon unless you want to end up in the car park getting slapped. You go for breakfast, take your time—have 20-30 minutes—then go back and crack on. Hell, even make it a “working breakfast,” where you pretend to talk about work, when in reality, you’re reminiscing about the awful night out you only returned from three hours ago.

Apply this principle to every aspect of working life:
• Using a company car? Don’t pretend you’re on the Autobahn and leave the car full of farts.
• Going on an overnight trip? Don’t rent a room in Buckingham Palace and blow the entire company profit on seven kilos of Wagyu beef.
• Attending a conference? Don’t turn up still pissed, with half a doner leg hanging out your mouth and a severe bout of pink-eye.
• Sitting an interview and want to stick to the principle of “being yourself”? Well don’t be your true 100% self, or you’ll be in front of HR before you’re even employed.

See where I’m going with this? As with anything, always apply the element of common sense too, because believe me there are plenty of people out there, work colleagues or not, who posses neither common sense, or the ability to NOT take the piss.

Behave yourself, don’t take the piss, and everything will fall into place.