Search Sign in
Office Hours

The Best Performer in the Building Drinks Alone

She has never missed a filing, never slurred in a meeting, never once been late. That is the evidence she offers, to herself most of all.

Work · · 10 min read

At twenty to ten on a Wednesday night, the eleventh floor of a law firm on Lavelle Road is dark except for one corner office. Anuradha is finishing the markup on a share purchase agreement that closes on Friday. She is forty-four, a senior partner, and the best drafter in the building; associates bring her clauses the way people bring a watch to a watchmaker. She has been at her desk since eight in the morning. She has eaten a sandwich.

The rest of this piece is for subscribers.

idinsayit is reader-funded and carries no advertising. A subscription opens everything.

Subscribe

Already a subscriber? Sign in

Share this piece

A smiling manager reassures an employee while crushing a sheet of paper out of sight. The people-pleasing boss.
Office Hours

The Manager Who Needs to Be Liked

Everyone agrees that Pradeep is the nicest boss they have had. His best engineer has just resigned, and his weakest is about…

10 min read
A man with a laptop bag and a red lanyard walks away from the office doors toward the point where the ground simply stops.
The Ladder

The Layoff Arrived by Calendar Invite

Fifteen minutes, two faces on a screen, one of them from HR. Losing a job is a financial event for about a…

10 min read
A family home in cut-away, an enormous office desk pushed through every room, and the family living around its edges.
The Ladder

Work That Ate the Rest

Some people work long hours because the job demands it. Others work them because the office is the one place where they…

10 min read
A woman stands two-thirds of the way up a ladder, looking at where it ends, while younger climbers crowd the rungs below.
The Ladder

Ambition After Forty

At twenty-five the ladder has no top. Somewhere past forty it turns out to have one, and you can see it from…

9 min read