YOU should be spending this week sweating it out in a roasting, unventilated office resembling a circle of hell. Recreate it at home:
Commute in your airing cupboard
Every office day should begin with a lengthy commute in conditions illegal for livestock. Cram your entire family, all wearing business suits, into the airing cupboard and stay there for 40 minutes or until one of you faints.
Install broken air-conditioning
Tantalise yourself with the possibility of refreshing, cool air while ensuring that it works only to the extent of making a whirring sound. Get up and hit it occasionally while sending angry emails to an outsourced facilities manager who promises it will be repaired by the end of October.
Ensure windows only open two millimetres
Your working environment should be as suffocating as possible, like the mouth of an active volcano. The only function of the window is for you to stare through it at people who are not inside and who are enjoying a fun summer’s day, just like you cannot.
Spend two hours in Windowless Meeting Room B
Black out the windows of your home’s smallest room, seal it until the air becomes stale and stuffy until you can hardly breathe, then shut yourself in for your Zoom meeting. Make sure that colleague who elongates every meeting with pointless, inane questions is invited. Continue for half-an-hour longer than you can bear.
Mock yourself with a fan
Fans make you feel the heat even more by just blowing the stifling air back into your sweaty, tomato-red face. For the real office experience, always have two fans fewer than necessary positioned to cool areas you’re not in and ban yourself from adjusting them.
Slow time to a crawl
Finally, install a clock that ticks backwards. Achieve absolutely nothing as you slowly boil alive. Fantasise about walking into the sea and never returning. This is what it’s all about.
