Tea talk-Conversations I'd rather not have in the canteen................

Until I worked in an office I’d managed to avoid much small talk. 

Choosing to wear a particularly large pair of headphones in the cafe- I sat at alone, or zealously concentrating on my phone screen,as the mad lady made her rounds at the bus stop;I usually managed to look arrogantly occupied in nothing. Communicating all I needed to, to silence those types, who just feel the need to talk about nothing to everyone?

All of the same social species, me and my neurotic, dramatic, hedonistic friends communicate with intimate chats, emotional rants and witty depraved banter. To me and ‘my kind’ the  polite clipped sound of small  talk which never delves deep enough and never gets to  know you well enough  is the language of another species entirely.

 What do I need plastic talk for?

 As a newly initiated office girl- and a long way from Kansas or Ibiza on my first day as a corporate - in a job I knew wasn't typically suitable for me, getting to know my new colleagues left me, speechless.

 A month later, of being left out at the sink, and no one ever pouring  me a drink I inevitably become bothered by the social obligation to learn how to talk small.

The regional director takes a seat at my desk; arranging himself and his suit in what he assumes looks like a friendly perch.

'And how are you getting on'.

A question loaded with more than he would dare say.

This is it.My moment to showcase how well I can  'common speak'.

A few minutes pass, where we engage in nothing but dull eye contact and carefully let out laughter.I avoid straying into any of the traps( also known as longer developed sentences).

Bored, I set myself targets from his response. 

Desperately trying to avoid the cringe worthy verbal nod that confirms he’s not interested and not listening: 'Very good, very good'

I’d love to test him.

I had a great time back home except for my dog ate my dad’s Viagra.

In reality, I say nothing. He seems happy.

After a compliment on my outdated tinsel covered computer he makes to leave.

 So what did you get for Christmas this year then?

: 'Oh lots of interesting things' (He cocks a power brow)

'Well: My boyfriend bought me my first pair of £100 pants; they’re called: How to Marry a Millionaire... and they're crutch-less' - I can't tell him the truth:

'I got loads of things, I think my favorite present was my One Direction Calendar',

 A sparce joke about Harry Styles and he leaves. 

I can’t be sure, but I think I sense disappointment in his retreating, creased back; courtesy of NEXT. I think he may have wanted me to give him a more human answer. 

'Does he know I’m wearing them now?'

A few pay checks on, and I can’t totally mock small talk. 

While it's still  too much to expect to hear me-  opening  a line of chat with a observation about the taste superiority of semi skimmed over full fat milk, I have become slightly more assured this chatter has something to teach me .

 Without the compact communication I am now speaking, I never would have cracked Pete- the offices oldest employer. My brash honesty would have alarmed him and reminded him of our plane of differences.

'What’s your favourite Animal Pete?'

Animated, he tells me enough about himself for me to know I might like to get to know him more. As he opens up about nothing much, we become friends and I am let in on how to survive the interminable targets I must now reach- but never gain from in our office.

I exceed target and I'm allowed to stay and I  find myself in unfamiliar territory.

 I want to visit Pete's desk to find out more about his pet mouse that broke free and decided to live with the guinea pigs.

I begin to surprise myself as I want to start sharing the small stuff.

 One day I even make the first start.

'Anna, that’s a nice scarf'

Lightly- getting to know her, through Hob knobs and observations over the disgusting state of the woman's toilets,One day she surprises me.

Friday,  before a staff night out somewhere I don't want to go much- she  recommends where we can  get a good gram and rings her drug dealer. 

We rack up a friendship and I let her listen to my I pod.

 Some days I still trip up and fall, and I want to tell it all. 

This time It starts when I meet my boss at the traffic lights. Metre's away from the office- it seems like a long stretch of conversation:

'So.....How was you weekend Esme?'

I push the button on the lights- hoping to get out of this one. I take a deep breath coughing down gum and any subtle social celibacy I thought I had: 'Well, my housemate- who I hate, he got arrested for having a 14 year old girlfriend', so our house got raided, because she's actually a missing person and, I missed the first train home from clubbing so we slept at the bus station.

I trail off; leaving behind sludge of inappropriate disclosures: 'Very good ...very good'. 

He reassures me conspiratorially that he hasn't heard the fine details.

It’s kind of him.

 Mid afternoon: nowhere near a Friday.

I sneak towards the staff room, hoping to steal one on Julie’s Earl Grey tea bags.

 Fuck, I can't remember the code for the door. 

Behind it,I hear the rumble of boiling water and a short pour: “I like that new girl you know, she's frank.

Cover Me in Ink, then I will never be a boring Grown-up.

Spilling over with the gregarious confidence that came, after I played with risk and claimed victory, soon after I took my first pill I had other exclamatory statements to make of my youth; if only for things to remember.

Coasting a come-down from a weekend I couldn't remember much about, except for the feeling, by mid-week I was ready to start looking for my latest projection of myself, to exclusively separate me from the rest.

'Why don’t you get a piercing?'- comes a microwaved brainwave from Sammy on the Cross Trainer. 

I speed up going nowhere; racing the line of gym machines next to me.

I want to show them something and never be able to go back again I whisper from the couch of my mind as Freud takes notes and I dream up something in Ink.

 ‘I think I’m going to get a tattoo Sammy’

 Raised eyebrows- drawn on with a blunt pen, She reaches across my machine  and stalls me with a grab; a gesture of intimacy I don’t want from  my gym buddies- who now considers us  co-conspirators:

‘Heyy have I ever shown you my Tinker bell’

The muscle men from the corner draw near; one’s still clutching a dumbbell. Fuck, I hope that isn't a pet name for her Fanny.

Sweating and full of grandeur-for beating me to something, she rolls down her joggers- pointing to a pix elated sketch of little Tink, drawn on forever; clumsy, captured in bleeding blue ink.

‘What do you think?’

4 weeks waiting. I manage the next level on the stepper.I take the call from the gym, alone, counting squats down to tonight’s party.

'I think we have a cancellation Esme', she drawls with an intake of her fag:  'Have you ever been tattooed before?' She’s on me, before I reply; self-derisive fangs drawn at the first timer:

‘Because, you know, we only do Bespoke Art here. If you want a Tinker bell it might be worth going somewhere else’.

I’m in.

.Hope waits for me outside – curious but not convinced.

The man that poses at reception itches his full sleeve as he signs me in-   he doesn't want to catch what I've got. He points me to the corner- first timer’s keep out the way here.

Take a pew love,he gestures arrogantly at a flat injured cushion. I pick it up dropping stuffing all over.

‘erm I think your cushion might need a rest ’

My short hand humor lands beside the cushion flattened out by his silence.In a gesture of equality I stand up tall as I can manage-at 5ft instead, occupying myself in a portfolio full of flowers and miscellaneous bullshit.

‘She’ll be with you when she decides’- he declares ominously.

I give him a swift quarter smile for the wide open rudeness he’s greeted me with- and the semi that’s just appeared in his trousers. Oz disappears behind the curtain- to fix himself a camomile and a wank.

30 minutes counting and she decides she’s kept me waiting enough.

‘So I've drawn a mock up for you. She produces a large feather that she slaps onto my stomach spit licked on, floating down me.Hope peers in – already the outsider. She gives me an effusive thumbs up I just see, over the top of the ivory wax skulls guarding the window- from the ordinary outsider.

 Out the back, the female tatooist lays me out on her block; ready for carving.

I hope this isn't a mistake.Committed to whatever it is now, I make myself comfy sliding up and down the bench covered in cling-film- no more than sweaty meat now.

I look up and notice we've got company.

Next to my bench are two other guys-, Bikers; on the road to their next lot of tattoos. Crowded chests- bared- eyes flat, the tough guys look straight ahead, full of  imitated casualness, both resting their loped, hairy knees on an overflowing bin; full of bloody tissue and drawn on dreams. Sat up straight and still- in poses that died out with finishing school, the pair try hard to embrace the experience- holding off pain in their latest initiation to being considered original.

I bet they were born cool.

'I want this covered up darling' -one of them growls pointing out with a stubby ringed finger to a childish hand written sign balancing on his over-hang: ' No pain no gain'.

I  try out a laugh; little releasing some of the anxiety I had about my tattoo being good enough-for old age.

One of their tattooists pauses for a sip of Nescafe- with a frothed top, and  the biker breathes out a barely audible sigh of relief  - darting a look over at me- caught out.

His friend taps his boots in a futile gesture of looking entertained; joining in with the off key gargling rock on the stereo- produced by the tattooists brother- from rehab.Off again, the needles judder over his belly flab, spraying blood and punching skin. Listening in I find out he’s making memorial for his mother- he didn't care for much.I smile over and it’s returned with a wink. Today we are all in this.

'I will be able to bear this won’t I? how much is it going to hurt'

 someone drops me a never end of string.

She peers over at me curiously- dropping the needles that look like barbs. In a tone laced with irony -she speaks to me- just once: It's just like a shark attack sweetheart…….you won’t feel much.

I lie out the tattoo in silence- following suit with the others. Making my first small gain since I got here, keeping this part of experience all myself.countdown and no hand holding I pass through the biting vibration and deep scrawling over and over –totally into me: My pain, my gains, something to tell the grand kids about.

I sneak a look downward, brimming over with pride and pain.

 Fuck this hurts.

At some point he can’t take much more either and one of the bikers asks for a lolly. ‘Can I have Black Currant please love’.I cast a look over at the huge bowl of treats- laid on for customers - who know they are there.What a bitch for not offering me one. 

I take time off from concentrating on getting through it and look enviously over at the help he’s getting. Happy bearded sucks at the Chuba Cap, with an occasional bite down when they go over a sore spot.

No lollies and an hour later- and I’m done.We wrap things up with a few solemn words about aftercare.

'Stay out the fucking sun and don’t go swimming'.

With a fast tracked education in music and life- all walks, I start out 21 a secret hedonist; part of a colony of young followers, attatched to nothing and no one, ‘where we going next shouts the front to the back’ -suddenly changing direction. I collect new best friends at midnight- Friday and leave them first thing Sunday, thrilled I’ll never get to know these twisted, colorful creatures in the morning, and terrified if I did, they might look like all those other straight, grey shapes that pass through Monday to Friday so ordinary and full of wool, and me still one of them.

It’s Monday. I snuggle up to my first love, for a night of icecream we ate on our holidays and our favorite comedy; spooning him- with melting loyalty. Our first anniversary balloon hovers unwelcomely in the corner of the bedroom of his mum’s house, as pink and rude as a dog’s erection. He pulls me tighter for a crushing spoon, not noticing his little bird has turned into a fork.

‘So what do you want for this Christmas baby?’ I think of friends that would fizz full of acomplishment to be asked this; three months early, and I know I should point out a necklace hanging with Cubic Zirconia he can save for. Instead, I’m appalled at his assumption of all that time he thinks we have left together. My mum hopes its forever. I stay quiet, murmuring something about the Next Catalogue, cheating my way next to him through till Friday; in a blur of Nandos dates- as a vegetarian, two sex positions I’m tired of and a part time job as a waitress at the greyhound stadium-to pay me through the uni degree I haven’t started yet, and all of it done with a fake ascent to feeling content, and content even being enough at 21.

I wear myself out being normal; frenzied by Friday for my fix of me. Friends appear, holding my hands through club doors, across dirty floors to bars paved with gold and Djs that make tunes of nothing. My boyfriend watches enviously on the sidelines of my youth-at its most precious on the weekends, drinking Stella at his local, telling his mates:  I’ve changed.

First love goes dark before Christmas, and he fucks an international student. After emotional walks on cliff tops and crisis talks on the precipice, we state irreconcilable differences: He cheated on me. My doorbell rings. His mum has returned the ballon folded into four neat corners: ‘We hoped you were going to get married’. I jump forward, a blur of confidence and Converse; never needing to lose the self righteousness of a true hedonist and tell him about my week spent rolling round with my pants barely on:  teased, educated and irrevocably altered on expensive sheets, by a beguiling older man- a custom made jewellery designer.

Life continues as it was for a bit, without him. I stand in the queue of hot food ready for plating:’ Table 2 for the Lamb’.  A roar of expletives tells me the ageing hag serving hears me, thundering towards me in her crocs and corns- angry at all   might have ahead of me. The meat’s dumped violently infront of me, a platter of congealed fatty innocence, and phoney, homemade Baxter’s gravy-now running over my hands and spoiling my cheap uniform. She appears from somewhere- for me, and I’m passsed a tea towel and a smile. The self conscious start of friendship: ‘I’m Hope’- picking up my flushed hand to clean it: ‘Hey that’s a really beautiful ring, where did you get it?’

"Excuse me" said the plus to the minus "Can you tell me how to get back to zero?"

With an infernal fear of missing out on something and chasing down everything I did twice, finding out that life should have direction (a forward one) left me at 23 years old- lost.

“Fly straight and follow the stars and keep going till the morning”

 Shouted someone I wasn't supposed to listen to or hear.

Desperate to carry youth forward- with me, I begun looking further into my scene for devious detours to stop off at before the age block of thirty was reached, and I might have to halt and admit it: "I can’t keep up with myself anymore"

Thursday night: “pate or prawns to start tonight sir”. 

My near end to a tumbleweed week . I won't let tonight pass.

 Resolutely I lay down the salt on the left next to the pepper; who says they need to be that way round.

 In my ear I hear: “Let’s take a pill later”

Hope squeezes my hand, she wants me to believe in it as much as she does.

Our  bold step forward – pushing our experience of house music over the edge we have never looked at .I squeeze her hand harder in return, and we go looking for a Brazilian waiter.

The clock crawls round to the end of our shift- I’m full of stodgy Rhubarb crumble the colour of raw meat, and nerves for the next push we've started tonight.

I reach into my stained pinny- prawn cocktail all over tonight.

The pill’s circular and pink- etched with a picture of a love heart, I laugh at the harmless, appealing look of my sweet- made for a hit higher than sugar. The Brazilian guaranteed it.

I wrap it back up.Adding some responsibility to our madness, we promise to share it in quarters - and drink lots of water.

Midnight. We drift down to the front of the queue- not stopping, with a knowing nod to the bouncer- our long term 3 am friend- for fag breaks we never smoke, only taken just to check outside isn’t better than in. At the ticket booth she  perches- a bird you wanna forget about it.“Suppose you too are in for free". The bouncer waves the go ahead and she stamps our hands (hard). Our free pass to wonderland, we intend to get more lost in tonight.

Up at the front, in a crush of feeling- I've felt before: excited, elated, built up and then... let down, by a messy climax of Electro plops and bops, smashed too early by an inexperienced DJ, but still saluted indiscriminately as awesome by a crowd of pretenders.

We rain check the set for a toilet break and a bottle of water

In a cubicle that stinks of piss, next door to an 18 year old who’s hurled her Malibu, we mark the start. I take out a Mac lipstick stubbed by my pout.

Waxy pink scrawls  on the door- Hope and Esme, 23 and curious.

We sound like we are trying out bi-sexual.

The quarter of a pill sticks just out reach of my tonsils-   innocuous as a brick and travelling down too slow.

"Let's get out of here". A piece of loo  roll, attaches to Hope, a messy train married to  the back of her Converse high-tops.

We wait out 'coming up' sat down. All eyes – pupils filled up with apprehension; ahead of the buzz.What happens if I don't like it, could I die. Fuck I want to cry.

20 minutes of nothing, and I’m feeling a curious attachment to the ordinariness eschewed by  a twenty year old life chaser.

 I don’t want to come up, I might be allergic to Ecstasy. I can't die before Christmas.

She reads me well:

“Well If you die, I’ll have your ring”.

  Humor rises above what I’m worrying for and I laugh; splitting into a thousand pieces my brain puts back together; forgetting where they went in the first place.

 My ears hold up my feet on a washing line- put up in my imagination.

"Well I errr, definitely  feel something".

"I feel everything" Hope shouts; true hedonists trying to outdo the other one.

The pill clamps onto my head that's trying to run away- back to normal.

 My pupils feel tight. I touch them with a shaky finger- my first examination I play doctor and self diagnose: "I'm fucked". Hope puts my hand on her heart; pulsing through her cut-up club T-shirt: "Did you know your my wing man".

We get up in love with this.

The Night continues different. I forget the bar and take leave of the front- reserved to be seen in.People watching, leaning on the back of a speaker with Claude all the way from LA.

Waves of  everything crash at me, beating on my chest and shaking my eyeballs like dice. I can see Doubles.

Is this norm? says the cow dancing on the moon? Desperate to get back to fields they know.I shake my head out of the wild loop it's started playing in, trying to remembering mundane detail of life before. Yesterday- my grave mistake of putting my favorite fur coat on tumble dry that turned okay, waking up late for egg and soldiers in bed- don't worry Mum I'll clear up the crumbs.

It's Short term relief.

 “ Fuck what happens if my heart explodes”

Concentrate, keep control, something in me chimes in.

All I can manage is  another messy  sip of water, and a sympathy rub that leaves a red irritation  across my sternum.

"Calm down darling, everything will be alright, get into it".

I'm out of it. The guy tries to squeeze my elbow, releasing a thousand impulses of fizzy warmth misfiring back to my brain.

I need to move. I'm made to dance.

He leads me back to where he thinks I need to be- at the front  with hope that's somehow made it back before  me.I come back to myself a bit, suddenly I'm jealous she's heard it before me.  Revelation in Music-  picked up pace, the better base  and sonic layers to explore in. Legs and feet shot with energy and love, and me with pure appreciation for nothing but this. I know Hope is in it with me.

5 am and we haven't spoke a word; communicating only in smiles that end in chews and damp, crushing hand holding.

"Have my ring babe, it would suit you, I love you, you deserve it. I want to give her everything. I pass her a straw instead, and we share the vodka and orange we've moved onto.

Once they know we are fucked we are swarmed in a hub of good nature: eyebrow stroking, and offered hands- for as much palm squeezing as I need to do. Some twat wanders off with my drink.

The club shuts down before we have and we move on –Washed up on the seafront.

We choose a large bench- undercover: sturdy, permanent, it smells of wood and vinegar.

We lie next to each other in early morning rain and thumping head pain, retreating hearts back to normal.In a tender gesture of friendship, I  reach down and take off the determined tissue still sticking to her shoe.

"When we doing that again?"

Music is the soundtrack of Youth.

I wonder  how many music scenes must you stumble through, like an uninvited guest, before you bump into a kid that dances like you, dresses like you and dreams like you. 

At 18,  I was sure of nothing and sure of this: I hadn't found a sound I’d stand up for: "So what music you into?"- asked those I’d never get to know, "Erm all sorts"  (came my weak reply)  as I struggled to give the hipsters the answers they wanted .

 RnB it didn't suit me. 

Five foot nothing without the tits and arse- and in my opinion with far more class than the average grinder, I found myself turned off by egotistcal rhymes on the dance floor which would later embolden the gold plated men children that stalked the dance floor:“Let me buy you Malibu baby”.

With grimacing sips of my sun lotion cocktail, I  would try and fit in; ignoring the blazing white loafers standing next to me ,or the overpowering scent of designer perfume assaulting me, made only for sex with horny bitches.

Indie was useless as the long haired boys that listened to it; bummed out by the meaning.

Garage made me angry. Thoughtless, clashing tempo of base and Mc’s that spiked the mike , shouting words at me like:  "brappp brap lets party through the night".

"Mix it don't spill it "  I would shout through a  crowd trapped in bad taste and kids trainers.

Putting a poor adolescent introduction to partying behind me- where clubbing had been nothing to do with the music , When I turned 20 I found her sound and i danced to it wearing converse high tops.

I was dubious when I was invited to my first House night.

"So what kind of music is it?"  I ask off tone- the groupy that needed convincing to join the group. "It's the base to every sauce; Jazz, Soul, Classic. House music makes you hungry;  I look into my friends gurned out face in the queue 10pm, he's almost over and i'm still not sure what to expect.Another mate jumps to the rescue: "House musics got nerve, you'll love it.

The queue drops a few fur coats and we are closer to entering my Narnia.

"It’s not like fucking  RNB is it?"

Inside. It's hot, a few beats in and I start to thaw, throwing myself into the mash of people moving, jiving, thriving hanging on to the white noise- thumping imperially from the DJ box. I look around – the only one that is -every one else held, alone and suspended,  following only that pied piper on the decks at the front.

Soulful, energized vocals- from a man that speaks in a mesmerizing monotone and a woman that sounds of sex, joined by  a trumpet and samples of a news broadcast all oversee tracks made about nothing you could put your finger on- that definitely mean something in the language of youth.

I look up from dancing and share a stare from the bare chest on the podium, as caught as him into it. How refreshing he doesn't look interested in fucking me.

Colored smoke blows in, hiding intimate moments we only want to share with the music.

 It also gives me time to get acquainted to the new beats that never break but shatter and evolve into the next fully rounded track;no corners.

Tucked behind a pillar off the dance floor I practice a wiggle and a thrust- dancing porno at a rave. THINK LESS, DANCE MORE,GET  ON IT. A guy wearing fairy wings an all the weight of a chicken dodging Christmas walks past, spilling Malibu on my shoe. It smells sweet in here.

 He’s right. Sober, I try and switch off all the observed etiquette to club dancing I've known till now. Tits arse, no class.  I re step it with arms in the air, feet light, head free- moving backwards  travelling towards 1960. I bump into a Mod.

Time out at the bar. People watching from a sticky  sofa.

I see heels and high hopes, scruffs and naked chests,  wide eyes, big guys who celebrate the  building temp with fisted salutes and hands in the air- for the front.

Kids I'll never know join me on the sofa- not one of them wearing lofa. All eyeballs and disco glitter. One of the guys- it doesn't matter which one, jeans and canary yellow trainers: soft air pockets, sweat wicking fabric, made for endurance. I see him again as I leave – "are you coming to the after party".

6am, I'm fucking hooked on electronic music.

Life's Sweet- sometimes

Smooth waves of pale biscuit lick the technicolor jam

Curled forever into the shape of a heart

 Sticky,  stuck, melted, eaten up pulled apart. 

        The life of a biscuit.

Corporate clothes DON'T suit me

I've always felt liked dressing up; the thrill of looking like someone you aren't but you might be.

That’s how I felt when I got my first office job.

Coming from a place where my adult image was all about standing out, I had romantic notions of what it might mean to dress up for the grown up corporate world.

 I wanted a work place I could develop a sense of sophistication that so far had been so needless in my twenties. The polished female prototype I wanted to dress up as hadn't suited my role as a student bar maid that rode a bicycle or my lifestyle choice as an all night party girl.

I hoped in an office I might style test an alternative image other than that cute, funky girl, draped in faux fur, proud owner of ten pairs of Converse high tops, and pairs and pairs of multi coloured knee high disco socks (I bet even Peter Pan longed to wear a tux just the once).

My first day as an office girl arrives.

After keen observations of the white collar worker and painstaking image preparation I’m still undecided as to whether I am groomed like a genuine corporate.

Dressed in an aptly named pencil skirt and suit jacket, the teasing sexuality I usually favour is zipped up and tucked in. Wearing safe grey tones and flattering blacks it feels like a dark time for my colourful individuality.  Even the roll neck jumper I’m wearing to induction is a safe blend of materials in a bobble proof wool and classic angora mix). As the material begins to over warm my covered skin I can’t help but wonder if the ‘modest’ image transformation I've made, from Von Teese to Miss Trunchball may be a tad melodramatic.

Stifling a giggle that feels terrible inappropriate and girly, I introduce myself at reception.

With as much conviction as I can muster, I make perfunctory joke about how I take my tea (that is usually green and detoxing) and tell the dear on reception, “I’ll have it fully fat and in a nice mug,”(the last thing I’d want to do is come across as intimidating).

Sipping on my sink tea and nibbling my custard cream in the office waiting area, I feel a long way from the mad hatter’s tea party I’m usually sat at.

With little to occupy me aside from over thumbed copies of a free In Style magazine, I look around at all the other new recruits. I stare at them with the intention of mentally sorting those that might be friends and deselecting the bores.  

 I surprise myself at suddenly feeling unequipped to make those snap decisions of who is like me with only personal appearance to go on.

Unfitted suits are worn on unforgiving shapes; two matching Beige V necks, and the glorious decoration of dangly earrings. My colleagues sit across from me as indistinguishable as a dice face thrown from a distance.

I can’t find my double.

Ever the conspirator, I long to wake up my colleagues with a peak of my tattooed thigh art that lies there hidden by my appropriately crossed leg and the length of my new pencil skirt. I wonder who else’s office attire is their style Hijab.

 Training to be a corporate begins under the phospherent glare of cheap office lighting. Those first few days pass in a creative coma as I learn slide by slide what I’ll be expected to do and expected to be.

Once it’s clear there is no one to clearly impress the personal image of my colleagues quickly declines- some are even wearing fleeces by day nine.

I mourn for lost opportunities to wear metal heels that make confident clicks on marble floors and look around the office hopefully for chivalrous men that open doors.

I chide myself as wrong to expect that in the public sector.

Payday’s pass and I observe the real style guide that ensures good humor at the office.

Never stand out or never fit in, and don’t ever brag about being thin. The  mean girls scream it but you never hear it as they huddle together leaving out those poor girls in the cold that dare to look a lot less conventional.

Chiffon scarf’s become the only labels to tell us all apart

“Oh that’s sally the one wearing the pink hearts”.

Eschewing the need for canteen chatter I continue to wear an overly slim lined trouser, metal black, turquoise piping- I know it will be considered shinier plumage than the girl next to me.

          Own clothes days are used in the office to celebrate, dispensations for those of us that occasionally like looking less ordinary.

I watch in amusement as Phil from pod three struggles to look appropriately casual for Sport Relief and remark with kindly sarcasm on how athletic his linen suit jacket and trainers combination is.

          I personally look forward to Christmas, where we are free to wear a festive jumper- I have one handpicked from the eighties.

          Then comes Jeans for Jeans Day, a chance to rock the casual cool look immortalized by James Dean.  It’s then I know my personal image might tell the ‘suits’ this office girl is really not all she seems.