Ever been stuck in an utterly soul-sucking job? I thought I had had this experience, many times in fact. But the reality was that I actually had no idea what it truly meant to be in a fluorescent hellscape of an office environment prior to me taking my most current job, at which I will have sunk a year of my life into this upcoming Monday. So, on the occasion of the upcoming anniversary at my sucky job, I wanted to sit down and write about it.

What makes this place so bad? I think my coworker said it best today, “It’s the people that make this job hard, not the work itself.” Our office is a never-ending carousel of drama and interpersonal squabbles both petty and explosive. It’s like a reality show if reality shows had ugly sets, uncharismatic personalities, and no end point. It’s Survivor without the sole survivor. Just an eternity of outlasting, outwitting, and outplaying.

I’ve seen more of my co-workers cry than I have my family members, so in that way I suppose we have all grown rather close to each other. When I began working there, there was a tyrannical woman serving as the head of our department. A wizened old accountant from Philadelphia, she suffered no fools, even in cases where that maybe wasn’t an admirable trait.

My first day there, I arrived early. It was the Monday after Superbowl Sunday and Valentine’s Day was right around the corner and I remember passing a display in a nearby flower shop. It was filled with oversized teddy bears all collapsed together as if they had just completed a drunken orgy. I thought it was cute so I stopped and snapped a pic. Then I smiled to myself and moved forward, admiring the sunrise over the distant city skyline as I strolled to the office. I was going to my new job and it was the start of a new chapter and it was going to be a great day.

These hopes were immediately dashed when I entered my new office and the first sight I was greeted by were the panicked eyes of another associate who informed me that she had no idea anyone was starting that day. I was a bit perturbed, but wanted to be accommodating, so I sat and waited until our manager arrived about 90 minutes later.

This woman came in like a cold gust of wind. I can still see her eyes slicing through me as she walked past, asking me if I was sure I had the right date. The rest of my first day passed much the same way. I felt like I had done something wrong for coming into work at the date and time that was requested of me and it was weird.

Things continued to be weird. My relationship with the difficult manager evolved overtime. While she was never my biggest advocate, she did seem to eventually develop a begrudging respect for me. She was never a beacon of kindness – but I thought we worked out an understanding.

Until eventually she decided to pull the plug on the whole gig and resign. I thought in her absence things could get better, but the leadership after her has proven that things can always get worse. In the meantime I’ll be looking for a way to turn in my torch and get off this island.