I was bright, ambitious and hardworking.
Despite this, two years after graduating, and eighteen months since landing my dream job, I was still at the bottom of the pile.
That’s the way it felt day after long day as I slaved away inputting data and going on errands.
Everything had to be done in a hurry and there was never any thanks.
I was working for a corporate giant – no names, but they are one of the top five tech firms in the country.
I knew that when I started as an intern with them that it would not be easy.
I knew in the winter I would never see daylight because I would be getting up before dawn and leaving the office late at night.
I knew I would have to do things that took zero intelligence.
But that was fine to start with, because very soon I would start rising up the ranks. By the time I was thirty-five I would be on an eye-watering salary.
Thirty-five is still young enough to party. Right?
However, a year passed, and the end of another year was looming and there was not a single glimmer of hope that I would ever be anything other than a nobody.
A loser with permanent indigestion from having to bolt down over-priced sandwiches in the fifteen minutes I got for lunch, and bags under my eyes from my alarm going off at five a.m. every morning.
A number of the interns who had started around the same time as me, had already left. There was no such things as leaving parties. One day, they were simply no longer there.
I was still hanging in, hating it but refusing to give up.
Until, one Monday afternoon, I was called to a meeting by David from Personnel.
I remembered David from my interview. He had sat silently taking notes as I was grilled about my suitability to work for next to nothing, and occasionally sent me emails reminding me to fill in my timesheets correctly.
I had a bad feeling as I caught the elevator up to the tenth floor, the domain of Personnel. The door to David’s office was open. I took a deep breath and went in.
He was sat behind his desk tapping at a laptop. The only other things on his desk were a bottle of mineral water and a company issued mobile phone. Personal effects were not allowed.
There wasn’t another chair for me to sit in, so I stood as David continued to tap away. After a long, uncomfortable silence, he said, “Your performance has been graded inadequate on all five pillars of excellence which the company is founded on, so I am afraid to say your internship is being ended.”
He finally looked up at me, then added. “With immediate effect. Your security pass to access the building has been cancelled. Please leave now. Do not speak to anyone on your way out.”
I was stunned.
Sure, I was struggling but I had done everything that had been asked of me. And I had made so many sacrifices.
I had no private life. I’d been too stressed and tired to go on anything resembling a date since I’d started working there. And I’d maxed out my credit card so I could pay for my travel to and from work and buy smart clothes. That debt was not going away.
And yet here they were, letting me go.
I had to say something.
I took a deep breath and was about to launch into a passionate defence of my potential, then I saw that David was once again focused on his laptop.
It was like I wasn’t there anymore.
I sighed and turned around and left the room.
I paused in the corridor. My head was spinning and I thought I was going to be physically sick.
I closed my eyes, trying to get a grip. Took shallow, regular breaths.
When I opened my eyes, I did not feel any better. I felt like I had been cut adrift and left alone in a frightening place.
I clenched my fists, told myself it was going to be OK, and set off walking down the corridor.
The elevator I had come up in was not far. I could be outside the building in ten minutes, breathing fresh air. As soon as I could, I would write a new resume and start applying for jobs. I would bounce back.
Starting to feel a bit better, I looked out for the elevator. But it wasn’t there. Had I passed it by accident? Or had I taken a wrong turn when I had left David from Personnel’s office?
That must have been it.
Still, it was nothing to worry about. I’d find another elevator soon and would be out of this horrible place.
Ten minutes later I was still walking along the same corridor. It was a dreary, bland space and strip lamps in the ceiling cast a dull, white glow over everything.
There were offices to either side of the corridor with clear views into them. I had never really thought about it before, but as I looked in them it struck me how every room looked the same. There were long desks with chairs around them and a flip chart, and a couple of empty plastic tumblers from a water cooler lying on their sides on the table.
The executive offices were closed off and private but these team meeting rooms were so uniform and bleached of all life.
I just wanted to get away from them.
But this corridor showed no signs of ending.
Maybe I could call someone to ask for directions? I thought. I looked down at my personal mobile phone but there was no signal.
And besides, was I really going to call reception and tell them I was lost?
Today had been humiliating enough already.
I’d keep going instead. Eventually, there had to be an exit.
Thirty minutes later I was starting to get worried. The same corridor, the same offices, were all I could see.
I stopped for a moment. I’d had panic attacks before – all of them caused by work – and I could feel one building.
I was finding it hard to breathe.
I tried to find a calm space inside me. When that didn’t work, I tried to visualise a beach, the waves lapping gently against the sand.
No, that was no use either.
I really was struggling to breathe. I had to get out of there. Like now.
I set off walking again, at a much quicker place. “Hello,” I called out. “Is there anyone around? Where’s the nearest elevator or the stairs? Someone. Hello?”
No reply came.
The only sounds were the buzz of the strip lamps and my heart beating way to fast. I could hear it inside my head.
Trying not to lose it, I walked on.
Then, at last, I saw someone else. They were stepping out of one of the rooms a couple of dozen feet along the corridor. I could only see their back, but they were wearing the same corporate uniform of light shirt and dark trousers as me.
“Hey,” I called out and started to jog towards them. “Can you help me please, I’m lost.”
But they didn’t turn round.
I ran faster. I did not want to lose them. They would know the way out. They must.
Then they stepped out of the corridor into another meeting room. I followed. There was a table, chairs, flip chart and two empty plastic cups – but the person I had been pursuing was not in the room.
There was, though, a door on the far side of this room. I made my way to it, opened it.
It led to another corridor which stretched out in both directions as far as I could see.
I put my head in hands.
I felt disorientated, frightened and alone.
I was very thirsty as well. I couldn’t have faced food because I felt sick with worry, but my mouth was parched.
Then it struck me, the presence of the plastic cups meant there had to be a water cooler some place around here.
I started walking along the corridor, driven on by my thirst.
My sense of time was slipping by now, but I think another hour or so passed, and the landscape of corridor and offices did not change.
Then, I hit pay-dirt.
I saw a water cooler and another person.
They were sat on the floor with their back against the wall next to the water cooler. I could see from this distance that it was a young man, around my own age. Once again, he was dressed in the corporate uniform: light shirt and dark trousers.
I felt too weak to run or shout out, so just walked up to him and said, “Hey, am I ever glad to see you, and this cooler. I am so thirsty.”
He looked up at the sound of my voice. As he did, I recognised him. It was one of the interns who had started around the same time as me but had left a few weeks ago.
As ever, there were no explanations, no goodbyes. He simply had not been there one day.
I tried to remember his name, but it wouldn’t come.
“It really is good to see you, dude,” I said. Dude would suffice in place of a name, I figured. “I’m going to grab a cup of water and then I’ll get out of here, if you can show me the way.”
I reached for one of the little plastic cups in their holder next to the cooler – and he bared his teeth and snarled.
I stopped mid-reach, shocked by his weird behaviour.
“Hey, dude, chill,” I said. “I’m just getting some water.”
“This is my water,” he replied His voice was hoarse and l noticed that his lips were cracked. “There is not enough for anyone else. Keep walking.”
I looked at him, into his eyes. There was an anger in them. And a savagery.
There was no way I was going to argue with him.
I held up my hands. “Ok, dude. Don’t have a coronary. I’ll move on, leave you with your stupid water.”
What a jerk, I thought. A crazy one, at that.
The corridor stretched on ahead of me. I carried on walking.
Soon, I started getting a headache. I guessed it was a combination of stress, dehydration and the glare of the strip lamps.
Was this how people who are lost in the wilderness felt? I wondered.
Were they kept going by the hope that a way out was just ahead?
A hope that grew fainter and fainter with every step taken.
I froze.
There was something ahead of me in the corridor.
Things had suddenly got a whole lost worse.
I inched forwards, repulsed and fascinated by what I was seeing.
The skeleton was lying on the floor. Its skull faced me. Its teeth were fixed in a rictus grin.
There were still clothes on the bones. The torn remains of the corporate uniform.
Someone – maybe another intern, an intern like me – had not made it out of the corridors and offices alive.
Sweat trickled down my forehead.
I wiped my hand across it then looked at the back of my hand where it was now wet.
I could not afford to give up any liquid, I decided, so I licked my sweat off my hand.
It felt primitive. Desperate.
I stepped over the skeleton.
You’re so fired, I thought and suppressed a hysterical laugh as I walked on.
I think a day, maybe longer, must have passed before I again saw anything other than corridor or offices.
It was a dark patch, of something, that was smeared across a wall. As I came closer, I could see that it was red.
I told myself that it wasn’t blood, even though I knew it was.
I kept walking.
It would have been night outside now, in the world beyond this endless corridor and the offices, but it was still light where I was.
It would always be light. The strip lamps would keep emitting their white glow.
I tried to remember how long a person could go without drinking any liquids before they started getting really ill, then dying…
… ending up as bones wearing rags on the floor of a corridor.
… their blood smeared across a wall.
But I couldn’t think straight.
Not long, was the best answer to my own question, that I could come up with.
I couldn’t go on like this much longer and survive.
I almost gave up then. Almost sat down and hugged my knees to my chest and waited for the inevitable.
But fate – mocking, sadistic fate – had other ideas for me.
I was standing there when I saw her.
She was sitting in one of the chairs in one of the offices off the never-ending corridor.
And I recognised her.
Her name was Sally-Anne and I had had a crush on her. She’d been an intern as well. She was a couple of years older than me. And she was so beautiful, with long blond hair that fell almost to her waist.
I had dreamt about being with her, but I knew there was no way someone as amazing as her would ever go out with me.
Then, one day, she simply had not been there.
Yet, here she was.
Her clothes were wrinkled and dirty and her blond hair hung limp and greasy. There were bags under her eyes and her fingernails had been bitten down to the quick.
A bead of cold sweat trickled down the back of my neck.
It wasn’t her appearance, shocking as that was. It was the way she was looking at me.
There was the anger I had seen in the eyes of the other intern. The savagery.
She looked like she was ready to tear me apart.
I wanted to get away from her. To run and never look back, but the last of the strength had been stolen from me by fear.
I stood there shaking as she rose from the chair and walked out into the corridor.
She came right up to me.
She stank of stale sweat and worse – this young woman who I had adored. This once stylish, beautiful lady.
Her cracked lips twisted into the darkest of smiles.
“So,” she said, “you think you’re a suitable candidate for the next opportunity.”
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I managed to reply.
“Don’t give me that!” She pretty much spat the words in my face. “The network is saying there is another opportunity coming up. I’ve heard them talking about it… whispering, whispering. Well, it’s mine I tell you. I am the best candidate. You are not even worth short-listing.”
Her voice had risen in volume as she spoke, and she had inched even nearer. I was backed against a wall. Her breath was a fetid mist.
“Honestly,” I said, “I don’t understand. All I want is to get out of here.”
My words made her bare her teeth. Flecks of foam appeared at the corners of her mouth. “You do want to take the opportunity then,” she growled. “But I won’t let you. When it opens up, I am taking it.”
And when she said that, things clicked into place.
“The opportunity is a way out of this place. A literal opening.” I was thinking out loud when I said this.
My mind was racing, the possibility of escaping tumbling through my thoughts.
“You get it,” she said. “I’ve seen others go, while I’ve been left behind. Overlooked. My talents ignored. Well, no more. I will do anything it takes to succeed.”
So, this was it.
It was her or me.
I bared my teeth. Threw myself at her.
I eliminated the competition. Which made me the only available candidate when the next opportunity came up.
There’s a saying: Big business is a dog-eat-dog world.
Well, in the nightmare place I had been in, the dogs walked on two legs.
But I had done what I had to do to get out.
And here I was.
The successful candidate.
Walking down the sidewalk.
I paused. There was something in my mouth, caught in my teeth. I pried it out with my fingers, looked at it. It was a bit of meat, with a strand of long blond hair still attached. I dropped it on the ground, forgot about it.
It was time for me to focus.
I had a career to build, and nothing was going to get in my way.