‘It started as a coping mechanism’: how a dead-end job became Natalie Sue’s ticket to success

Critics are calling Natalie Sue’s new workplace comedy a “delight” comparable to TV classic The Office. But it started as a coping mechanism in an all-too-common situation.

I used to work in a typical office – and if you’ve spent any time in one, you’d recognise the grey industrial carpeting, the water-stained ceiling tiles, and the soul crushing sentiments such as: “Living the dream.”

During this time, I formed a bit of a soft spot for the mild type of drama that can happen in such an environment.

The kind that comes with sharing a fridge with miscellaneous weirdos that we’d never of freewill or sound mind choose to spend half our waking lives with.

I even used to update a few trusted colleagues via email on all the important developments they’d missed during their time off.

‘Miscellaneous weirdos that we’d never choose to spend half our waking lives with’ … as so brilliantly shown by Ricky Gervais in The Office, the likes of David Brent are all too real.

Matters such as: How long it took for someone to refill the water jug; a full summary of my interactions with my work nemesis highlighting why they are The Worst; and my suspicions that someone was sleeping in the boardroom – backed by evidence.

I loved writing that email, it was the first seed. Observing the office and finding the humour behind it all began to subvert the blah of a job that I was starting to suspect wasn’t right for me. The dire and unreliable printer situation became fodder – it was like a social experiment observing each individual’s unique way of dealing with the issue (most people pretend not to notice). I employed a similar technique while sitting through tiresome meetings. I began to enjoy the show of it all, complete with terrible acting from those who were trying to appear excited about a new incentive program (the prize being a single slice of hardening pizza in the breakroom).

Offices are such bizarre and interesting environments. We’re meant to exhibit a composed facade no matter what is going on personally, but we’re seeing the same people every day — for years sometimes, and there’s a part that can’t be professional or even all that normal. We will get to know our colleagues, at least a version of them, and the chaos of humanity will seep in. We see it in the unlikely friendships, the officewide email warning that there’s a hummus thief, and the subtle clues about an affair that we all had to live witness and piece together in a collective project (the team building reaching its highest mark that summer).

‘Your prize is a piece of pizza’ … the sort of incentive that could have come from Brent’s American counterpart, Michael Scott (played by Steve Carrell in The Office US).

Much later, during an inappropriate (and let’s say long forgotten) DM conversation I was having on work servers, I suddenly remembered the login disclaimer that advised that nothing is private. I had a daymare that some higher up may have been reading the frankly, horrifying, stuff I’d written, and was compiling excepts into a document to bring into a HR meeting where I’d be publicly shamed. And It came to me: What if someone had access to all the messages and emails, by accident? The thought excited me with its possibilities. It was exactly the type of story that would highlight the characters, the awful yet wonderful humans of the workplace and their many facets. And so, an idea for a novel was born.

So much of who we are at work is hidden away for good reason (it is in theory a professional setting, after all). I thought it would be fascinating to lift the veil and explore how the personas we present clash with our “real selves.” In turn, I left out as many details about the actual job the employees did as possible. Because it’s a story about work that has so little to do with that. It’s about the real person behind the jerk that breaks a printer and just … walks off. It’s wondering if they’ve ever had the same brand of existential crisis that we’re all wasting our time under that fluorescent lighting. It’s about the personal lives we see in the subtle clues: the pictures on someone’s desk, the tans people sport after time off, and the extra bags under a colleague’s eyes during a week of tardiness.

‘A coping mechanism that became something more’ … Natalie Sue, author of I Hope This Finds You Well.

I suppose I started my debut as a coping mechanism for a job that was getting harder to tolerate, but it quickly became something more. Now I think of it as a love letter to people working at an office, who are doing their best with what they were given. Being a cog in a machine that often doesn’t care about us can be isolating, but my hope is that we can start to see each other (at least sometimes), and maybe appreciate the ridiculousness of certain office situations. I have a feeling some may understand it all too well.

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue is out now, published by HarperCollins.

Share your office (and book!) confessions at the Sunday Book Club group on Facebook. And check out our Book Of The Month: The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley. Order it now for 40% off the RRP at Booktopia. Until June 30, on ISBN 9780008385101.

‘A love letter to people working at an office’ … I Hope This Finds You Well.

Originally published as ‘It started as a coping mechanism’: how a dead-end job became Natalie Sue’s ticket to success