A short novel that manages to be both sharply funny and yet full of dark despair. Marisa displays perfect workplace ennui (self-medicating with YouTube videos and Ativan) but she is also spiralling from the death of her colleague, and her feelings of being stuck. The company's weekend away looms ever-closer and I felt sure everything would fall apart for her, but if you believe the ending then it finishes on a high!
I loathe the dynamics of meetings. I think some people enjoy them because they’re a way to avoid working. I think other people use meetings as a self-love bath, to feel important. I can’t stand the smorgasbord of clichés, the typical funny stories, the Anglicisms to try to add significance to the simplest procedures, the need to involve the pope and his mother in every minor project, or the tennis match that develops when someone wants to pass the buck and it gets lobbed right back.
