A great “office water cooler” drama from Joshua Ferris

It’s 10:30am. The clock is ticking ever-so-slowly. Judy in HR is fluttering around, trying to get your attention about something or other, but you’re unfortunately distracted by Russell from design and marketing babbing EXTREMELY loudly about some menial event. Again. Time for a little away time. Time for a break at the office water cooler. Sounding familiar yet?
Joshua Ferris, an up and coming new writer hailing from Florida and living in Brooklyn has conjured up a very true to life, touching account of just this- the every day comings and goings of the employees of an advertising agency in his book “Then We Came to the End”. They’re overworked and underpaid, and spend their working life finding ways to kill blocks of time. E.g. One of Benny’s stories = a decent fifteen minutes. Finding the donuts with which to have coffee whilst listening to Benny’s story = at least another eight or nine minutes. We journey with the characters as they worry about who has whose original chair, as they see good friends being made redundant and speculate as to who will be next, and as they “sit next to someone all morning, only to cross over the road to avoid them at lunch”. Of course, the characters often get together to gossip around the office water cooler, and guess what- a lot of what they have to say rings so true to life that there are many laugh-out-loud moments; and more than a few times when you shouldn’t laugh, but simply can’t help yourself. In Ferris’ words, “It’s the story of your life, and mine”, and an irresistible page turner.