Ahh the young working life. I remember it un-fondly from the bygone days of my employment.

You don’t really want to be there. The company doesn’t really want you to be there. But you only cost $40,000, so everyone kind of just puts up with it.

I’ve been work from home pretty much since COVID, but I had two solid years of office life to understand the daily 9-5 grind. For very young adults, it’s the same cycle every day:

Get up too early and throw on the same clothes you used to wear to your Catholic high school.

Grab an iced coffee to keep yourself from dying on the green line.

Pack in with the other sardines on a train that’s going to break down two stops from where you need to go.

Follow the horde of khaki-clad zombies to your office, which you struggle to find because all the buildings are equally depressing.

Limp slightly because your muscles just hurt now for some reason.

Make a half-hearted joke about how you really need the coffee this morning to a coworker on the edge of a nervous breakdown because the website font is size 36 instead of size 34.

Go to the bathroom to swap your sweaty walking shirt for a slightly less sweaty work shirt (this might just be a me thing).

Stand in the bathroom stall for a few minutes with your eyes closed. This is the last peace you will know for 8 hours.

Throw your shit onto your desk chair so people know you’re around even though you’re not actually around.

Immediately leave the office to buy a $16 breakfast sandwich from some hipster café, which you convince yourself fits in your diet because there’s arugula below the 8 ounces of bacon and cheese.

Bang out all your work before noon then just sit around until 5:00 rolls around.

Continue sitting around until a random time like 5:38 so it doesn’t seem like you bounce right at 5.

Rinse & repeat…

Sorry if I triggered any youngsters out there. That was the routine as I remember it. Granted, I, like many 22-year olds, was not exactly a model employee. (To prospective employers: I manage a blog and a freelance business simultaneously, I clearly got my act together).

But I’m sure most people reading this remember those really early days of corporate life. In your head, you’re still a college kid. You go out on weeknights, sleep in, and only care about the paycheck. The only problem is, you now have an actual obligation to go to work. In college, if you skip your 9AM class, you just count it as one of your 3 excused absences allotted for the semester. In work, if you skip your 9AM all hands meeting, you lose your health insurance. Bottom line is that when you’re 22-23, conflict will arise between the lifestyle you lead and the lifestyle you SHOULD be leading.

As a result, you show up to work in pretty rough shape sometimes. And trust me, I was no exception.

Having said that, I ain’t no bitch. I don’t let a hangover take me away from my responsibilities. I firmly believe that if you want to be a man at night, you have to be a man in the morning. So I actually never once left work early because I was hungover. I took power naps on the shitter LIKE AN ADULT. But I did leave work early for some preposterous reasons during my first few years in the real world. Bear in mind this is all pre-COVID so work from home wasn’t really a thing yet. Here’s my definitive power rankings of actual reasons I cut out of work early:

5. Daytime Sox game

Gonna be honest, I was not too subtle about this one. I had a Sox jersey on the back of my desk chair the entire day and kept talking about how it was “great baseball weather out there.” Not even sure what lie I told my manager to cut out at like 1. Probably said I had to run to the doctor as I buttoned up my jersey, put on eye black, and pounded my glove a few times in anticipation of a hard-hit grounder.

4. First day of March Madness

Technically didn’t leave the office early that day, but mentally I checked out at noon. The first day of Madness, for those who don’t know, is always on a Thursday. And because the White House has rudely ignored my letters requesting that day be a national holiday, we’re forced to go to work instead of getting drunk and enjoying wall-to-wall chaos for 12 straight hours. So, I had to take matters into my own hands. I booked one of our many windowless conference rooms from 12PM-5PM, and hung out in there for five hours streaming basketball on the tv. Got all of my work done more efficiently than usual, which should have been an early sign that work from home is a better option. Also invited a select few trustworthy co-workers to pop in between meetings and watch alongside me. Did my job and built office morale/camaraderie in one fell swoop. I have upper management potential written all over me.

3. SEVERE digestive issues

You might be reading that like I had a legitimate medical emergency, but I assure you that was not the case. As I remember it, I had gone to the bar the night before and had 12 too many. On top of that, I spent roughly $60 on Chinese food primarily for myself. So as you can imagine, there was a storm a brewing in my lower intestine. Unfortunately, my radar hadn’t yet picked up on that storm.

The day started off ok. I was hungover, but nothing debilitating. But then I made a fatal error. I tried to combat the hangover, naturally, with a greasy breakfast sandwich and a large iced coffee. The second it hit my stomach, I realized what I had done. Of course my office had ample bathrooms, but none of them were individual rooms. They were all communal. And that just wouldn’t do. I have no problem with using public bathrooms, but I had to consider my coworkers. Nobody needed to be subjected to the intestinal hurricane that would soon ravage a helpless toilet bowl. So I made the difficult decision to claim my stomach hurt (technically not a lie) and pack it up for the day. Needed to fight this battle on my home turf. If I could do it all over again, I’d make the same choice. Lives were spared that day.

2. Crippling heartburn

I’m a BIG heartburn guy. Been eating TUMS like they’re sweet tarts since I was about 18 years old. Not to mention that my diet back then was all time bad. But as long as I took preventative measures, heartburn never really reared it’s ugly, acidic head.

I was taking a drug called Omeprazole for some time. Omeprazole reduces the amount of acid in your stomach so you can’t get reflux as easily. Works like an absolute charm. But one weekend I went harder on the partying and Uber Eats-ing then usual. To make matters worse, I ran out of Omeprazole on Sunday morning. So that Monday, I decided I’d pick some up at CVS on my walk back home from work. But, with my defenses finally down after months of defending the esophageal wall, my stomach acid roared to full strength and rose up, emboldened by the bread, burger and booze cocktail I had fed to it just a day prior.

Heartburn sucks. But usually with TUMS and time, it’s quickly manageable. Usually.

This time it could not be quelled. I felt a burning so hot in my chest that I couldn’t move for fear of exacerbating the pain. Quickly I began doing everything WebMD recommended to put out the fire. I drank water like I had just escaped from the Book of Exodus. I crushed a quart of milk that I’m now pretty sure was for people to put in their coffee and was not meant to be drank straight out of the carton. I ate a banana, because potassium or whatever. And I took double the amount of TUMS you’re supposed to consume in a day. None of it worked. I ended up spending the next 3 hours pacing around a storage closet, spitting into a water bottle like a dip addict, just trying to will the pain away.

Eventually, I couldn’t take it. I claimed I was feeling fever-ish and went outside to walk off the burn. About 25 minutes into the walk, the burning subsided enough for me to be able to function but by that point I was like 5 minutes from home, so I decided to call it.

1. Spilled Chipotle on my khakis

This is my personal favorite. Used to work right near a Chipotle and would crush it probably bi-monthly. One day I’m in there looking to have a nice sit down lunch and burn a few extra minutes off the old work clock. So I order an especially full bowl that’ll take me some time to eat. Problem was, the thing was a little too full. When I went to shake it to disperse the flavors around, the weight of the ingredients forced the lid open and a mountain of meat, cheese, sour cream, and bean juice landed directly on the crotch of my khakis.

Now I don’t mind being in the office with a little food stain on my shirt. Shit happens. Can’t get embarrassed by every little thing. But this…this was different. It looked like my pants participated in a color run without me. The BEST case assumption someone could make when looking at my khakis was that I somehow shit the front of my pants. So yeah, I wasn’t about to endure that humiliation. I Slacked my manager, said I had to run home early to deal with a maintenance issue that probably actually existed in that mouse-infested shithole, and finished my work day in Chipotle-less basketball shorts.

Again, I swear to God I’m a model employee now. Just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to reflect on 22-year old George’s antics.