“SO, IT’S A pyramid?” I say to the HR manager who has tried to explain the managerial structure of the organisation I have just started working for.

“No”, she says. “It’s not a pyramid. It just looks like one.”

Okay. I can see she’s not going to back down from her POV, and I don’t have the energy or the desire to fight her on it. I’ve been working in offices on and off for the past 20 years, all the while cultivating a moderately successful writing career. There are many writers working office jobs.

Donal Ryan famously returned to his Civil Service gig after the success of The Spinning Heart, and Caitriona Lally was awarded The Rooney Prize for Literature in Trinity College Dublin, where she was also working as a cleaner at the time.

I like working as a receptionist because I like interacting with people, and it doesn’t take up too much of my brain space that I would prefer to save for writing. This particular receptionist job, I had just taken, was about as corporate as you can get. They could dictate how I looked and how I smelled, “Is that Dior Poison you have on? No? Good.” The pay was great, and I had a pension for the first time and health insurance.

The rules issued to me at my onboarding often came with caveats: There are no canteen facilities, but you may eat at your desk. Actually, no, you can’t eat at your desk because you are client-facing. No eating in the boardrooms either, except on the final Thursday every month, when there will be a pizza party with fine wine served there from 6 pm.

“Where can I eat my lunch?” I ask, confused already. “There’s a nice little Italian down the way.” She replies. “And I can bring my sandwich and eat it there?” Of course not.

“Some people have their lunch on the benches by the quays outside.” She says in front of a backdrop of angry seagulls and lashings of rain. Great.

She brings me to the front desk and sits me down in front of two large screens. One was blank, and the other looked like the interface of some kind of cardiac medical device. “If someone calls for Clem, you can transfer them to Donna like this. And if Donna doesn’t pick up, you can transfer them to Valerie, who’ll transfer it to Clem. And if Valerie doesn’t pick up, you can just transfer it to me. Just click my name here and transfer, see?” I nod.

I hadn’t fully understood what she had just explained, but I’m afraid it had something to do with the pyramid she showed me earlier, and I don’t want to ask any questions in case it comes across that I haven’t been listening. It’s probably better to learn on the job. I’ll be fine, I assure her. I have the numbers for the couriers and a long list of staff names in front of me, whom I instantly start creating imaginary personalities and avatars for in my head. The HR manager turns up the flatscreen TV in front of my desk before she goes. Sky News: more bombing; more deaths; more environmental disasters; more dangerous megalomaniacs doing catastrophic things, and I get to sit here and watch them all day long. Lucky me.

Playing ball

As my time goes on, more rules become apparent. If the HR manager tells me she likes my top, and it looks like something she wore to Break for The Border in the 90s, it means that she doesn’t like it and I am never to wear it again, I have been warned.

If one of the secretarial staff tell me that they never received my email about uncollected post, I am not to send them on a copy of the time stamped email I sent them on Monday. They’ve worked here way longer than I have and if they say they never received it, they never received it. Another associate makes it clear to me that it is my job, as receptionist, to ensure the toilets are flushed. This was not in the job description when I applied.

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I become absorbed by these worlds with their written and unwritten rules. The dynamics at play and the things me and my colleagues do to get by as the large sky news screen looms. Is the world ending around us? Are we supposed to do something about it? Does the photocopier need a new toner cartridge? How else would I pay my bills?

“We need more Barry’s Gold Blend Tea Bags, that’s a special order.” the HR Manager says to me one day as I sit there dissociating in front of the TV screen. Hope you can contain your excitement.” She says. “You’ll probably write a play about us one day.”

I probably will.

The world premiere production of The Lunch Punch Power Hour in Conference Room 4, written by Caitríona Daly and directed by Raymond Keane, is coming to the Peacock Stage at the Abbey Theatre from 31 July to 6 September 2025. For tickets and further info, check out abbeytheatre.ie. Caitríona Daly is a playwright and screenwriter from Dublin. She was the eighth recipient of the Irish Theatre Institute’s Phelim Donlon Bursary and Residency Award.