Being a corporate employee is like starring in a reality show you never auditioned for. You show up every day, pretend to be busy, nod in meetings you don’t understand, and somehow, at the end of the month, money appears in your bank account.

Sounds easy? LOL, no.

Here’s what it’s really like to be trapped in the glorious maze of PowerPoint slides, HR emails, and mysterious Excel formulas.

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1. The First-Day Illusion

You walk in, full of enthusiasm, ready to make an impact.
Your manager smiles and says, “We’re like a family here.”

Translation:
👉 You will work extra hours with no extra pay.

Your first task? “Just go through these documents to understand the workflow.”
It’s a 500-page PDF that nobody, including your boss, has ever read.

You spend the first few weeks wondering:
👉 “What does this company actually do?”

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2. Meetings: The Great Productivity Killer

Your calendar is soon filled with meetings like:

📌 “Brainstorming Session” – Where one guy talks, and everyone else secretly checks LinkedIn.

📌 “Alignment Call” – Where you try to understand what the previous meeting was about.

📌 “Touch Base” – Where the same discussion happens, but now with different PowerPoint slides.

After a while, you master the “mute button while pretending to listen” strategy. Your camera stays off, and your default response becomes:
👉 “Yes, let’s circle back on that.”

(Which means: “I have no idea what’s happening, but I don’t want to be the only one.”)

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3. The Email Nightmare

Every morning, you wake up to 100+ unread emails—most of them irrelevant, except for that one urgent one hidden in the spam folder.

Then there’s that one co-worker who replies to “All” on every email.

“Thanks!”
“Noted.”
“Will check and get back.”

Bro, we didn’t need that.

Meanwhile, your real work is now buried under 47 email threads and a surprise “quick call” with the boss.

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4. Promotions & Appraisals: The Waiting Game

Every year, the company pretends to care about your career growth.

HR calls it a “performance review.”
You call it “a polite way to say ‘Try harder next year’.”

Your manager praises your “valuable contributions” and then offers you a 3% raise (which is less than inflation). Meanwhile, you see the company posting record profits.

You consider quitting.
Then you check your bank balance and realize: “Maybe next year.”

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5. Office Politics: The Hunger Games

Corporate life is less about talent and more about navigating egos.

👑 The Boss’s Favorite – Doesn’t do much but gets all the credit.
📢 The Overenthusiastic Guy – Speaks in corporate jargon like “synergy” and “low-hanging fruit.”
🔍 The Silent Observer – Knows everything but says nothing.
💼 The HR Team – Shows up only to talk about “employee engagement” (aka, a Zoom quiz nobody attends).

One wrong move, and suddenly you’re “not a team player.”

So you smile, nod, and pretend to care about everyone’s weekend plans.

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6. Work-Life Balance: A Myth

Your contract says 9 to 5.
Your workload says 24/7.

Your laptop follows you home. Your phone pings at dinner. That “one last email” turns into a full-blown crisis.

Your boss sends a message at 11 PM:
👉 “Hey, quick thing…”

There’s nothing quick about it.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn tells you:
👉 “If you love your job, it doesn’t feel like work!”

LOL, who is believing this nonsense?

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7. The Existential Crisis

One fine day, you stare at your screen and wonder:
👉 “Is this my life now?”

Your dreams of starting a business, traveling the world, or becoming a billionaire have been replaced by…
✔ PowerPoint presentations
✔ Team bonding activities
✔ Excel sheets that crash at the worst time

You think of quitting again. Then HR announces a free pizza party.
You stay another year.

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Final Thoughts: Embrace the Madness

Corporate life is a survival game. You either play along or get played.

But deep down, you know the truth:
👉 Nobody actually knows what they’re doing.

So you learn the rules, collect your paycheck, and dream about the day you’ll finally say…

“I quit!”

(But not today. The EMI is due.) 😆