The Trial of the Corporate Worker

It began, as these things often do, with an email.

I was certain it was a simple mistake, just one of those minor miscommunications that could be resolved with a few words. After all, it was only 7 a.m., the sun barely rising, and yet the tone of the message carried an unmistakable urgency, a quiet force that could not be ignored. “Can you get this done by EOD?” The phrase, though familiar, took on a weight I hadn’t anticipated. I stared at the screen, wondering who had made the error in scheduling — them or me. Surely, I had more time than this?

But there was no one to ask. In this system, you don’t question. You accept.

From that moment, the day ceased to be my own. The hours stretched before me like a labyrinth of indistinguishable tasks, each one more opaque than the last. Meetings appeared without warning, as though they had been waiting in the shadows all along, biding their time. The work piled up, but there was no real direction. A report needed to be done, but why? Another task was urgent, but for whom? I never saw the end of these tasks, never felt the satisfaction of completion. Each assignment simply dissolved into the next, without resolution, without clarity.

I became aware, slowly at first, that something had changed in my world. Where once I had been a man with a purpose, I was now a man chasing an elusive goal, one that shifted with each passing minute. There were no longer days or nights — only the endless stream of work, flowing from one demand to the next. Even the distinction between myself and the task at hand began to blur. I had become the work, and the work was me.

“Work-life balance,” they called it, as if such a thing could exist in this universe. It was whispered about, in the same way one might speak of an ancient myth, or a distant relative no one had seen in years. I had heard stories of colleagues who had once claimed to find it, this elusive balance, but they had since disappeared, swallowed up by the system. Their names were no longer spoken.

I considered asking for help, but the thought alone made me uneasy. After all, how could I explain what I was experiencing? Who would believe me? To admit that I was drowning under the weight of emails and deadlines was to admit defeat. No, it was better to push forward, to pretend that the system made sense, even as it crumbled beneath me.

And so I worked. And worked. And worked.

The system, I realized, was not designed to be understood. It was designed to be endured. Each task led to another, each deadline a step deeper into the maze. There were no answers, only more questions, more demands, more emails that arrived without context, but with the unmistakable air of finality. The work was all-consuming, but never complete.

I wondered, at times, if there was anyone at the end of it all. Perhaps, somewhere beyond the endless labyrinth of emails, meetings, and reports, there was a figure, unseen but omnipresent, who dictated these tasks. Or perhaps not. Perhaps there was only the machine, endlessly churning out demands, feeding off the energy of those trapped within it, never offering an escape.

The trial continues. I am here, still typing, still answering, still waiting for the work to end. But deep down, I know: it never will.

In the end, it is not the work that consumes us. It is the system itself.