Books set in the workplace. Think your Monday is bad?
Monday is the day we all sigh a little and think back to the lovely weekend. Some of us love our jobs and others do them knowing that the next weekend is not far away. But there are some very strange places that we’ve read about in novels recently that’s made us think that Monday mornings really aren’t all that bad after all. I mean we don’t work in the office from hell, a body farm or an asylum. None of us have just taken a new post in a new country only to find moutselves in a big old mess we can’t get out of. If you’re suffering a little from the morning blues then why not read one of the books below on your commute home and you’ll feel a whole lot better in an instant.
Here’s a quick run down of the places of work we are very pleased not to be in today:
Starting a new job in the Calcutta police force
With Abir Mukherjee
Experience some work experience here
A former Scotland Yard detective gets a new job in Calcutta and head out to start a new career but the new post is not exactly what he’s expecting. I mean a new job is bad enough without jumping straight in at the deep end!
Working on a body farm
With Angela Marsons
Experience some work experience here
This has to be one of the most intriguing and utterly gruesome places of work that I’d read about in a long while. Think your job is bad and then think what it would be like to start work on Monday morning at a body farm! Rather them than me. I can’t even watch CSI without feeling a bit grim at times.
An asylum
With Annabel Abbs
Start your work experience here
Annabel Abbs takes us right into the heart of an asylum when the daughter of James Joyce is taken there never to be released. What would it be like to be locked up like this and what about those who work there? Asylums are grim places and women especially were treated with suspicion and locked up for a range of ‘emotional problems’. The story of Lucia Joyce is a gripping read however.
Now for the offices from hell…..
An Assistant in an office
With Camille Perri
Start your work experience here
Tina works for a billionaire CEO in New York and she has to do everything and everything for him as his assistant. Her work is never done and she tirelessly tries to keep up with his quirks and ways of doing things. She barely get a minute to sit down and he doesn’t even seem to notice her. So when she’s over paid one week, she decides to keep the money. And then encourages others to follow suit. Imagine working in a place like that!
The office from hell
With Tamar Cohen
Start your work experience here
If you have ever worked with a boss from hell, or colleagues from hell who will stab you in the back as soon as you turn around, then this is the office you might recognise but will never want to work in!
These colleagues are amongst the worst I’ve ever read about, the boss is a woman I would not like to meet and there’s someone in the office who I would definitely not want to even be in the same building as!
Read this and then thank your lucky stars. But buy the book as it’s a humdinger of a Monday read!
We’d love to hear which literary setting you’d hate to work in but also the one you’d really like to work in!
