The ad appeared every two weeks, it was for a very big company, Adeola never thought of applying because she was very pessimistic and didn’t ever think she would beat all the other candidates but he ad was still up there and she reminded herself of her favorite saying. “Success is on the other side of fear” and then she took the leap and applied.

In about a week she had gotten the job and was hired, the pay was not as she expected and the hours looked grueling but all she told herself was that the experience and company would look good on her resume/cv and she would learn a lot. They hired her and told her to resume work the very following day. She took it all with a smile and as she walked in the office was clean in the way hospitals are clean. Everyone was polite, overly so, the smiles were also cold. No one introduced themselves unless spoken to first. No one lingered, no office gist or socialisation between the workers, it felt like robots were working there. Her manager welcomed her warmly. Compliments came fast and he also complimented her looks, and the shape of her body in the open floor. Everyone continued their work as if it was a normal thing and so she just swallowed it up, the compliments were sharply followed by expectations . “We move quickly here,” he said, smiling.

“You’ll catch up and must be able to work under pressure”

Sometimes he would stand in the center of the open-plan office and scream at junior analysts until they trembled, mocking their education and their families.

Day one ended late. Day two ended later. By the end of the first week, she learned not to log off on time. Someone always noticed. Someone always commented. Always with a laugh Mistakes are corrected in meetings, in group chats, in emails cc’d to half the department. Questions were tolerated once, resented twice, punished the third time. The workload grew, well past what she had applied for and the advert said when she applied. She was always heavily caffeinated She noticed how people flinched at emails. How conversations that were already very rare occurences stopped when management walked by.

By the second week, the tone changed. The little warmth evaporated. Deadlines were shortened without notice, then used as evidence of incompetence. Meetings turned into interrogations, and oppurtunities to belittle workers and make them feel less of themselves Sleep became shallow. Sundays were her worst days, because it was a constant reminder that the next day was Monday and she would have to go back to work/hell the following day. Her chest tightened every morning before work, she was always anxious. She watched as her supervisor was forced to stand in a corner for an hour because of a minor typo in a draft.

Sleep was treated as a sign of disloyalty, and the "emergency" weekend calls were actually just tests to see how quickly employees would jump She asked a colleague one day about about the work environment. The colleague looked at her for a long moment, then shrugged. “People here don’t last,” they said. “It’s not personal.” It was deeply personal. The pay hit her account that Friday, the money was next to nothing in the big city of Lagos, it could only cover her transportation and two utility bills but then again on the outside the executives always donated money, claimed to be philanthropists and always volunteered for charitable work.

She had been working 10–13 hour days for weeks. Deadlines were constantly shrinking. Tasks keep piling up. She’s exhausted but still delivering. She schedules a one-on-one with her manager. She says, calmly: “I’m struggling to keep up with the workload at the moment. I want to do good work, but the volume isn’t sustainable. Can we talk about priorities or timelines?” Her manager nods, as if he was about to pity her only to say “I appreciate you bringing this up. But I want to make sure we’re having a professional conversation.” He says “Everyone here is under pressure. That’s the nature of a high-performing environment.” And she sucks it up and nods because after all is said and done she is the one of the few females that work there and she wanted to prove herself.

After one month she was already very lean and looked 3 years older than she actually was, that day she didn’t finish her coffee. The following day she wrote her resignation letter simply. bare. No one was surprised. Her manager nodded, already glancing at their screen. “We’ll repost the role,” they said. “Usually fills fast.” She stood up, left her keycard on the desk, and walked out without a word. As she reached the sidewalk, she felt the weight lift from her chest, realizing that no amount of money was worth the price of her soul.

VACANCY IMMEDIATE START WAS ADVERTISED BEFORE THE END OF THE DAY

The cycle continued. Two weeks later, someone else would arrive hopeful, impressed, grateful. They’d tell themselves the same things she did. They’d stay just long enough to understand.

IMAGES ARE A.I GENERATED

The Water Cycle