A Gut Feeling

I have recently commenced my most corporate job to date, working at a small social research company. Having done various degrees of freelancing as writer or publicist for various 'trendy' organisations, as well as being something of a flibbidygibbet student and waitress for much of my 20s, I thought long and hard about the implications of an 'office job': punctuality; curtailing my gutter mouth; not being (too) hungover; probably not being able to wear outfits held together by safety pins; covering my tattoo. But then, I also reflected on the upsides: weekends; holidays; potential for professional and educational growth; being above the poverty line...

When my musician/it programmer/bum brother accused me half-jokingly of selling-out, I countered that I was in fact selling-in. Rather than spending my days utilising my intellect to convince people to go to bourgie cinemas and buy the olive oil popcorn, or arguing long and hard for the social merits of music festivals (of which there are many, as long as they're kept in perspective), I'm applying myself to investigating the justice system, or the public health system and such and such. So far I'm feeling quite good about it all. My workmates aren't hipsters but they are left-leaning critical thinking well-adjusted friendly people. Also, this office has an espresso machine. And I recently learnt that our annual 'team-building' exercise next Saturday - the prospect of which put me in mind of high ropes courses and paintball - is to be a 4 hour, 8 course degustation lunch in Daylesford. Saweeet!

In short, it's all good.

But on Wednesday I had my first experience of some of the constraint of a 'civilised' work environment, and this is why:

I had awoken in the morning and emitted a large burp, which I hadn't thought much about at the time. When I got to work the office was busy. There were two major client reports due that day and everyone was working frantically. In my fifth part-time week, I was handed a partially constructed report (I had not seen nor worked on a report for them at this stage) on a project I'd partly observed and asked if I could complete it by midday.

Around mid-morning two things became very obvious:
1) there was no way this report was going to be done by midday, and
2) there were dastardly things going on in my digestive tract.

We called the client and they agreed to a 5pm deadline, and I continued to work madly as the bloating further expanded (my stomach was both the circumference and solidness of a fully inflated basket ball), the gurgling intensified and the devastating cramps set it.

I went to the bathroom at about 11am and broke wind fairly emphatically, hoping that noone would come in and that the toilets were good and sound-proof, but suspecting that they weren't (like I said, it's a small office). Not much else was happening for me, and I felt like any absence from my desk on this day was conspicuous, so I went back to work.

And it all just got worse. If I'd been able to fart with violent abandon for about an hour I reckon I would've been fine, but alas this was not an option. And while I'm not afraid to be good and frank about the viscera of my corporal being, I don't really know my new workmates all that well and didn't feel like I could share my terrible intestinal pain. I was also acutely aware that this was the first time in this job that a significant task had been handed to me and that I was being relied upon to come through, and felt sure that if I mentioned to anyone that I was unwell they would all kindly insist that I go home (which i badly wanted to do), and that in doing so I would be letting everyone down.

In the end I just sat squirming on my seat, telling myself that I could go to the toilet at hour long intervals (figuring that shouldn't be too obvious, and if anyone asked I would tell them that I'd drunk lots of tea). The hours felt very long.

At about 1pm I had one of those panic-inducing cramps where you realise you have about 60 seconds to get your naked arse to a toilet seat or an all-brown, pungent hell will break loose, only to see David (the only male in the office apart from Stephen the boss-man) walk into the toilet ahead of me. So I turned my purposeful walk to the bathroom into a meander into the kitchen where I stood pretending to read the day's paper whilst clenching with fervour, then after about 5 mins I went to the toilet which was thankfully empty, and performed acts which are best left to the imagination. Let's just say that I cleaned that toilet with a scrubbing brush afterwards.

The rest of the day was pretty much torture - more psychological than physical - as I desperately tried to keep my cruel illness under wraps. And this was what struck me. Despite experiencing some legitimate physical anguish, I was horribly aware of my incongruous behaviour. I kept expecting that someone would walk into the bathroom, and then walk out again and glance at me suspiciously. In order to pretend that I wasn't constantly going to the toilet (which I would do the second my computer clock would tick over another 60 mins) I would try to befuddle my workmates by walking to the printer and looking at something on that for a second, or walking to the kitchen and turning on the tap for a few seconds, before dodging off surreptitiously to the bathroom once more. At one stage I fantasised that I could perhaps walk down the road to the Edinburgh gardens and use a public toilet there where I could relax fully, but I felt unable to leave the office when we were all on deadline. Also, there was an awful moment when Cathy was explaining hastily and in some detail the further changes I would need to make to the report (this was at about 4:15pm) and I had such an enormous dizzy spell I nearly fell off my chair.

Fortunately, this dizzy spell seemed to herald a downturn in my symptoms and my stomach began to relaxed. We finished the report at 5:35pm. The client was happy.

I am still grateful to have this job. But I would have paid good hard cash on Wednesday for workplace in which I could confidently declare "Evil things are living in my stomach and they have to come out. Probably don't go into the toilet on the right".