First published 2007
The employees at a struggling advertising agency watch their workplace slowly unravel as business declines and layoffs loom. They know each other's quirks intimately, from who hoards the good coffee to whose yogurt clutters the break room refrigerator. As uncertainty grows, the staff clings to familiar rituals: elaborate pranks between departments, marathon gossip sessions, and coffee breaks that stretch longer each day. The workers transform mundane office routines into acts of rebellion and solidarity. They create their own strange family bonds while management makes cuts around them. Ferris captures how people survive corporate anxiety by turning the everyday workplace into something both absurd and deeply human. The novel reveals that offices become odd sanctuaries where coworkers understand each other in ways that families and friends cannot.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, workplace
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, workplace-romance
348 pages · Kindle Edition · Little, Brown and Company