It's been quite the journey but you bloody well landed a job didn't you? You've started wearing your security pass on weekends and nothing has ever sounded better coming out of your mouth than telling your mum you've got 'back-to-back meetings'. But just as Girls' Hannah Horvath has found, the world of gainful employment is a curious one. Here are some home truths we learned in the first 12 months…
**1. Bonding involves typing, not talking **
Bonding with your colleagues is just like high school. Except the grown-up equivalent of smelly-pen notes are email threads. Office friendships are largely conducted in this way. A well timed cat gif in an email thread and you're in there. You soon find out, though, that this is where all the most intensive bitching happens. Keep hearing a Mexican wave of sniggering sweep the office? They're bitching about you.
**2. Lunch is critical **
Once upon a time your one o'clock meal was a light and breezy stop gap between the important meals: breakfast and dinner. Now a burnt toastie or a shortage of Popchips sends you into an emotional tailspin. It has fast become a critical mealtime filled with anguish, curiosity and envy, upon which your entire emotional wellbeing hangs. Take a risk on a falafel wrap and Tuesday is basically a write-off.
3. Silence is normal, not scary
You know how in real life if you want to say something you just do… with your mouth? This practise is all forgotten in your new job. Whether you're crafting an artfully passive aggressive email to your boss or asking the person sitting opposite you for paracetamol, it is all done in total silence. At first you found this weird. Now you're emailing your boyfriend in bed next to you for sex.
4. Chit chat follows a very strict pattern
From Wednesday onwards you are looking forward to the weekend. Monday is the optimum day for complaining, but you can lament the passing of the weekend until at least the end of Tuesday. If you run out of things to moan about you're always safe with how shit the weather is and how much work you've got on. Don't even think about bouncing in with joyful tales about your latest yoga retreat or, God forbid, talking about your feelings. No- ne ever made any work friends being cheerful.
5. Tea is your friend
Yes, it's a bag of leaves with a squeeze of cow juice but by the end of your first year in the rat race it has completely replaced the blood in your body. Rejecting a cup of tea in the workplace is the equivalent of farting on someone's keyboard. It doesn't matter if you don't like it, make tea your friend. You will be needing it intravenously when Thursday-night drinks get out of hand.
6. Power-dressing hasn't really happened. Yet.
Remember when you used to picture yourself as a strong, independent working woman? What were you wearing? A Zara trousers suit perhaps? You were striding. Yes definitely striding. Files one hand, skinny latte in the other. Nowadays you are trotting, holding a hairbrush, a banana and the TV remote (dunno) in your sweaty palm. It doesn't matter how many mornings you lie in bed convincing yourself – you CAN'T have a shower in 3 minutes.
7. Food is not your friend
The discipline required in you first year of office life is Olympian standard. You spend the initial months of your career stuffing your face with foreign confectionery and 'sorry you're leaving' sausage rolls. After piling on an inevitable stone you eventually realise some self-control needs to be exercised. Then, just as you're tucking into your mung bean salad lunch, Janet sends round an email to say she's made cupcakes for Comic Relief. Fuck you, Janet.
8. You'll need to make the IT guy your new BFF
No matter how swanky your office is, it will be filled with gargantuan white goods that look like they've been robbed straight off the set of a '90s crime drama. When operating said equipment you are required to find new levels of calm, even when all you want to do is drape yourself over it and weep. During this time, the IT guy may have become strangely erotic to you. Do not act upon this newfound attraction.
9. Qualifications don't matter
Unless you're building bionic limbs or shooting rockets into space you are likely to make the heartbreaking discovery that nobody cares about your degree. Yeah, so you're thirty grand in debt and Dad had to sell Granny to keep you in spaghetti hoops, but no one's too bovved what you actually studied. Your BA in American Studies might make you an annual pub-quiz hero, but in your new job you will mostly be practising skills such as 'following orders', 'trying not to piss anyone off.' Skills, let's face it, you probably could have learned in prison.
10. And you might soon be into petty theft
Once the reality that your pay cheque barely covers the rent you may start to feel a little righteous. The only way to right the the wrongs of all this corporate injustice is to fill your boots in the stationery cupboard. You might be skint now, but when that job lot of highlighter pens comes through on eBay you're going to be in the monaaaaaaaayy.
11. Getting ill is inevitable
As the earth orbits the sun, there will always be one person in your building suffering from a mystery illness. They don't look at all ill, but they will be lavished with concern and sympathy. Tell them 'there is something going round.' Join in telling them they should probably go home and rest. Go along with it and they'll have your back next time you want to skive off.
First job not quite hitting the mark? Check out GoThinkBig.co.uk for straight-talking careers advice
Follow Lucy on Twitter @lucyhancock
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.