Chicken remains

Let me tell you another sad story.

Before my career break, before maternity, and long before the "you haven't been paid to use AI yet so you are unemployable", I was living in London.

I had just started a brand new job near Bank, and my 3-hour daily commute was finally over. However, I had to dress smart-casual. This was the last time I would wear smart clothes until the events in my last post.

One Friday, while we were having after-work drinks, a developer decided to touch my breasts.

I went straight to our manager to report what happened, adding that at least two other colleagues had shared similar experiences.

She said something like... "Yeah, I know... but he’s just such a good programmer."

I handed her my access card and laptop right there and quit.

I got on the tube and started crying in my clown suit. As you know, public demonstrations of emotion are considered a crime in the UK, so everyone stared at me like I was naked. I guess, in a way, I was. They wouldn't have even noticed if I was wearing an actual clown costume, as long as I kept my emotions to myself.

That thought added lots of anger to my already full poker of emotions, so I did what any rational person would do in the middle of a meltdown and I yelled, at the top of my lungs... "HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN ANYONE CRY ON THE TUBE???"

The entire carriage cleared out. Officially declared the local tube lunatic of the day, I got off and walked all the way home.

When I got into my room in that beautiful shared Victorian house, I found a box of leftover fried chicken on my bedside table.

I stood there staring at it, questioning the very fabric of reality. When did I buy chicken? Am I losing my mind? Is my brain finally melting from stress?

I went to bed confused and exhausted, and the next day I found out that a contractor had been fixing the carpet that day and had left those chicken remains there by mistake. He had lunch there because my room was "the cleanest place in the house."

That same day, I booked a one-way flight back to Spain.

And that is how I left London, much like how I arrived: out of my mind, unemployed, and fleeing because the corporate world was unbearable.

People talk a lot about resilience and soft skills in their resume. Nobody puts “surviving systemic harassment, toxic management, public tube breakdowns, and creepy carpet-worker chicken” on a resume.

But maybe we should.