Outlook Is Down & the Boss Hunts on Foot: A Corporate Nature Documentary

9:47 a.m. The Sixth Floor

Here, in the fluorescent savannah of an open-plan office, a remarkable event is unfolding. Outlook has stopped working.

The herd has not yet noticed.

A lone figure stirs. This is the Boss, a large, territorial male, known to roam between his cabin and my desk, marking his territory with the phrase “Quick question?” He approaches, head low, scenting something wrong in the air.

“Is Outlook working?”

I refresh it in front of him, slowly, like a priest lifting a relic. You have to give these moments the ceremony they deserve.

A small blue wheel begins to turn.

“Still nothing,” I say, in a voice of great sorrow, while inside me a choir of angels sings the Hallelujah chorus.

“Try again.”

I try again. The wheel turns. It is the most beautiful thing I have seen since my wedding.

10:02 a.m. The Great Dispersal

Now the herd begins to sense it. Sounds ripple through the cubicles. A gasp. A muffled “Oh no.” A single, joyful cough.

Observe the Gen Z specimen. She studies the error message for exactly four seconds, closes her laptop with the serenity of a monk and glides towards the canteen. I ask whether she is going to tell anyone.

“On what?” she says.

She will return in twenty minutes, wiser, fed and unbothered. She is, quite simply, a higher life form.

Nearby, the millennials huddle. These are anxious, migratory creatures, trained from birth to treat “no rush” as a deadline and “whenever you get a chance” as a death threat. They cannot rest. Each one refreshes Outlook in order to respond promptly to the news that they cannot respond promptly.

It is the saddest thing in nature.

Elsewhere, a rarer sighting. The Gen X finance head has opened a drawer. Inside lies the budget he was asked to digitise three years ago.

He lifts it out the way a lion lifts a gazelle. He takes the long way past IT, holding the printout high enough for everyone to see. He has waited a very long time to be this smug.

10:30 a.m. The Elder Stirs

In the far corner, the oldest member of the colony rises. He has seen dial-up and the fax machine. He has outlasted three CEOs and one reorganisation that nobody understood.

He reaches for a grey rectangular artefact last used during the Vajpayee administration. It is a landline. He lifts the receiver and calls the client.

A question that has defeated the rest of us across a thread of 34 emails is settled in under a minute.

“What did they say?” we ask.

“Yes,” he says.

We are uneasy about putting that in the minutes without further context.

11:15 a.m. The Boss Hunts on Foot

Deprived of his usual prey, which is my inbox at 11:40 on a Saturday night, the Boss returns to my desk.

“Did you see the email I sent last night? Subject was ‘For tomorrow’. I did say there was no rush.”

“I haven’t seen it,” I say.

And then I do the bravest thing I have ever done. I let the sentence end there.

Normally I would add, “But I’ll look at it right away.” Today I leave the silence alone. It sits between us like a small, polite dog.

He tries to remember what he’d asked for. Something about the presentation. Could I send him the latest version?

We both look at my screen. Outlook is giving the performance of its life.

12:01 p.m. WhatsApp, the Backup Ecosystem

Someone sets up an urgent-only WhatsApp group. The Boss renames it three times. Finally, in a moment of pure leadership, he posts, “Can everyone confirm they’re here?”

The Gen Z specimen responds with a thumbs-up. The rest of us type “Yes, here” individually, with punctuation, because we grew up in a world where a thumbs-up from a junior could be raised at an appraisal.

Then the Boss asks me to send the presentation on WhatsApp.

“It’s attached to an email you sent me,” I say.

It is the closest I have ever come to winning an argument with him.

1:00 p.m. The Miracle of Slide Four

For two weeks, my presentation has been stuck on slide three. I’ve spent most of that time answering questions about when I might reach slide four. Today, nobody is asking.

I finish the deck and find an error in a number we’ve already circulated three times. I fix it. Nobody will ever know.

1:30 p.m. Finance Is Spotted Outside the Office

Over chai, a man I know chiefly for sending “Please use the revised template” does a devastating impression of our vice president saying, “Let’s give people their time back,” forty-five minutes into a call scheduled for fifteen.

For forty-four glorious minutes, we are human beings with faces, voices and strong opinions about samosas.

Then somebody’s phone buzzes.

2:14 p.m. The Return

Outlook is back. Around the table, six people lift their phones like miserable meerkats.

The first email is from the Boss. Could everyone send a quick note on how they used the downtime? I need to report the impact on productivity.

I write that I finished the presentation.

“Great,” he replies. “Can you hold off sending it? Let’s align on the topline first.”

I look at it for a long time. Then I click “mark as unread”.

And for a few more minutes, at least, I haven’t seen it.

(This is a work of fiction. The office, the Boss, the Elder, the landline and the 34-email thread are all made up. If you recognise yourself, please resist the urge to reply all.)