Harri continues. ‘So send me two or three sexy paras for first thing tomorrow morning. We can go a bit longer here, and stretch to another five hundred words. You could make it a thousand if the muse descends, I’ll cut more of the original.’ She actually winks at me. ‘You got this, Imogen! Impress me!’ Sliding my phone out of my pocket, I see that it’s 5.58 p.m. I hate her. I hate her so much.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Feelings aren’t facts

Harri

Sometimes Harri really, really, really hates her job.

In the past, she had worked for editors who took a sadomasochistic pleasure in humiliating their juniors but that wasn’t her vibe at all. And yet, here she was, itching with the shame of having broken Imogen’s heart.

It wasn’t a bad piece, at all. It just didn’t fit the brief. And that was Harri’s fault, sort of. She and Akila had decided to tell Imogen to make it ‘sexy, glamorous, aspirational’ but they hadn’t mentioned that The Know’s financial future was resting on the work. ‘Good sponcon never sounds too spon, I think Imogen’s writing will lose its freshness and funniness if she feels like she’s doing an advertorial,’ said Akila, and Harri agreed.

Matters were not helped by the fact that Harri had just emerged, dazed, from a surprise ‘performance review’ with Mackenzie, Lily and Katie. She was feeling freaked out and overwhelmed, and she might have taken it out on Imogen. No, there was no ‘might have’ about it. And she hated herself for it. She ambushed Imogen, because she had herself been ambushed.

‘This should have been in your diary,’ frowned Katie, tapping her own notebook with a heavy ballpoint pen, as though she were using it to rap Harri’s knuckles.

Harri had tried, and failed, to exert some kind of editorial authority. ‘I think this must be an error. We’ve not been up and running for the full month yet, I think that it’s too soon to have any kind of meaningful review…’

‘No, we’re acting in our human resources capacity today. This is about your performance as a Hudson employee,’ sneered Lily, who appeared to be shivering with vicarious pleasure. Harri was about to be bollocked, and she wanted to watch.

Mackenzie warmed up with a few digs at Panache. ‘I’m very concerned about the culture of complacency on the magazine, and how you left things when you moved over. Morale seems low, there’s little appetite for innovation amongst your former staff.’ Technically, Mackenzie was not wrong. Giles’ updates had started to sound like war reportage. ‘I spend most of my time encouraging everyone out from under their desks, because they duck for cover whenever she comes in. There’s always a huge line out of the door for the Ladies, because everyone wants to go for a big cry at lunchtime.’