But hey. New year, new me, as the saying goes. It’s time to get back on the horse and have a damn good go at making this year better than the last.

As I walk into the office, Sue spots me and walks over.

‘Grace, can I have a word please?’ she says.

This worries me. Sue and I have a very friendly relationship, and everyone in the office is casual and playful. This seems a little formal.

I follow Sue into her office and close the door behind me.

‘I’ve had Matilda Dewitt on the phone,’ she says.

‘Ah. Yeah, she sent me an email. I sent a few comments to you about it just before Christmas, but I don’t know if you’ve read them yet. It’ll probably be somewhere amongst all the—’

‘Yes, I’ve read them,’ Sue says, interrupting me. ‘And so has Matilda.’

My heart lurches and I feel the colour draining from my cheeks. ‘Excuse me?’

‘That email you sent to me, calling her out and slagging her off. You sent it to her, too.’

I struggle to catch my breath as I begin to realise the enormity of what Sue’s saying.

‘No I didn’t,’ I say. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘Of course it is, Grace. We’ve all sent emails to the wrong people before. It’s especially easy when you’re talking about that person and end up typing their name into the wrong box. And that’s exactly why it’s such a bloody stupid idea to use your official company email to slag off our most important and high-paying clients.’

Sue’s furious. I can see it in her eyes. Any pretences of our friendly relationship are completely gone, and I can tell this isn’t going to end well. Even the most relaxed of working relationships have their boundaries, and this has well and truly breached ours.

‘I… I don’t know what to say. I can’t even remember what the email said.’

‘Maybe I can jog your memory,’ Sue replies. ‘How about “She turned it down because she didn’t want her snooty Z-list arse-lickers to get butthurt by being demoted to the second or third round of admissions”? Or perhaps the bit where you called her a “snotty bitch”? If that’s not enough, maybe it was you calling her a cow twice, or maybe the bits where you referred to her “shitty gallery” and her husband’s hairpiece?’

My legs turn to jelly and I sit down on the chair next to Sue’s desk.

‘You won’t be surprised to hear she’s made an official complaint,’ Sue says.

‘I really don’t know what to say.’

Sue perches on the edge of her desk next to me. ‘What on earth possessed you to send something like that, Grace?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. We all do it. We all talk like that to each other.’

‘Yes, and we shouldn’t. It’s not professional. And sending it to the client herself is just completely fucking stupid. We could have pacified her, you know. When she complained about the event. I could have called her up, calmed her down, reduced her bill and kept her happy. We’d still have made a tidy profit, and we’d have been in with a chance of getting to do the launches for her other gallery.’