She nods.

‘And she left you to do this by yourself?’

She nods again.

To say Cathy ‘can be kinda, well, prickly’ is the understatement of the century; she once set someone’s tie on fire after he suggested changing the tone of red used in the background. She is a Creative, and sees herself as an Artist.

This poor girl is in for a world of pain. ‘Of course I’ll look at it for you.’ I sigh and minimize my wall art. I wouldn’t have actually bought anything anyway.

I’m partly touched that I have seemingly become something of an email-wording mentor for the young Emilys of the world, but also partly saddened that my pathetic contribution to the workplace can now include proofreading.

Emily visibly relaxes.

‘Thanks so much. I sent it over before I came, so it should be in your inbox.’

And lo and behold, there it is.

Over the years I have learnt that there is an art to a good email, and this is not a good email. However, having finally reached the end, I can confirm that her name is indeed Emily.

I wonder how best to play this out. I could rewrite it for her, which would basically entail using far fewer words, swapping out the ones that make it sound like poor Emily is extremely stuck up her own arse, and fix the spelling and grammar errors. How is it that some people still can’t use the right their/they’re/there? But if I’m going to take my job as an email-writing mentor seriously, I’ll choose a different tack. In my mind I think about that fishing philosophy, the one that tells you it is better to teach someone how to fish rather than simply handing them the salmon, and decide to give her some vague, but helpful, pointers, tell her to try again and come back.

It takes Emily and me an hour and a half to write the perfect email, another hour to cleanse the feedback itself (removing any language that might result in a fire), plus a further twenty minutes to triple-check the email addresses on the distribution list, but I’m there when she eventually hits send. Being a mentor is so time-consuming and distracting.

So distracting that I almost forgot about Mia’s opinion of me and the fact we have stopped really talking to each other. I haven’t had a message from her in eight days.

‘Well done. It’s just an email, but it’s an important email. Joan shouldn’t have made you do that, but you did it well.’

‘Thanks. And really, thank you for the help.’

I shake my head. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘No, seriously, thank you. Since I joined, nobody has taken the time to help me or explain things to me. I feel like I’ve learnt more over the last two hours than in my last two weeks. I really appreciate it.’

I can tell from the look on her face that she’s being sincere. For the first time in a long time I’m happy that I came into work.