It Disturbs My Spirit

Every day this week, I've managed to leave the office before six.

Yes,

every day.

I even told a colleague it was the highlight of my week. This probably says more about my life than I'd like. But hey, small wins, right?

This was a deliberate decision. A conscious moment of choosing myself and saying, "Yep, I'm off." And in doing so, I've reclaimed a small but meaningful part of my day: the walk home. Depending, of course, on whether I made sensible shoe choices that morning.

My route tends to take me through Liverpool Street. Giant glass buildings, sterile lobbies the size of football pitches for no apparent reason, the whole 'look how important we are' aesthetic.

Every evening, I pass one particular building where I see the same scene: a queue of food delivery riders, bikes lined up like clockwork, waiting outside.

I'm talking five, sometimes six riders, just standing there with their Deliveroo or Uber Eats bags, waiting for someone to come down and collect their dinner.

It's always around 630pm/7pm when I pass, and I can't help but connect the dots. Those people coming down the lift or stairs—this is their dinner.

They're working late, too busy to leave their desks, grabbing some overpriced pad thai or half-hearted burrito to fuel the rest of their evening shift.

And every time I see them, I feel... something. A cocktail of emotions, really.

Part of me is smug, I'll admit. I'm on my way home to have dinner, in my own house. But there's also this knot in my stomach...

sadness, maybe?

Worry?

Whatever it is, it disturbs my spirit. It's not just that they're working late. It's the ritual of it. The transactional, lifeless process of ordering food, walking downstairs, and trudging back up with something that's never quite the same as either a meal out or something you've made yourself. It feels... hollow.

It takes me back to when I worked in a law firm. They'd offer us dinner because they knew we weren't leaving anytime soon. Tech firms do it too—lunch, endless snacks—all designed to make it much easier for you to stay at your desk in the guise of convenience.

At the time, I barely noticed it. It was just the norm. But now, passing by that queue night after night, it unsettles me in a way I can't ignore.

Maybe it's because I see a version of myself in those people. The version who would mindlessly accept it as part of the job, convincing herself it was fine, that it didn't matter.

But it did.

It always does.

So this week, I left at six.

Every day.

And I walked home, knowing I was going to sit down to a proper meal.

It doesn't mean I've cracked work-life balance or anything dramatic like that.

But it's a start. And every time I pass that queue, it reminds me why I'm making that choice.

It disturbs my spirit, sure, but maybe that's a good thing.