When I moved to New York, I'd largely been swayed by scenes in off-beat and knowing romcoms, where flash mobs erupted in Times Square and muppets fought to save their show in a montage set to nostalgic rock music. And people danced with hot but unassuming guys. Or, failing that, hot and totally assuming guys. Unfortunately, a more accurate trailer for where I had ended up would be in black and white. And not in the classy way, either. And it would probably show that one time when I tried to look around Times Square by myself and a pigeon feather blew into my mouth and some tourists took a photo.

Luckily for me, there was no need to walk through anywhere vibrant or crowded to get to my office now. Who'd have thought New York could be quite so impressively grey and boring? There were still a lot of suspicious looking pigeons, though, but I'd learned to keep my mouth firmly shut.

I shook my head, and forced myself to make eye contact with Mr Henries, my boss. "Eye contact," he had informed me on my first day, "is the route to friendship. And where friendship goes, stories flow." There had followed an uncomfortable silence in which he stared into my eyes, as if to prove his point. I hadn't wanted to contradict his lesson by looking away and so we'd just stood there, unblinking, for a while. It marked the first of many unsettling sessions of 'contact time', as he insisted on calling it. It never got less weird.

Mr Henries pulled my mind back into the plastic chair I was sat in by sucking his teeth loudly, which was never a good sign. "I would suggest we do a piece on these, erm… 'Avenger' mascots. Y'know, that's what the people are hankering for"

I often wonder what he means by 'people' because, as far as I'm aware, the 200 strong audience of pensioners that read the 'New York Decor: Carpets, Drapes and Tapestries' section of the paper I'm assigned to are a fairly niche bunch and, unless a new line of Avengers sisal-style fringed rugs are coming out, this wouldn't be something that they were 'hankering' for.

I should never have agreed to work for a man who still used the verb 'hankering', either. I Cursed my lack of standards and my rookie error of mistaking a well groomed mustache for class and friendliness. I frequently cursed that damn mustache. My mum had suggested that I was deflecting my issues, but I remained fairly sure that I would've kept looking for work had there been no mustache.

As I sat in the meeting, staring balefully at the deceptive mustache above my boss's lip, which had a piece of tuna stuck in it that day, my father's words began, as they so often did, to roll through my head "You don't need to go to college for journalism!" my father from the past was insisting, 'journalism is grit, experience and a rum-and ready attitude! Not pieces of...of paper, I mean, you can write, the rest is practice!"

Henries looked at me, clearly expecting a response. Not that that was unjust, in his defense: this was an ideas meeting, and what that really meant was me being required to beam at his every syllable, and him looking like a wounded puppy if I offered any reservations.

I blinked to prepare for Extreme Eye Contact. "Um, yep, people are really interested in that, and we don't know a lot about it, so, yes, original-" Henries cut me off:

"Isn't it?! This could be where our deductive skills come into their own. This would be big Miss Ridell, real big."

"You know how I feel about being called-" I began, but then I decided that someone really ought to get to a point here, so I sighed and let it pass. "Um, but is that where we really excel? Investigative journalism?" Henries frowned. His eyes at labrador stage. I needed to act before they reached basset hound. "It's just that, Phyllis, Phil and me are the only people who work in this department and, well, they're carpet, curtains and tapestry specialists." There was a pause. Henries looked at me like I was missing the point. I tried to clarify: "Not… Not really current affairs. Not conspiracy theories. Unless they're about thread counts."

Henries' face darkened for a moment: the thread count scandal had been dramatic. Or, as dramatic as carpets could be. He shook his head, and I watched with mild disdain as the tuna flicked across the room. "Miss Ridell," again, I shuddered at the 'Miss' he insisted on using, like he lived in an episode of Mad Men. "You're ambitious. You could do it." I gawped at him, and then narrowed my eyes. "Why?" I asked slowly. "I, I just think you'd do a good job" he blustered back.

"I'm an intern."

"Yes, yes, yep. I know. You've been an intern what… a year and a half? Is that it? Long time."

"It's not really my area-"

"Well, if it were to go good- you get your story, it could be your area, I suppose… You did mention a penchant for the hard hitting in your interview, I recall..."

Henries was so enjoying this- leaving a little ellipsis at the end of each sentence rather than explaining what he was actually saying.

"So you'd hire me? If it went well?" I'd never thought of myself as a particularly direct person before going there, but apparently that's what happens when you're faced with a man incapable of articulating anything. "I just think you've been an intern for a long time, give you some responsibility."

Bullshit. He loved having me as an intern- I still had to work incredibly hard or he'd dismiss me, he paid me pittance and he got to have me bring him endless cups of coffee and no one could call sexism because I wasn't a proper employee.

He bit his lip nervously and, tapping his pen to what I was fairly sure was the tune from The Flintstones, added "And, erm...That Tony Stark's a, a ladies man, right? Start with him. Go to, to a bar or something. Do something like that."

And that, ladies and gentleman, was why I was really being chosen: young and in possession of a vagina. Classy.

I was also pretty sure that the kind of behaviour he was advocating would violate some journalistic standards. See, I'd know this stuff if I'd gone to college.

"So," I started to clarify, "You want me to, sort of, go undercover?"

"I suppose that's what they, what they're, um, calling it nowadays." He mumbled, rolling his pen beneath his sausage fingers and keeping his eyes fixed on my shoulder.

Now, I recognize that everything about this seemed like a really bad idea: I had no training or skills, there wasn't even any proof that the "Avengers" existed and the 'womanly wiles' Henries clearly wanted me to deploy had, despite my best efforts, consistently evaded me throughout my life. But I also knew that the week prior to this Henries had made me book him an appointment for a prostate exam, and then suggested I give myself a mammogram, and that made my decision a whole lot easier. I didn't seem to me like things could really get any lower.

I closed my eyes. "I'll do it."

His eyes snapped up from the focus point they'd found on my chest. "You will? Aw, that's great, great news. I gotta tell you, I am really excited about this project. It, it could be really great."

"When do I start?"

"Start?" He said with surprise, like it hadn't occurred to him. "Well, I suppose, now? No time like the present and all that."

"I, right... OK." I stood up and turned from the room. As I walked away, I hesitated- should I thank him? This was technically a big chance for me, right? However, my moment of contemplation was cut short when Henries clapped his hand on my ass and shouted "Good luck, little lady!" I pursed my lips. No, a thank you was not in order.

Right, I thought to myself as I stood in purple-painted annex ascribed to the Decor section. A real job. A task that doesn't involve stapling finance letters together, great. Now what?

I decided to start by taking some stuff out of my desk- it was hardly full, as to litter it with my personal possessions seemed to me a bit like giving part of my soul to the office, and that bummed me out pretty hard, but I wouldn't be back for a while, so why leave anything?

Phil and Phyllis (who are married, by the way. Did I mention that? Because I make a point of highlighting the ridiculousness of that situation) watched me as I cleared out some stuff from my desk, and I felt the need to explain: "I'm not fired," I said, with just a hint of defensiveness- I mean, who wants to be the girl who couldn't even hold down a job where the most challenging task was deciding whether something was beige or cream? They didn't respond. As a rule, if it's not made of wool or can't be hung in a living room, it doesn't interest Phil and Phyllis.

And then I took a deep breath, and pushed on the exit door.

...And then I realized it was a pull door and hurriedly tried to make it look like I'd just been stretching before. Before Henries could approach me to depart 'wisdom', I left the building.