Imagine this: You’re in a bland, windowless room that smells faintly of paperclips, instant coffee, and despair. There’s a whiteboard with something cryptic on it, possibly left by a previous inhabitant who gave up and became a barista. The fire exit is blocked by a filing cabinet from 1997. You can’t leave until you’ve completed a series of arbitrary, confusing, and spiritually draining tasks.
You’re not in an escape room. You’re in the office.
Welcome to Corporate Escape™
Forget the trendy warehouse with mood lighting and fake cobwebs. This escape room has:
- A broken air-con system permanently set to “Arctic Gale” or “Tropical Rot”
- A shared calendar that functions more as a work of surrealist fiction
- Carol, who will definitely “just pop in” to loudly update you on her cat’s medical issues during every moment of potential productivity
Your objective is unclear. Your motivation is coffee. Your escape route is blocked by an email from Facilities Management titled “Important Update: Please Read Immediately,” which contains no actual information.
Let’s begin.
Puzzle 1: The Broken Printer
You must retrieve a single document before the 10:30 meeting.
Clues:
- The printer says “Paper Jam” but there is no paper jam.
- The paper tray is mysteriously labelled in Welsh. You aren’t from Wales, and don’t work in Wales.
- Someone from IT tells you to “turn it off and on again,” which you’ve already done. Thrice. With increasing levels of malice.
An ink cartridge explodes. You are marked. You consider fire as a solution, but HR has already flagged your browser history.
Puzzle 2: Find the Room That Was Definitely Booked
You booked Room 3B. You have the email confirmation. It’s yours.
But when you arrive, someone else is in there, mid-presentation, confidently claiming they’ve had it since 9. They’ve even brought biscuits. You didn’t bring biscuits.
Now it’s a showdown: A passive-aggressive game of Meeting Room Chicken, made worse by the presence of Denise, who will not pick sides but will loudly sigh and mention “room etiquette” as though you’ve violated the Geneva Convention.
You give up and host your meeting in the corridor next to the bins, where your slides won’t load and someone is reheating fish in the nearby microwave.
Puzzle 3: Locate the Spreadsheet of Doom
The task is simple: find the correct version of the shared spreadsheet.
Your options:
Budget_FINAL.xlsxBudget_Final_Revised(2).xlsxBudget_ThisOneUseThisOne_FINAL-v3b_June2025_REAL.xls- Or perhaps… a Google Sheet someone quietly made, which has been kept secret for two years and is inexplicably perfect.
The metadata says it was last updated by someone who left in 2021. The legend speaks of an intern who once understood it. That intern now lives in a cabin and communicates only via semaphore.
There is no logic here. Only despair.
Puzzle 4: Decode the Email Chain
You’ve been CC’d into a 27-email-long chain. You are not sure why. You’re not mentioned in any of them.
Your challenge:
- Work out if you’re supposed to be doing something
- Work out what “see below ⬇” refers to
- Work out if Steve’s use of “Thanks in advance!” is friendly… or a threat
There are contradictory deadlines, four different font sizes, and a JPEG of a chart so pixelated it could be abstract art.
You fail. You reply with “Happy to help!” and accidentally become project lead. Your reward: a recurring meeting on Fridays at 4pm.
Puzzle 5: Survive the ‘Quick Catch-Up’ That Isn’t
You’re stopped en route to the kitchen by someone saying:
“Can I just grab you for two minutes?”
This is a trap.
You will be trapped for 46 minutes discussing a project you’ve never heard of, taking mental notes with no paper, and nodding while internally screaming. You offer suggestions. They are taken as promises. You become accountable for three new deliverables.
You eventually escape by pretending you have a Teams call. Which is true. You scheduled one for this exact reason. With yourself. You discuss lunch. The meeting minutes are private.
Bonus Puzzle: The Mysterious Acronym
The email says you need to “complete your D.A.R.T before Q3.”
Nobody explains what D.A.R.T is. You ask someone. They say, “It’s on SharePoint.”
It is not on SharePoint. What is on SharePoint is a folder called New Folder (3) containing a JPEG of a pie chart and a 2017 risk register.
You Google D.A.R.T and find a form used by the Welsh Forestry Commission. You briefly consider just filling it in and submitting it anyway. You make a note to water the saplings.
Bonus Bonus Puzzle: The Mandatory Training Gauntlet
An email arrives with URGENT in all caps. You must complete the new compliance module titled: “Fire Safety & You: Embers of Awareness.”
You must:
- Click through 32 slides of animations involving stick figures escaping a burning toaster
- Answer 10 questions, two of which contradict each other
- Score at least 80% or face eternal reminders
You complete the module. It resets. You complete it again. It crashes. You email HR. They respond: “Try using Internet Explorer.”
Final Challenge: The Exit Interview
You’ve finally decided to leave. You’ve escaped. Or have you?
You are now summoned to HR for a “constructive feedback session.” You sit across from Dave, who is visibly offended you’ve dared to leave his spreadsheet ecosystem.
He asks, “What could we have done to keep you?”
You reply:
“Given the printer a name, promoted it, and let it manage the department. It’s more responsive than Carol.”
No one laughs. But someone quietly nods.
Conclusion: You Never Really Leave
You thought this was the end. That you could walk into the sunset (or at least a vaguely brighter co-working space) with your dignity intact.
But two weeks later, you receive an email asking for “just a little handover doc.”
You’re back.
The office was never an escape room.
It was the puzzle box from Hellraiser.
And you, my friend, just solved it.
James Henshaw is a brooding Geordie export who swapped the industrial grit of Newcastle for the peculiar calm of Lincolnshire—though he’s yet to fully trust the flatness. With a mind as sharp as a stiletto and a penchant for science-tinged musings, James blends the surreal with the everyday, crafting blogs that feel like the lovechild of a physics textbook and a fever dream.
Equally at home dissecting the absurdities of modern life as he is explaining quantum theory with alarming metaphors, James writes with the wit of someone who knows too much and the irreverence of someone who doesn’t care. His posts are infused with a dark humour that dares you to laugh at the strange, the inexplicable, and the occasionally terrifying truths of the universe—whether it’s the unnerving accuracy of Alexa or the existential menace of wasps.
A figure of mystery with a slightly unsettling edge, James is the sort of bloke who’d explain the meaning of life over a pint, but only after a dramatic pause long enough to make you question your own existence. His wit cuts deep, his insights are sharp, and his ability to make the surreal feel strangely plausible keeps readers coming back for more.
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