On the HahaFiction shelf
Then We Came to the End
At a Chicago advertising agency, the staff are running out of work and wondering who will lose a job next. Colleagues keep track of one another's chairs and private lives while trying to interpret news about their boss's health. They tell the story largely as a collective 'we.'
From the publisher’s blurb
“Then We Came to the End is about sitting all morning next to someone you cross the road to avoid at lunch.”Read the full description at Penguin
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What makes it funny?
A desirable office chair becomes grounds for collective indignation. Elsewhere, a manager checks his own breath and armpits before discovering that someone has hidden sushi behind his bookshelf; building security eventually investigates the stench.
The comedy at work
The office's 'we' treats petty grievances as shared wisdom. That group voice lets Ferris show how easily colleagues agree about someone else's failings, then admit their own fear, jealousy or need for company.
Try this if…
Office veterans may recognize the fierce attention paid to matters that look trivial from outside. Readers drawn to unusual narrators also get a group whose constant scrutiny of coworkers includes flashes of compassion.
Good to know
Layoffs, cancer and death sit alongside the jokes, and the opening includes strong language. Most of the book uses a collective narrator, with an extended departure from that perspective.
A few distinguishing details
- A collective narrator speaking for an advertising office
- Workplace rivalries under the threat of layoffs
More funny workplace comedy
Sources & further reading
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