[...] All those years spent doing the work of bureaucracy had taken their toll – and it looked like there’d been plenty of years, too, filled with all the vices attached to her job: stress and disappointment, yes, but also a kind of malicious sharpness, of being constantly on the lookout for opportunities to exert the slightest bit of power. When I arrived, she was in conversation with a woman. Soon, though, I realised it wasn’t a conversation, and in fact the receptionist was applying a very sophisticated form of torture. The moment she saw me arrive and stand in front of the desk, she sent the woman away with some final instructions, and while the woman was leaving with her own quota of stress, the employee turned to face me, practically licking her lips, like a vampire who spots a demijohn of fresh blood on the way over. Unfortunately for her, my business was very simple, and there was nothing she could get her teeth into. She just applied a bit of pressure by asking me if I was the account-holder with the electricity board, hoping I’d say no, but I said yes, leaving her with no further options besides giving me a number and telling me to go up the stairs I could see to my left.