I Hope this Finds you Well by Natalie Sue
Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of spending any part of their working career trapped in a cubicle farm will deeply appreciate the authenticity of author Natalie Sue’s first novel I Hope This Finds You Well. She has honed in on instantly recognizable archetypical employees found in many corporate offices and placed them in fully relatable situations. (This reviewer shuddered at the memories evoked.)
This captivating book deftly combines hilarity and heart-wrenching poignancy as the foibles, flaws and carefully concealed secrets of each office worker are revealed. A thin veneer of camaraderie barely conceals the intense competitiveness among the major players as they increasingly suspect proposed increased automation will make some of their positions redundant. When Cliff, a disarmingly friendly new Human Resources Analyst, is introduced at a morning meeting by the chipper yet smarmy boss Gregory, fear and water cooler speculation mount among the staff.
Unforgettable Characters in an Office Setting
Protagonist and first-person narrator Jolene is a tech-savvy, highly capable administrator for the western regional division of Supershops Incorporated, located in Calgary in the Alberta province of Canada. The company is a barely disguised stand-in for a multinational Arkansas-based corporation known for both their blue and yellow in-store color palette and notorious cost-cutting measures. Her effortless efficiency combined with her blatant refusal to participate in team-building exercises and non-mandatory social occasions engenders distrust and upset with her co-workers.
Jolene is not a joiner; she doesn’t make attempts to engage with her colleagues during working hours, lunch or coffee breaks and certainly has no desire to socialize after hours. In the eight years she has worked for Supershops, she has not adorned her half cubicle’s bare and beige walls with anything beyond the three push pins provided, sharply contrasting with her fellow cubicle denizens who decorate seasonally as well as adorn the nubbly fabric with photographs, mementos and printed affirmations.
Another divergence is her steadfast refusal to participate with “Morale Boosters” headed by Gregory’s assistant and chief sycophant Rhonda who runs the coffee club and organizes the mandatory celebrations such as birthdays and promotions. Rhonda hopes her relentless cheerleader actions will help disguise the truth she has been unable to master some of the software essential to producing timely reports and fears the chopping block.
A Tech-Savvy Loner with a Secret Edge
Jolene vents some frustration and simultaneously amuses herself by inserting snarky, sarcastic messages in replies sent to her co-workers while keeping them secret by changing the text color to white for a “cloak of invisibility”. It is one of her coping mechanisms to survive the close proximity of people she disdains.
I Hope This Finds You Well begins with a startling revelation. This afternoon, Jolene anticipates being presented with a decorated cake from the store bakery downstairs in a lackluster acknowledgment of her thirty-third birthday. Instead, she is blindsided when she walks into the meeting room at the appointed time and is met by regional manager Gregory and seldom-seen office manager Anna and a new face who is introduced as Cliff from corporate HR. In a moment of fatigue or distraction, Jolene had failed to cloak a nastygram text message in an email to arch nemesis Caitlin who works in an equal and parallel position. Fortune smiles on her as Cliff from HR has not discerned a threat in her message. Her punishment is sensitivity training followed by testing and email restrictions during this probationary period but she is allowed to retain her employment.
Unbelievably, in a strange twist, the software installed to restrict her emails inadvertently provided her with access to the entire department’s business as well as private emails and direct messages. She considers doing the right thing and immediately reporting the situation to Cliff who is conducting her retraining but chooses to be a quiet observer in order to gain advantage.
Months of reading emails detailing personal lives and concerns allow Jolene to realize she is not the only person with problems. Her studied detachment has only partially hidden her anxiety and depression stemming from an unresolved personal trauma. Her life is further complicated when co-worker Armin, a fellow first-generation Canadian Iranian, pretends she is his fiancée to bring cheer to his dying mother.
Unfortunately, he neglects to let Jolene in on the pretense forgetting how close-knit the Iranian immigrant community is and how fast gossip flies. Suddenly they are embroiled in a tussle between their two mothers planning and competing to stage the most extravagant wedding threatening to bankrupt their respective dads. A traditional Tlingit potlatch might pale in comparison.
Comedy and Drama in the Cubicle Farm
Natalie Sue possesses a decidedly dab hand at writing comedy. Readers will fall in love with the prickly, eccentric yet essentially sweet and kind Jolene Smith while thoroughly enjoying the comedy and drama of office dynamics. Look forward to relishing Jolene’s life story, personal growth, hope and redemption that occurs outside of work.
I Hope This Finds You Well also delivers a promise of a possible romance and provides a satisfying epilogue including all the major office staff. Fans of Gail Honeycutt’s superb Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, Linda Holmes’ Evvie Drake Starts Over and other splendid books featuring characters who dance to a different drummer will love this debut novel.
About Natalie Sue:
Photo by Svetlana Yanova
Natalie Sue is a Canadian author of Iranian and British descent. She spent her formative years moving around western Canada with a brief stint in Scotland, where she discovered her passion for storytelling as a means of connection and reading as a means of comfort. When she’s not writing, she enjoys bingeing great and terrible TV, attempting pottery, and procuring houseplants. She lives in Calgary with her husband, daughter, and dog. I Hope This Finds You Well is her debut novel.
