CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
A young office intern whose financial situation can be described as a bit touch-and-go is currently exhibiting the psychological occurence known as fight-or-flight.
The fight-or-flight response, also known as the acute stress response, refers to a human reaction that occurs in the presence of something that is terrifying, either mentally or physically.
Andrew Alderely (20) sits in silence, nodding along to random pub conversations as his mind races through different hypotheticals surrounding the beers placed in front of him. Did his acting manager pay for them himself? Or did this one get thrown on the company card.
Andrew worries that Sarah, his senior and go-to supervisor at the West Betoota-based events company who has never given him much reason to think his personal life is something she considers on a day-to-day basis, might have paid for this round on her card – which means he is expected to wear the cost of six craft beers on his own savings account at some point this afternoon.
“I literally don’t have a plan B if my card declines” he says to reporters, before discreetly attempting to log into his netbank app without anyone noticing.
“Like, there’s no back up. I don’t know anyone here well enough to explain my situation, and they care so little about me that they couldn’t possibly realise I might be struggling on an unpaid internship while living in a sharehouse in town.”
As Andrew wonders to himself whether or not the old GE Creditline card he used to use at University in his office is still valid, and worth anything, the young entry-level social media and community organiser is absolutely shaken by an off-the-cuff comment made by Sarah.
“They don’t miss you at this pub. I think each one of those beers costed something like $9 bucks” she says, without any indication of whether or not it was actually her that paid for it.
At time of press, Andrew was on his phone enquiring about whether or not he would be able to get a Nimble loan approved in the next 15 minutes.
