You know you work in a Cambodian office when…

1. When you have a two hour lunch break for food, a massage and a sleep

2. When you go into another office and someone is lying on a table asleep

3. When we were in a staff meeting and suddenly everyone started singing ‘Happy Birthday’ for no apparent and later on started spontaneously dancing in the corner and doing a strange slow shimmy.

4. When I was drinking orange juice in a sandwich bag full of ice and after I finished it, I was on my way to put it in the bin and my colleague comes running out of her office to take the bag of ice. She grabs it from me and puts it on her head and goes back into her office.

5. When a colleague had forgotten to open my office and she ran upstairs to do it. As she let me in she shouted; “Chol Moi” which means Cheers, with a massive grin on her face.

6. When the police came in for a conference about trafficking and they inadvertently locked us in our glass-walled office. They proceeded to sit on the sofas outside and all took off their tops. We had to be rescued by our boss and we laughed extremely hard and ran out of work.

7. When our boss came into the office to ask for a word in English and started doing an impression of a rabid dog in front of us.

8. When you have a cleaning day once a year and it is appropriate to come in wearing old clothes and a cloth wrapped around your head (and a face-mask of course for dust).

9. When the monks come into the office for a Khmer New Year blessing – one spends the whole time on his phone and then burps whilst he’s praying.

10. When we were fake crying because we didn’t want to leave the job and our boss joined in, so we had a communal ‘waaaaaa’.

12. When you’re leaving your job and your presents consist of a silver plate stamped with Angkor Wat and some awful t-shirts, ‘specially selected’ for us, that barely fit!

I’m really going to miss this place!