Bengaluru woman says corporate life is school with salaries, exams every Monday

An Instagram video by a Bengaluru-based professional likened corporate life to an endless school examination. Her account of pending work, weekend anxiety and last-minute panic resonated with many viewers online.This woman's work anxiety rant has made social media users say 'same bro same'. (Photos: Instagram/the_miss_gupta)School ended years ago, but for one Bengaluru-based woman, the exam anxiety never did. She says corporate life feels like preparing for a test that starts all over again every Monday.Charu Gupta, who has been working for three years, recently shared a video on Instagram describing how little the feeling of being constantly tested has changed since leaving school.“It’s been three years since I’ve been working at a job, but even today I feel like I’m in school and my exams are going on. It’s like: just let me pass today somehow, let today just get over at the office somehow, and I’ll be better prepared for tomorrow’s exam,” she said.For Gupta, the comparison does not end with exams. The unfinished tasks waiting on her laptop feel suspiciously like school assignments, following her long after the workday is technically over. “So after going home, just like having to do assignments or homework, I have so much pending work that I'm supposed to do, but I won't do it. Today is Saturday. Now I won’t make any plans because I have a lot of work to do, but I won’t do that work either,” she said.And therein lies the particularly painful joke of the corporate weekend: the work does not get done, but neither does the relaxing. Gupta said she ends up spending her weekend caught between procrastination and panic, unable to properly enjoy her time off because the pending tasks remain in the back of her mind.“I will just be anxious and I’ll panic all the time until Sunday night arrives. And when I have no other option left, only then will I open it, finish just the most urgent things, and shut it down. And I'll just pray, 'God, please just help me pass tomorrow as well somehow.' Why am I like this?”Watch the video here:Her question, however, seems to have plenty of company. The video prompted reactions from social media users who said her description felt remarkably close to their own working lives, particularly the familiar Sunday-night dread of everything Monday might bring.Perhaps corporate life simply replaced report cards with performance reviews, homework with pending emails and exam halls with Monday morning meetings. The anxiety, it seems, never quite graduated.- EndsPublished By: Srimoyee ChowdhuryPublished On: Aug 30, 2026 13:58 IST