In an effort to save money, corporations and every level of government have automated their duty to assist us, poor mortals, to such an extent that we have become unpaid customer service representatives for ourselves, writes columnist Marissa MacWhirter.

After sitting in a pub on the south side of Glasgow for nearly half an hour, I can’t quite figure out if I’m being productive enough. I’ve replied to some WhatsApp messages, organised a dinner for next week – and now every time I take a nibble out of my email inbox, my phone pings and takes a big bite out of my attention.

I’m not sure that this qualifies as an “Admin Night”. But the last time I tried this with friends, one didn’t bring their laptop, and another showed up late, and the three of us had not caught up in a while, so nothing “productive” was completed.

The concept of an “Admin Night” is to get together with friends and tick items off your respective to-do lists. It could be at a flat, in a pub, or in a café. You could be doing work, cancelling subscriptions, organising your photo library, or writing your will. Essentially, doing anything on the never-ending catalogue of dull administration tasks that have come to define modern existence. The kind of things that start off as a molehill of monotony and quickly become a mountain of anxiety, like registering for a dentist.

Admin Party was first mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article published at the end of last year, and the concept has since gone viral on social media. I first saw it this week on TikTok and sent it to a few friends, who, like me, find the bureaucracy that goes into being an adult daunting, exhausting, and overwhelming. And boring. One version that especially resonated was a video of a woman folding a pile of laundry labelled, “POV: I’m your token ADHD........

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