Не тот день
Not His Day
B1 · Intermediate · fiction · 8 scenes · Free to read
A B1 comedy of errors. Dima, the self-declared unluckiest man in the office, lives through a Monday where everything goes wrong: a broken alarm, coffee on his shirt, pouring rain, a missed bus, a stern boss, a broken lift, a crashed computer that eats his report, a jammed printer, and a lunch tray dropped in front of everyone. Then, quietly, his luck turns — the files are recovered and a kind colleague, Olya, turns his terrible day around. A warm, everyday, apolitical story told in simple past-tense narrative with common office vocabulary.
The opening scene
Диму можно было назвать самым невезучим человеком в офисе. Если что-то могло пойти не так, оно обязательно шло не так именно у него.
В то утро всё началось плохо. Был понедельник. Старый будильник не зазвонил, и Дима проспал целый час. Он открыл глаза, посмотрел на часы и всё понял. «Опять!» — подумал он и быстро вскочил с кровати. На завтрак времени уже не было.
Dima could be called the unluckiest man in the office. If something could go wrong, it always went wrong for him in particular.
That morning everything began badly. It was Monday. The old alarm clock did not ring, and Dima overslept a whole hour. He opened his eyes, looked at the clock, and understood everything. "Again!" he thought, and quickly jumped out of bed. There was no time left for breakfast.
Characters
- Dima (Дима) — The unlucky office worker
- The boss (Начальник) — The stern manager
- Olya (Оля) — The kind colleague
Vocabulary from this story
- офис — office
- работа — work
- начальник — boss
- коллега — colleague
- компьютер — computer
- отчёт — report
- документ — document
- принтер — printer
- собрание — meeting
- стол — desk
- лифт — lift
- лестница — stairs