Home Stories

Safe for Work

  • Series
First two panels from the comic 'Doing emails'. In the first panel, a large round face looks a bit stressed, with slightly bloodshot eyes and a fleck of spittle dropping from a down-turned mouth. The text bubbles at the top and bottom of the panel say: "Your eyeballs are dry. Somehow "doing emails" has become your job". In panel two the same face appears in the top left of the frame with a determined expression. Most of the panel is filled with their disproportionately large hands resting on an equally large keyboard. Four small round faces with gradually changing expressions float along the top of the panel in a line. The final face has closed eyes and a sad, tired expression. A bubble of text under the large hands says: "Taking a moment to feel your fingers on the keyboard".
Doing emails. © Rob Bidder for Wellcome Collection.

‘Safe for Work’ is a series of fleetingly erotic stories – without the sex. These sensory fantasies, in which bodies, objects and natural phenomena behave in unexpected ways, also express feelings of alienation and frustration that result from the confines of different working environments.

  • Comic
Doing emails

A person pauses while typing an email, sensing their fingers resting on the keys...

  • Comic
Unpaid break

Taking a break at work, you look out of the window and feel...

  • Comic
Nutmeg

The barista's nutmeg seed...

  • Comic
Egg Inc.

Are there better ways of expressing power in the workplace and in our relations with each other?

  • Comic
Your uniform

How do you dress for work...?

  • Comic
Endless growth

Sometimes work just feels endless...

  • Comic
Every day

Dreaming about days lost to work...

  • Comic
Cooperative

When we can work things out together...

About the artist

Black and white portrait of Rob Bidder sitting by the sea holding an ice cream cone in one hand and a white mug of tea in the other. He has the hood of his jumper over his head and is wearing a pair of sunglasses.

Rob Bidder

Rob Bidder is an artist, person-centred counsellor and educator based in Glasgow.