# The interview or appraisal scene > Running a workplace review as a discipline scene: the paperwork device, being asked to account for yourself, and why it suits people who are new to roleplay. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/scenes/the-interview/ - Section: Scenes - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. Everyone has sat on the wrong side of a desk while someone with a form worked through their shortcomings in a reasonable voice. That is a widely shared adult experience of being judged, and it makes an unusually good frame for a first roleplay. --- ## In short - A formal review between two consenting adults over 18, in a professional register. - The printed assessment sheet is the device that makes this frame easy to run: it becomes the script, so neither of you has to improvise dialogue. - Invent the job and invent the failings. Real work performance does not stay inside a scene and cannot be closed off at the end. - Never run this with anyone who has actual authority over your employment, and never involve a real workplace or real colleagues. An office, or a table pretending to be one. Two chairs on opposite sides. A printed sheet with headings on it, filled in by someone else, and an appointment time you were given three days ago. Everyone in the room is a consenting adult over 18, playing a professional role. I recommend this frame constantly to people who are new. It has the formality people want and a hierarchy everyone already understands. It also comes with a built-in prop that solves the single hardest problem in roleplay, which is what on earth to say. ## Why it works A scenario supplies a reason, and a reason is what makes this askable and receivable. The workplace frame supplies a very particular kind of reason: a documented one. You are not being dealt with because someone wants to, you are being dealt with because it says so on a form that was filled in before you walked in. The paperwork carries the authority so that neither person has to perform it. The register is the other half. A professional voice is level, polite and unhurried, and being spoken to reasonably while something unreasonable is decided about you does something to people that shouting never manages. Nobody raises their voice in an appraisal. That restraint is the flavour of this frame, and it is why it suits tops who find it excruciating to play thunderous. And being asked to account for yourself out loud is the moment that lands. "Talk me through what happened on the fourteenth." Answering that, in your own words, to someone writing it down, is the part people report thinking about afterwards. The impact is almost an appendix to it. ## The paperwork device Write the sheet in advance and print it. This is the single most useful piece of stagecraft in the section. Four or five headed sections with a rating and a short written comment under each. Punctuality. Standard of work. Attitude when corrected. Conduct at the away day. Nonsense, obviously, and it does not matter, because once the sheet exists neither of you has to invent a single line. You work down it. The top reads an item, asks about it, listens, moves on. There are no silences to fill and no plot to remember. Two refinements worth having. First, send a blank self-assessment beforehand and have the person fill it in and return it, then read their answers back to them during the meeting. Being confronted with your own written words is remarkably effective and takes about ten minutes to set up. Second, put one actually positive item on the sheet. A page of unbroken criticism reads as spite. One line of credit makes the rest read as assessment. ## What to settle for this scene specifically - Names and titles. Surnames with Mr, Ms or Mrs is the usual choice and it does a lot of the work. Decide who is who before you sit down. - That the job and the failings are invented. Say this out loud during negotiation so there is no doubt afterwards about whether anything real was being commented on. - Whether disagreement is permitted. Being allowed to defend yourself and being overruled is a different scene from being required to accept every item, and both are good. Pick one. - Whether there is a signature at the end, and what it says. A short typed line acknowledging the outcome, signed and dated, is a strong ending device. - Whether the outcome is predetermined. I would fix it in advance and let the meeting be theatre around a decision already taken, because a top improvising a sentence is a top improvising severity. - Dress, which matters more here than in most frames. Ordinary work clothes, both of you. It costs nothing and it sets the room instantly. - The [safe word](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/safe-words/), and how it works when the register is so polite. Politeness makes people hesitant to interrupt, so agree that a colour check will be asked directly at least twice. ## Opening it Give the appointment time in advance, in writing, in a flat administrative tone. Then wait outside. Even in a flat, standing in the hall for five minutes before being called in changes the temperature of the room you walk into. Start with the paperwork rather than with the person. Papers straightened, a "do sit down", the sheet turned round or not turned round. The first minute should be almost boring. Boring is the tone you want, because it establishes that this is a process rather than an occasion. ## Ending it and dropping the frame Close the meeting formally. The outcome stated, the sheet signed if you are doing that, thanks for your time, the file closed. Then physically deal with the paper in front of each other. Filed away in a drawer, or torn in half and binned. People find the tearing satisfying and it makes the closure literal. Then out of role, in your own names, with a plain sentence confirming that none of it was about anything real. This frame needs that sentence more than most, because the things listed on the sheet were about competence, and competence is close to how people feel about themselves. Then [aftercare](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/aftercare/) as normal. ## Common mistakes Using the real job. Someone genuinely worried about their work is not going to be able to leave that outside the room, and the scene will find the sore spot whether or not you meant it to. Invent everything. Running it with anyone who has any real authority over your income. That is not a scene, it is a conflict of interest with a frame drawn round it, and no amount of negotiation makes it safe. Same goes for real colleagues, real company names, or anything that could be recognised. Not preparing the sheet. Without it the top improvises, the improvisation runs dry after four minutes, and the frame collapses into two people at a table feeling silly. The paperwork is not decoration. Playing it for laughs. There is a comic version of this scene and it is properly funny, and it is also a different scene. If one of you is doing comedy and the other is not, only one of you is getting anything out of it. ## Three variations The probation review. Framed as a decision about whether the appointment is confirmed, which supplies suspense the ordinary appraisal lacks. It ends either with confirmation and a consequence, or with an extension of probation and another meeting in a fortnight. That second option makes a good two-part scene. The disciplinary hearing with a note-taker. A third person in the room who says almost nothing and writes throughout. Being observed changes the scene completely and it is the cheapest way to add intensity. Vet anyone you invite exactly as carefully as you vetted your partner. See [vetting a partner](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/vetting-a-partner/). If you like this direction, [the judicial frame](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/scenes/formal-and-judicial/) takes it further. The professional appointment instead of the employer. A personal trainer, an accountant, an audit. Same register, same paperwork, no employment relationship implied at all, which some people prefer because it removes even the fictional power over someone's livelihood. It also works well as a first frame for anyone still wondering whether roleplay is for them at all, on which see [does spanking have to be sexual](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/is-it-sexual/). ## Read next - [All the scenes](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/scenes/) - [How to negotiate before you meet](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/negotiation/) - [The written review](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/scenes/the-written-review/) - [Aftercare](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/aftercare/) - [Bent over a table or desk](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/positions/bent-over-a-table/) ## Common questions ### What is a workplace or appraisal spanking roleplay? A scene framed as a performance review or disciplinary meeting between two adults. There is a printed sheet of assessed points, a desk, a formal register with surnames, and an outcome agreed in advance. The appeal is being asked to account for yourself in front of paperwork. ### What is a good first roleplay for someone new to it? The appraisal or interview frame. It is entirely adult, the register is professional rather than personal, and everyone has sat on the wrong side of a desk being assessed by someone with a form, so nobody has to invent a world. It also gives both people a document to follow, which removes the need to improvise dialogue. ### Should an interview scene use my real career? It is much better not to. Real career anxiety does not stay inside a scene and cannot be closed off at the end, and the assessment stops being a frame and becomes an actual judgement about your life. Invent a role and invent the failings. Never run this with anyone who genuinely has power over your employment.