‘The atmosphere in the house was thick with my father's depression.’
My father worked for twenty-eight years in the Hoover washing machine factory in Merthyr Tydfil. In South Wales at that time, when most labour was hard, physical, badly paid and often dangerous, people said it was a good job.
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘I tried to work out how many elements I would have plugged if I retired at sixty, and soon I was fatigued before a simple subtraction.’
Fiction by A. Jiang.
‘Finally! I thought. Now I get to work in a big factory. I was fifteen and a half years old. I was a child laborer.’
Xiao Hai on coming of age in the factories of Shenzhen, translated by Tony Hao.
‘in the Huangma Mountains, everything rots readily’
A poem by Zheng Xiaoqiong, translated by Eleanor Goodman.
‘Question: ‘What do a Trabant and a condom have in common?’ Answer: ‘Both decrease the pleasure of the ride.’’
Durs Grünbein introduces photography by Martin Roemers.
A short story by Jianan Qian on stray dogs, desperation and re-education in rural China during the Cultural Revolution.
