‘I feel the pull of being alone, of answering to no one, the safety of being unknown and far away.’
We are a week from the end of the job in Boondarie. I’m in the shower at the side of the tractor shed watching the thumb-sized redback that’s always sat at the top of the shower head. She hasn’t moved at all except to raise a leg when I turn on the tap, like the water’s too cold for her.
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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.
‘When I was at school I found I received the same satisfaction from writing a short story that I did doing awful self-portraits – only the results were much better.’
Evie Wyld shares five things she’s reading, watching and thinking about.
Evie Wyld talks to online editor Ted Hodgkinson about why living in Peckham makes it easier to write about rural Australia, how memory informs her stories and why she can’t write a novel without at least one shark in it.
‘I see her with her hands cupped in front of her shouting ‘The “O”, ladies, The Vaginal O’ as we read Shakespeare.’
‘It would be falsely modest to claim that I appreciate the hot dog on any level beneath that of connoisseur.’
