‘He was typing up another proposal for robots that would replace human workers in an engine factory.’
One spring morning – it was early May, and sunlight had just reached the ivy at his shoulder – Joseph Stone leaped up at his boss’s call, then slowly, so as not to remind himself of Pavlov’s dog, tucked his chair back under the shelf that held his keyboard.
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘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.
‘She is well-behaved, as icons go, she toes the party line.’
Short fiction by the author of Our Wives Under the Sea.
‘That smile the President has – it was just the same then as it is now.’
Fiction by Rebecca Sollom.
‘I have drunk from the same waters as the son of Hermes and Aphrodite.’
Fiction by Alejandro Morellón, translated by Esther Allen.
‘We all now exist as avatars, on shining tiles in these cubist landscapes’
Joanna Kavenna discusses her all-too-familiar surveillance dystopia, Zed.
