‘The speech he gave was bellicose. It was time, he told the people in the conference room, for them to pull their socks up.’
In June 1994, when the news magazine show Full Disclosure was in its second month of development at Fox Television, Andrew Neil, the show’s co-executive editor and star correspondent, called a meeting of his staff. Neil had arrived in New York six weeks earlier. His job at Fox was being described …
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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.
‘Women observing other women tend to be engrossed by the details—the bodily minutiae, the clothing particulars.’
A journalist receives a troubling call about a friend in this excerpt from Madeleine Bunting’s new novel Ceremony of Innocence.
‘Pictures from some cities in Latin America: the burning in front of the family home of the dead who are not collected by the state.’
A coronavirus diary from the Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares, translated by Daniel Hahn.
‘My Cairo is an inverted city, one that wears its innards above the skin.’
‘You didn't become a Londoner simply by living there. After seven years I was still an alien.’
