‘The end of the war in the Pacific came just before I left school.’
The end of the war in the Pacific came just before I left school. My matriculation grades were not good enough for an arts course at Sydney University, so my mother said that while I thought about whether to re-sit some subjects, I had to go to work. Consolidated Press, owned by Sir Frank Packer, fa…
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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.
‘The CIA had become concerned about Soviet influence in India in the early 1960s.’
‘I think what draws me in is the spectacle of the law trying to deal with something that nothing can deal with – just the wildness of people.’
Izabella Scott in conversation with Helen Garner.
‘As every soldier and every journalist who has ever covered a war knows – sleeping and eating are the most important things.’
Lindsey Hilsum writes home from Ukraine.
A journalist receives a troubling call about a friend in this excerpt from Madeleine Bunting’s new novel Ceremony of Innocence.
‘The book is in my studio and I am about to go out and buy fresh glue’.
