It’s not that I’ve forgotten his face, more that it changes each day inside my head, like lava from a constantly erupting volcano that cannot settle into a definite shape. One day, a dense fringe of hair covering his forehead is his most prominent feature. On the next, it is his baboon’s snout…
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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.
‘During the hottest months, the thermometer settles in at 100 degrees like a nonagenarian in a rocker – no one can make it move.’
‘From the future, Cuenca narrates Rio’s collapse and the personal fall of the main character. He does it with the elegant distance of a data collector but also with the terrifying certainty of one who knows there’s no going back.’
‘I’d had quite enough of everything. I vowed to no longer mistake obedience for love.’
Fiction by Catherine Lacey.
‘They couldn’t put their finger on exactly what it was they craved, but they knew it was very different to what they had.’
Fiction by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes.
