’I was sweating, I was faint. The yellow on the walls was brilliant and burning.‘
My life began at Cambridge, the moment I walked through the Emmanuel College gate and stood on the smooth, uneven stones within the cloisters. I loved the bad sherry and the rotten dinners, which I ate, gowned, in Emmanuel Hall. I was happy, spending too much on a bike that was stolen at once, so th…
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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.
‘Los Angeles was a lot like South Africa. The apartheid wasn't enshrined by law, but by economics and geography, and it was just as powerful.’
‘This is not the story of my life, at least not the story of all of it, but it is the story of my father.’
‘I was a hysterical adolescent. But I was a hysterical adolescent with a credit card and there was a seat available.’
‘The whole family: yay. I love my family. (Don’t I.)’
Fiction by Victor Heringer, translated by James Young.
‘Was the sunburn part of the shtick? she wondered while the video continued to play.’
A story by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto.
‘Mina Loy has been a preferred voice in my head, echoing with a signature delirious chant as a kind of primordial poetry mother.’
