‘It is not so much that we are splitting up that is really worrying me, it is the fact that she keeps quoting Martin Amis.’
It is not so much that we are splitting up that is really worrying me, it is the fact that she keeps quoting Martin Amis. The other day we were in our bedroom having a silly argument about where things hang in the wardrobe when she said to me, ‘Like Martin Amis says, you go when you can no longer …
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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.
‘I discover some rough skin on her elbow. I run my tongue along it’.
‘I realize with a fresh horror that Jonathan is seeing me as the sin’
‘At night her friends let loose and relax.’
Photography by Vera Yijun Zhou of house parties and clubs in Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing.
‘In the car lights he could see just beyond the runs the bodies of cars like some disassembled ghost train littering the field.’
