Browse Topics
Employment
Sunbeams
November 2018One of the first things we must get rid of is the idea that democracy is tantamount to capitalism.
Maintenance Boy
I worked weekend nights and a couple of afternoon shifts during the week. Sometimes I requested more hours just to get away from home. Being away meant I didn’t have to deal with the sadness that lingered in our house.
September 2018
When A Guy Helps You Out
You are sitting in the mail room on that armless gray swivel chair with the duct tape on the seat, sorting the mail, and he’s telling you that corporate life . . . well, it’s a life, is what it is, and you can adapt to it and even start to enjoy it if you just adjust your perspective.
September 2018Loyalty Rewards
In the fall of 1991 I was the lowest-ranking waiter at a steakhouse in Hampton, Virginia. My sole transportation was a Honda 350 motorcycle — halfway between a street bike and a moped — whose chain slipped at the most inopportune times.
May 2018
Calling Him Back From Layoff
I called a man today. After he said
hello and I said hello came a pause
Being Broke
The kindness of strangers, the vicissitudes of life, the merry-go-round at the mall
May 2018
The People I Work With Don’t Talk About Trump
We’re janitors, but we’re called floor-crew technicians. / We work at night. / Darius lives in a trailer with his dad / because his dad has cirrhosis and emphysema.
February 2018The Twelve-Hour Shift
I was home on fall break in my final year at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and I needed money to pay tuition, so I was working a twelve-hour shift with my father at the ceiling-tile factory.
November 2017
Stop Hitting Yourself
I was twenty-six, working full time at the Bagelry in suburban Chicago, avoiding the future. The future did not seem like anything you could count on. Even in suburban Chicago, where Public Works employees smiled while scraping up roadkill, people were unhappy, desperate to convince themselves of something good. Desperate.
September 2017
