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Christmas In Seattle

I thought about the crackers and water in my room. Pride and weariness battled in my mind. How had it come to this? Just months ago I had been a well-paid, respected professional.

The Birds Of Silicon Valley

My job was to write computer training programs. But sometimes my mind wandered, and I turned to look out the window at the people in the parking lot, the cars on the street, and, especially from my sixth-floor cubicle, the birds that soared in the gulf of air between me and the ground.

Hero With A Thousand Faces

One of Bill Clinton’s favorite movies, according to the newspaper, is High Noon. It’s one of my favorites, too, a classic Western about a lone man standing up against evil. I watched it again the weekend before the inauguration.

Zero-Hour Day Zero-Day Workweek

Money

Lunch money, Las Vegas, art for the people

Minding The Equipment

It is interesting enough, you might suppose, that a man goes out every winter, in the very worst of the Northwest weather, and lives out there alone for months at a time, all to take care of someone else’s heavy equipment.

Waitress Wisdom!

From The Holy Mother Of Jobs

(Formerly The Goddess Of Labor): A Report On A Poor Supplicant

Understanding comes like a delayed explosion in her head. Lightning has hit the fireworks stand and here she is thinking about it! Instead of being dead! Instead of flying through the sky with a fountain of fireworks a mile high!

A Day In The Life At Paradise

This is how it began. We stood in the parking lot under the hot sun looking at one another. “It’s a job for a couple,” he said. “The advertisement said for a couple.” I shrugged and waited, not having anything else to do. He told me about the hours and the pay and asked me if I had ever worked a motel before. I told him no and by the end of the week I was the manager at Paradise. That is how it began.

Bearing Up In Winter

She begins to go through the store’s canceled checks, bank statements, and copies of federal employer’s quarterly tax returns, which I do not have enough of, according to the records in the file that Dolores has brought with her.