advice

Workplace advice for any issue, problem, or concern; from changing careers to co-working advice and decorating needs.

The High-End Lie: You Can’t Buy Real Service With Marble
Low Pay, No High-End I Last winter, I was waiting in the lobby of a hotel that called itself the "city's living room." The marble floor was polished enough to reflect the ceiling. A crystal chandelier hung above like frozen rain. The sofa was leather, and when you sat in it, it let out a soft sigh. A waiter passed with a tray. On the tray were two glasses of sparkling water. He set one in front of me. Condensation slid down the glass and left a dark ring on the coaster. He smiled. The curve of his mouth looked measured with a ruler. Then he turned and walked away, back straight, steps even. At the corner, his shoulders dropped. He raised a hand and rubbed the back of his neck.
By Jin2 months ago in Journal
The Last Hurdle: Liu Xiang’s “Third Path” Was Never a Path
The last hurdle, eleven years late: Liu Xiang and the "third path" that was never there I. A number bib On August 26, 2026, Liu Xiang posted a photograph on Weibo. The 2004 Athens Olympics, men's 110-meter hurdles final. The number bib pinned to his chest. White background, black numbers: 1363.
By Jin2 months ago in Journal
The Letter Was Dated September 3. The Applause Came on September 8.
A letter dated September 3, and a trial that premiered early On September 8, on the Lido in Venice, in the Sala Grande, the last of the four-hour credits rolled and the lights came up. The audience stood. The applause lasted five minutes. At the same moment, in a Los Angeles law office, a printer pushed out its final page. The date on the paper was September 3. The recipient: Jigsaw Productions. The sender: Alex Spiro. Above the signature was a line: if the content is not revised, HBO, Bleecker Street, and Universal Pictures will be sued.
By Jin2 months ago in Journal
Social Work England: Fitness to Practise Delays, Public Complaints and Regulatory Oversight
Social Work England: Fitness to practise delays and public complaints face scrutiny. Social Work England data and Bristol social services raise questions about regulatory oversight and public confidence.
By Alex Ray2 months ago in Journal
I Avoided the Dentist for Nine Years, and My Six-Year-Old Was Braver Than Me. AI-Generated.
The wobble I told nobody about I noticed it on a Sunday, biting into a green apple in my kitchen in Boksburg, and I did the thing that a certain kind of man does. I pretended it had not happened.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
Piet Wanted to Retire, and Suddenly We Had to Put a Price on Twelve Years. AI-Generated.
The morning he told me We had been proofing dough side by side for twelve years when Piet said it, and he said it the way you say something you have rehearsed in the car. It was a Tuesday, quarter past four, the ovens still cold, and he had flour on his forearms already because he never waited for me to start. He said, Andries, I think this is my last winter here.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
At Forty-One I Chose the Ring Myself, and Chose It Grown in a Lab. AI-Generated.
The Woman Who Had Done This Before I married for the first time at twenty-four, and I did it the way you are supposed to. A man got down on one knee with a ring he had chosen alone, a ring I had no part in picking, a ring I wore for eleven years and then quietly took off in a lawyer's office. I do not tell that story for sympathy. The marriage ended without villains, just two people who had grown in different directions. But I mention the ring because it matters to what came later. That first ring had been a surprise, a gesture, a thing that happened to me. I loved it at the time. I also never once felt like it was mine, because I had never been asked.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
The Enquiries Started Coming From a Voice in a Phone, Not the Yellow Pages. AI-Generated.
The Shop That Time Was Supposed to Forget I fix typewriters. I have done it in the same narrow shop off a side street in Pretoria for the better part of forty years, first with my father and then, after he passed, on my own. Olivetti, Olympia, the old Remingtons, the Hermes Baby that people bring in wrapped in a jersey like it is a sick child. I clean the type slugs with a brush and paraffin, I re-ink ribbons, I chase down platen rollers that stopped being made before I was born. For most of my life this was a dying trade, and I made my peace with dying trades a long time ago.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
My Sister and I Could Not Agree What Our Parents' House Was Worth. AI-Generated.
The House With Both Our Childhoods In It When our mother died, eighteen months after our father, my sister Anke and I were left with the house on the hill in Bloemfontein where we had both grown up. Three bedrooms, a stoep that caught the afternoon sun, a lemon tree our father had planted the year I was born, and a kitchen that still, somehow, smelled faintly of every Sunday lunch of my childhood. We were the only two children. There was no will fight, no drama, no long lost cousin. Just the two of us, and one house, and the enormous, unspoken question of what came next.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
The Water Cooler Became the Busiest Corner of My Barbershop. AI-Generated.
The Garage I Turned Into a Chair I opened my barbershop in a converted garage in Durban with almost nothing. Two secondhand chairs, a mirror I bought off a man who was closing his salon in Overport, and a floor I tiled myself over three weekends while my cousin held the spirit level and gave opinions nobody asked for. My whole business plan fit on the back of a flyer. Cut hair well, charge fair, do not keep people waiting longer than you have to. That was it.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
I Put a Wooden Cabin at the End of the Garden and Finally Had a Workshop. AI-Generated.
The Problem of a Man With Nowhere to Go I retired at sixty-two after thirty-eight years as a fitter and turner, and within about six weeks my wife Marina and I had a problem neither of us would say out loud. I was always there. Not in a bad way. In a completely unbearable way. I had spent nearly four decades leaving the house at six and coming home at five, and suddenly I was underfoot from dawn to dusk, reorganising her kitchen cupboards, offering opinions on the washing, following her from room to room like a large retired dog.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
I Ran a Kayak Rental by a Lake and Taught Myself Marketing From a Screen. AI-Generated.
The Business That Only Worked When People Knew It Existed I run a small kayak and canoe rental down by the lake. Twelve boats, a battered trailer, a wooden hut with a till and a kettle, and a stretch of shoreline where the water goes glassy in the early morning and people fall a little bit in love with the place whether they meant to or not. In summer I am run off my feet. In the shoulder seasons I live or die entirely on whether anyone actually knows I am there.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal