advice
Workplace advice for any issue, problem, or concern; from changing careers to co-working advice and decorating needs.
My Twin Went to Stellenbosch and I Went to Pretoria. AI-Generated.
The Last Night in the Same Room For eighteen years I fell asleep to the sound of my brother breathing. Kamogelo is older than me by eleven minutes, and he has never let me forget it. We shared a womb, a cot, a bunk bed in our grandmother's house in Seshego, and then a narrow room in our parents' place in Polokwane with two single beds pushed so close together that you could pass a phone across the gap without sitting up.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
Twenty Drum Lessons a Week Behind a Door That Rattled. AI-Generated.
How the Cars Ended Up in the Driveway When my husband and I bought our house in Garsfontein, the estate agent called the double garage "a real selling point." She was imagining two cars. I was imagining a drum kit.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
The Family Who Came Back for a Paper I Could Not Find. AI-Generated.
The Front Room on a Thursday Mrs Mabena came back to us on a Thursday in late March, four months after we buried her husband. I remember the day because the generator was running and the whole front room smelled of diesel and the lilies we keep in a bucket by the door. She sat in the same chair she had sat in the first time, the one with the cracked green vinyl that my uncle always meant to recover, and she put her handbag on her knees and held it with both hands.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
Twelve Hours at a Boom Gate in Umhlanga Heat. AI-Generated.
Six in the Morning, Already Sweating The first car through my gate every weekday is a silver Polo driven by a nurse who works nights at a hospital up the road. She comes in at ten past six, half asleep, and she lifts two fingers off the steering wheel to greet me. By then I have been standing for forty minutes. By then my shirt is already damp across the back.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
Nine Years of Watering Other People's Ferns. AI-Generated.
The Fern in Westville The fern that started all of this belonged to a retired pharmacist called Mrs Govender, and it lived on a wrought iron stand in her sunroom in Westville. She left me a note about it that ran to two pages. Water on Mondays and Thursdays. Never from the tap, always from the rain barrel. Turn it a quarter turn so it does not lean toward the window like a teenager.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
My Son Learned to Drive in My Car and Rearranged My Whole Dashboard. AI-Generated.
The Bakkie Was Not Meant for This For eleven years my car was entirely mine. A grey double cab, slightly dented on the passenger side from an argument with a gatepost in Hilton. Radio permanently tuned to the same station. A cup holder full of loose coins and a tyre gauge. A dashboard that held nothing except dust and a little laminated card of my late mother's favourite verse, tucked into the edge of the speedometer.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
The Reading Circle Under the Jacaranda Needed Somewhere to Sit. AI-Generated.
The Ground Was Always Wet For the first year, the children sat on the ground. They sat on flattened cardboard boxes and old feed sacks and, when it had rained, on nothing at all, because the cardboard went soft and the sacks smelled. They sat cross-legged under the big jacaranda on the corner of my street in Soshanguve, on Saturday mornings from nine until eleven, and I sat in front of them on an upturned paint tin and read aloud.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
Every Chain My Father Gave Me Came After a Good Night at the Casino. AI-Generated.
The Velvet Pouch My father never gave me a gift on my birthday. He gave me gifts on Sunday mornings. That was how I learned to read him. If he came home late on a Saturday night and slept until eleven and then appeared at the kitchen table in his gown, humming, with a small velvet pouch in his pocket, it meant he had won. If he came home late and slept until eleven and appeared without humming, it meant he had not, and we did not talk about money that week.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
The Grade Eleven Tuck Shop That Kept Losing Forty Rand a Day. AI-Generated.
The Shortfall on the First Friday The first Friday our tuck shop closed its books, we were forty-three rand short. The second Friday, we were thirty-eight rand short. The third, fifty-one. By the end of the first month I had a Grade Eleven class that was quietly accusing each other of theft, a principal who had started raising his eyebrows at me in the staff room, and a biscuit tin full of coins that never, ever matched the exercise book we used to record sales.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
The Patient in Ward Six Ate Nothing but Fruit for Four Days. AI-Generated.
The Tray That Came Back Full The first tray came back untouched except for the banana. I did not notice. I have been the catering manager at a private hospital in Johannesburg for nine years and in that time I have seen thousands of trays come back full. Patients are sick, patients are sad, patients have just had anaesthetic and cannot face shepherd's pie. A full tray is not unusual. It is Tuesday.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
