advice
Workplace advice for any issue, problem, or concern; from changing careers to co-working advice and decorating needs.
It Was Just a Game
The dinner had been going well. That's the part I keep coming back to — how easy the evening felt before it wasn't. We'd been dating for a few months, long enough that the first-date anxiety had burned off and left something more comfortable in its place. He was in his thirties, I was late twenties, and the dynamic had always felt low-maintenance in a way I appreciated. Good conversation, no drama, the simple pleasure of someone whose company you don't have to work at. We'd gone out after work, somewhere with decent food and no pressure, and the talk had drifted the way it does when two people are genuinely at ease — from the new GTA release to gaming generally to the specific question of what we each actually played.
By Bertyl Kently4 months ago in Journal
My Birthday, His Feelings
We'd been at the beach for a few hours by the time it happened — long enough that the drinks had done their work, that the afternoon had gone golden and loose, that the whole outing had acquired the pleasant formlessness of a day without a schedule. My aunt had suggested the beach as an early birthday celebration, and I'd said yes immediately, the way you say yes when the offer is simple and the company is people you've known your entire life.
By Bertyl Kently4 months ago in Journal
The Prototype We Built Twice, And The Notebook I Nearly Threw Away. AI-Generated.
The skip The notebook was in a box that was going into a skip. We were moving out of the unit in Epping, downsizing after a bad year, and I was doing what everybody does in that situation, which is throwing away things at nine at night with a kind of violence that has nothing to do with the things.
By Josh Maraney4 months ago in Journal
They Handed Me The Company's Fortieth Birthday And A Spreadsheet With Nothing On It. AI-Generated.
How I got the job There was no job. That is the first thing to understand. I was twenty six and I had been at the company for two years as the internal communications coordinator, which sounds important and meant that I wrote the birthday emails, ran the intranet nobody read, chased people for photographs of their dogs for the Friday newsletter, and yes, ordered the milk, because the office manager left and nobody replaced her and it fell into the gap where I was standing.
By Josh Maraney4 months ago in Journal
Thirty Three Trips Down The M1, And What My Brother In Law And I Talked About. AI-Generated.
The phone call I did not want I am going to be honest from the start, because otherwise this story is worthless. I did not like Sipho. He is my husband's older brother, and for twenty two years he had been, to me, a man who talked too loudly at Christmas, who had opinions about how I raised my children, and who once, at a funeral, told me my hair looked better the other way.
By Josh Maraney4 months ago in Journal
I Took A Night Shift Job In Johannesburg Before I Had Anywhere To Sleep. AI-Generated.
The offer The email came through on a Thursday while I was standing in the parking lot of the hospital in Mthatha where I had done my community service, eating a vetkoek out of a paper bag.
By Josh Maraney4 months ago in Journal
I Stopped Going To The Beach For Six Years Because Of A Spot On My Shoulder. AI-Generated.
The spot It was the size of a pencil eraser and it sat on the top of my left shoulder, just where a shirt strap would sit, and I had it for about two years before I did anything about it.
By Josh Maraney4 months ago in Journal
The Photocopier Lease That Renewed Itself While I Was Away Burying My Mother. AI-Generated.
The cabinet in the corner I started at the firm in the middle of a winter, when the light in that office went orange at about four in the afternoon and everyone put on a jersey without saying anything about it. It was a small engineering outfit in Pietermaritzburg, eleven people, run by two brothers who had inherited it from their father and who still called the workshop "the back" as though it were a room in a house. I was hired as the office manager, which in a company that size means you are the office, the manager, the tea, the switchboard and the person who knows where the spare keys live.
By Josh Maraney4 months ago in Journal
The Biscuit Tin Of Cash Under My Desk, And The Night I Drove Home With It On My Lap. AI-Generated.
What I thought the job was When I opened the aftercare, I thought the job was children. I thought it was homework and cheese sandwiches and breaking up an argument about a soccer ball and phoning a mother to say your son has a temperature. I thought it was learning which child needs to be spoken to loudly and which child will fold in half if you raise your voice at all. I was a teacher for eleven years before this, so I knew that job, and I was good at it, and I loved it.
By Josh Maraney4 months ago in Journal
Two Weeks Without Municipal Water, And A Salon Full Of Wet Heads. AI-Generated.
The tap that made no sound The first thing you learn when the water goes is that a dry tap does not make a dry sound. It makes a wet sound. It coughs, and spits a little brown air, and then it hisses like it is embarrassed, and then nothing.
By Josh Maraney4 months ago in Journal
