advice
Workplace advice for any issue, problem, or concern; from changing careers to co-working advice and decorating needs.
My Brother Signs Faster When He Is Happy. AI-Generated.
The Speed of His Hands My brother Sizwe was born deaf, and I learned to sign before I learned to read. By the time I was seven I could tell his moods from across the playground by the speed of his hands. When he is tired, his signs go small and lazy, barely leaving his chest. When he is angry, they snap. When he is happy, they go so fast that even I, who have been interpreting professionally for eleven years, have to say, "Slow down, slow down."
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
The Committee Meeting Where I Asked for a Hot Room. AI-Generated.
Five Fifteen in July There is a particular kind of cold that lives in the Pietermaritzburg valley in July. It settles in the bowl of the city overnight and sits there until the sun has the strength to push it out, which on most winter mornings is around ten. Our squad trains at quarter past five.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
At Six in the Morning I Light the Ovens in Someone Else's Bakery. AI-Generated.
The Keys on My Belt I carry eleven keys on a ring clipped to my belt. None of them open anything I own. They belong to bakeries, a catering kitchen in Vaughan, and one small pizza place on Bathurst Street where the owner still calls me Mr. Engineer even though I told him years ago that I retired.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
My Wife Started Hiding Her Rings in the Freezer. AI-Generated.
The Peas Rattled I found the first one in March, in a packet of frozen peas. I was making Sunday lunch in our kitchen in Waterkloof Ridge, the way I have done since I retired from the municipality, and when I shook the peas into the pot something hard clinked against the steel. I fished it out with a fork. It was Annatjie's engagement ring, the small diamond in its old yellow setting, so cold it stung my fingers.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
I Taught the Limpopo From a Laminated Map for Twenty-Two Years. AI-Generated.
The Map on the Back Wall For twenty-two years there was a map of southern Africa on the back wall of Room G14. It was laminated, which mattered, because every September I traced the Limpopo River across it in green whiteboard marker and every July I wiped it off again. By the end the plastic had a faint permanent green ghost where the river ran, as if the map itself had learned the lesson better than most of my Year Nines.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
I Was Paid to Spit It Out, and I Stopped Spitting. AI-Generated.
The Bucket on the Table For eleven years my working life revolved around a small silver bucket. If you have ever been to a proper tasting you will know the one. It sits in the middle of the table, slightly dented, lined with a bit of sawdust if the cellar is old fashioned, and everybody leans over it with a kind of practised elegance and spits.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
My Daughter Chose the Flat Because of the Way the Hallway Echoed. AI-Generated.
The Last Morning in Kimberley The removal truck left before we did. I stood in the empty lounge of the house Thandeka and I had bought eleven years earlier and listened to the fridge humming in the kitchen, the one thing we were leaving behind because it would not fit through the new door. Lerato sat on the front step with her backpack on her knees, already strapped in for a journey that was still an hour away.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
Two Hundred Sheep Before Smoko and Nothing Left in My Arms. AI-Generated.
The Fourth Week of January There is a moment, about the fortieth sheep of the second run, when the handpiece starts to feel like it weighs as much as the ewe. Everybody who shears knows it. You push through it. That is the job.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
My Grandfather's Postcards From Lourenço Marques Never Mentioned the Elephants. AI-Generated.
The Shoebox in Alfama My grandfather, Joaquim, died in 2003 in the flat above the bakery in Alfama where he had lived for forty years. He was not a talker. He fixed radios, he smoked one cigarette a day at exactly half past four, and he never, ever spoke about Mozambique, where he had worked as a young man on the railways out of Lourenço Marques.
By Josh Maraney4 days ago in Journal
