literature
Best corporate culture and workplace literature to better your workplace experience. Journal's favorite stories.
The Fourth Location
The ceremony itself was beautiful. Whatever came after, I want to be clear about that. It ended around noon, and the heat was already doing what Houston heat does in July — not just warm but committed, the kind that makes you aware of your own skin within thirty seconds of stepping outside. We'd dressed nicely. We were optimistic. We had an address for the reception.
By Bertyl Kently3 months ago in Journal
I Tested 5 “Passive Income” Ideas
After trying to make money online with $0, I kept seeing one phrase everywhere: “Passive income.” So, what is passive income anyway? Most people think that passive income is getting money without having to do anything. That's not it. That's a gift or winning a lottery. Passive income is getting paid over and over for something you've already done or created, without having to redo that thing.
By Timothy A Rowland3 months ago in Journal
The Costume Change
It started before we even arrived. Our friend Joel was turning thirty, and in the weeks leading up to his party a group chat had been set up for logistics — venue details, what to bring, the usual low-traffic thread that dies down once the event information is locked in. Instead it became something else entirely. Joel's younger brother Dominic, twenty-three and on the spectrum, had found the chat and taken up residence in it. We'd pick up our phones after a meeting or a meal and find two hundred messages waiting, the original thread information buried somewhere in the middle. He was messaging well into the early hours. Eventually my girlfriend and I both muted it indefinitely, which meant we nearly missed a time change to the event.
By Bertyl Kently3 months ago in Journal
The Bill for Her Choice
Four years is long enough to develop a working understanding of someone without necessarily becoming close. That's what I had with my roommate Clara — not a friendship exactly, but something functional and comfortable. We'd found an equilibrium that suited both our lives, which is rarer than it sounds when you're sharing a flat in a city where solo living is something you plan toward rather than assume.
By Bertyl Kently3 months ago in Journal
What He Did With It
There is a particular kind of tired that comes from spending a full day being pleasant to people you don't know well. Not hostile — just not yours. You say the right things, you laugh at the right moments, you make the effort because you love someone and their people are part of the deal. By the end of nine hours of it, the tiredness sits somewhere behind your eyes.
By Bertyl Kently3 months ago in Journal
Nobody’s Business
Grocery shopping with a four-year-old and an eighteen-month-old is its own particular exercise in managed chaos. There's the cart situation, first of all — who sits where, who wants to stand on the side, who has decided that today is the day they express opinions about what goes in the basket. By the time you reach the checkout line you've already made approximately forty small decisions and you're operating on the reserves.
By Bertyl Kently3 months ago in Journal
The One Thing I Asked
I said it clearly. That's what I keep coming back to. It had been a long shift — the kind that compresses you, that leaves you walking home with your shoulders somewhere around your ears and your capacity for conversation somewhere considerably lower. My boyfriend was away visiting his family, and I'd invited my friend Cara over for a sleepover, something we'd been trying to arrange for weeks. We're both busy in the way that early twenties busy tends to be: irregular hours, limited overlap, the friendship maintained more through intention than through actual time together. When she arrived I was already flagging, but glad to see her.
By Bertyl Kently3 months ago in Journal
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
