Posts Tagged: work
Fitting In
Without men around to impress, I discovered my own taste—what desire meant beyond the desire to be desirable.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Mandarin Imperial
Growing up, I understood my father through observation, and I suspect that he understood me much the same way. I liked to think our love was purer that way. Like two stray dogs who found each other and are blessed enough to just get along.
...moreWomen and Workplace Fiction
Over at the New Yorker, Lydia Kiesling writes about workplace fiction, typically seen as a male-centric dominion overseen by writers like Kafka, as written by women from Helen Phillips in The Beautiful Bureaucrat to Terry McMillan in How Stella Got Her Groove Back.
...moreSelf-Help
Self-help books, like diet books, are ever-popular. But, according to Louis Menand at the New Yorker, they aren’t necessarily making us better human beings—just workers who better fit current business practices: It’s not surprising that every era has a different human model to suit a different theory of productivity, but it is mildly disheartening to realize […]
...moreWeekly Geekery
Bad news from the free-Internet fight is also good news in the war on Google. A bit of sexist schadenfreude. Are psychologists who study morality evil? Want to make things really scary? Here’s how to do it. How do we work together?
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The Saturday Rumpus Review of The Martian
It is the story of an astronaut stranded on Mars for about a year, all by himself.
...moreArt Doesn’t Pay
The arts don’t pay very well, and working as a professional in a creative field like writing, music, or film has grown more precarious. High student debt doesn’t help, but it might explain why almost a quarter of arts graduates end up in business management. Of working artists, 40% don’t have bachelors degrees. The organization […]
...moreMaintaining Human Life
Writing may be hard work, but it isn’t the kind that pays the bills. Tillie Olsen’s seminal Silences wonders just what kind of work writing really is, and who has the privilege to do it: Though access to education has improved for women and for members of the working class (categories that intersect) the lessons […]
...moreDo You Really Want to “Do What You Love”?
Superficially, [“do what you love”] is an uplifting piece of advice, urging us to ponder what it is we most enjoy doing and then turn that activity into a wage-generating enterprise. But why should our pleasure be for profit? Who is the audience for this dictum? Who is not? For Jacobin, Miya Tokomitsu takes a second […]
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In Case of Emergency
I wanted to hide and quiet my mind by drowning it in alcohol, and I wanted a familiar place to do it. Much like my job, however, I had returned to something that no longer existed.
...moreFlexible Working
A British thinktank, the New Economics Foundation, is advocating for a shorter work week as a cure for Britain’s economic, social, and environmental woes. The economists argue that the solution to fewer jobs due to technological advances involves work-sharing, and a government legislated maximum work week. “Are we just living to work, and working to […]
...moreWorkdays Worldwide
This infographic breaks down the workdays of countries in the OECD (Organization for Economic and Co-operation and Development). Distinguishing between paid and unpaid work, the graphic reveals which countries have the shortest and longest average working day according to OECD data. Also included is a gender breakdown of unpaid work around the world.
...moreThe Freelance Revolution
“Today, careers consist of piecing together various types of work, juggling multiple clients, learning to be marketing and accounting experts, and creating offices in bedrooms/coffee shops/coworking spaces. Independent workers abound. We call them freelancers, contractors, sole proprietors, consultants, temps, and the self-employed.” In 2005 one-third of the American workforce was a part of the “freelance […]
...moreThe Joys Of Freelancin’
“The great thing about freelance, of course, is the numerous freedoms it embraces, chief among them being the freedom to work in your underwear. This seems to be the one that everyone knows. I was talking on the phone to an uncle of mine who’s in a nursing home, and when I told him I […]
...moreYou Mean Writing Can’t Be My Career?!
“What the profiles fail to reveal is that the literary apprenticeship is a lengthy one for the majority, that getting published at all is difficult, and to get paid enough to not do anything else but write is virtually a dream. The supposed average money earned by a novelist is $10,000, but if that novel […]
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