A group of college students asked for the student price. I’d previously gotten in trouble for failing to thoroughly check student IDs, so I figured I should follow through. They didn’t have them.
I was on my own and I ordinarily wouldn’t care, but one of the guys annoyed me, so I told them they would have to pay full price.
Ten months ago, I bought myself a brown corduroy blazer. With elbow patches. As it settled around my shoulders, I felt a surge of confidence fill me—a knowledge that, while I may look like an utter dweeb, I was doing exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I took a picture wearing it—a professorial selfie—and shared it with my friends. Who does that? It would be so much easier to say goodbye to…
Pixar’s Ratatouille is a masterpiece, a beautiful, fun, well-made movie all on its own. But it also touches the heart of gastronomy, the love and study of deliciousness. For a cook, for someone who devoted her life to food and cooking for years, it’s deeply moving. It came out sometime after I graduated culinary school, while I was working my first few prep jobs, chopping and washing, and maybe occasionally plating a salad. Ratatouille
I’m running late this morning; I barely have time to print out a list of the day’s cases before rushing into morning report. The small conference room is packed with day shift investigators, autopsy assistants, the medical student rotating here this month, one of the two forensic pathologists doing autopsies today (I am the other one), and the file boxes, broken chairs, and assorted detritus permanently stored in the room. I slide into the last…
Email us questions at advice@the-toast.net, subject line “businesslady.” Previous installments can be found here. Dear Businesslady,How long can I wait to quit after accepting a promotion at a workplace I dislike? Despite the fact that I wanted to turn down said promotion and stay in my old position...I took it. At the time I was in the midst of trying to get the heck out of…
Email us questions at advice@the-toast.net, subject line "businesslady." Dear Businesslady, The other morning I woke up, thought about going in to work, and was just like “nope.” I called in sick, then spent the day catching up on a bunch of chores that had been stressing me out for ages (along with spending some quality time binge-watching TV). I do this periodically, and it always makes me feel much more refreshed when I go…
My Mother, Who Did Her Best You picked me up when I was down (on the floor, with a busted knee, after playing slip-n-slide in the hallway while you were screwing with the DVR) You knew what was best for me (especially if I was whiny and we were in the car, driving past a McDonald’s) You supported me in all my endeavors (except for that one v-ball game you…
“The hotels are always full here,” Mike tells me on a slow Tuesday night at Babe’s sports bar. He’s come for the hockey, a lone Bruins fan in a desert of pump jacks and roughnecks. Mike moved to this oil and natural gas boomtown in New Mexico from the northeast nine months earlier. He’s a chemical engineer for an oil company you’ve probably heard of, and he’s got stories about the hotel he lived in…
The Toast's previous coverage of the Lyubov Orlova can be found here. Since the ship broke free from its towline in Atlantic waters and the ocean current swept it over the eastern horizon a year ago, the Lyubov Orlova has become fodder for our collective lurid imaginations. Fodder that just keeps on giving. Earlier this year the Daily Mail interviewed a Belgian ship salvager named Pim De Rhoodes, and reported his assertion it…
Previous installments of The Toast’s advice column from two disparate and imperfect persons can be found here. Last time: Advice on Crisis Pregnancy Centers and Abusive Family Members. I was wondering what the polite response is in a work environment for "I like you, work-friend, but please do not come into my office and sit down to chat about your diet / our crazy clients at this particular juncture because…
Now that I’ve gotten to where I am, a lot of people come to me and ask for advice, and the most common question is, “What steps should I take to be a successful customer service agent?” And the first thing I do is ask them back, do you mean someone who likes to do a little customer service on the side once in a while? Or do you mean a real, full-time, support-yourself type of customer service agent? Because there’s nothing wrong with the former. A…
Mark Kowgier 59 Diego Cres. Grimsby Ontario CA 905-321-7325 x Ask My Mother For Mark mark.kowgier@askjeeves.com To Whom It May Concern, My name is Mark Kowgier, and I humbly ask that you please consider this application for ________________ at _________________. I believe, nay, I know, with all my heart, that ________________________ is the exact job I was born to do. And to highlight the endless amount of innumerable reasons why, here are…
When you are asked why you want to go to library school, do not say “I like books.” That’s the reason you’re going to library school, but it’s everyone’s reason, so come up with something a bit more creative (like you want to be the Veronica Mars of answering reference questions, you want to ingrain your love of books in the youth of America, or maybe you just really love the Dewey Decimal system.) Everyone…
Andrea Laurion last wrote about her job writing obituaries, and how she consequently ruined Christmas.
I was working away at my computer when the office manager came by my cubicle pushing a black office chair, wrapped in plastic. "Andrea, your new chair is in."
I didn't remember signing up for a new chair, but if she said I did, I'll take it, though not before getting more information first. "Is it new…
At the start of 2013–years ago, really–I started Sorry House. Imagined as a community collective (I was, after all, a year younger) and re-imagined several times with several different names, like high schoolers starting a band, it quickly became a very self-driven thing. I’ve rejected a lot and assimilated more. I’ve seen my books go from PDF to featured in Vice, Paper, Nylon, and The Rumpus, from my desk to the windows of McNally…
