Email us questions at advice@the-toast.net, subject line “businesslady.” Previous installments can be found here. Dear Businesslady,I work in a small office that has seen a lot of turnover in the past 8 months. Half the staff has moved on to other jobs and we're still working on filling some of the open positions.I have become the most senior staff, which is scary because I have been on the job for less…
Feel free to ask Aunt Acid a variety of questions at advice@the-toast.net. Previous installments can be found here. Hi Aunt Acid, I need your advice please. I am 37 years old and am in my 8th office job. I've always left my jobs because I think the grass is greener on the other side. For me it gets to the point where I feel bad waking up every morning to go to work. There…
Kathryn Ionata's previous work for The Toast can be found here. During my first semester as an adjunct instructor of English at two universities, I had come to dread Wednesdays. In the morning, I taught composition to a class of sleepy-eyed freshmen whose staunch refusal to participate in class discussions rivaled their unwillingness to crack a smile. After an interminable fifty minutes, I retreated to the “bullpen,” as a colleague referred to the small,…
On a cruise ship the size of a small European nation, it's not surprising that the first thing I did was get lost. I had already seen the vast 1000-seater theatre and the dressing rooms, featuring a Return to Oz-like gallery of wigs, where I would be spending most of my time. I had also been shown to my cabin, the one I would be sharing with a fellow actor, Jen, for the next sixteen…
Since childhood I’ve always been good at recognizing patterns. During a spelling test in second grade, I realized that my teacher was calling out the words in the same order they were listed in our English textbook, and was able to fill out the remaining blanks in advance, from memory. Walking between the rows of desks as she announced the words, my teacher noticed my completed test, accused me of cheating, and sent me to…
I keep my personal collection of artifacts in a mug that I use to burn incense in. Fingering through these relics now is a reminder of days spent cloaked in mud and sweat. The euphoric feeling of a cold shower after digging a trench on mornings so humid, my sunburns blistered. Tan lines that ended mid-calf from wearing duck boots, and the sweet satisfaction of sharpening the blade of my trowel.
More than any other art, classical ballet makes gender its problem. The focus is obvious but subtle. Almost every class is two-thirds female and the hallways of a ballet school are always disproportionately pink. But ballet also curates a vision of femininity as the very ideal of its practice. The vision is manifest not only in the old, narrative productions of the nineteenth century—like The Nutcracker, or Swan Lake, or Giselle—full of the tiaras and…
Email us questions at advice@the-toast.net, subject line “businesslady.” Previous installments can be found here. Dear Businesslady,I've recently divorced my husband and moved back to my hometown to accept a job at an office where my mother used to work. She got hired when I was about six and left to start grad school when I was in high school.In high school, I had my first part-time job at this office, working…
It is early Sunday morning and my cat has just pounced on my quilt-covered ankles to inform me her dish is empty: our weekly waking ritual on my faith’s holy day. If I don’t oblige right away she will start in on her most mournful arias, so I stumble through the dark of my basement apartment, scoop some kibble into her dish, and stare into the bathroom mirror at my badly lit face
During a fundraiser, a congressman catches my eye and waves me over. He’s in the middle of a conversation but reaches out for a two armed hug as he says my name: “HEATHER!” He holds me by my shoulders and asks me how I am. “And how is mom?” Mom is good. Mom is away at Columbia University earning her Master’s in Journalism.
Dear Businesslady,My roommate is preparing for an interview for a position with a different team in the same large organization where he works. He met up with the person who referred him to the position, a former colleague, for coffee and learned for the first time that this very same person would be his supervisor if he were to get the new position. This understandably changed the tone of the conversation, and it turned…
The Product Manager Who Fights An Invisible Enemy Every Morning He's so funny! Who is he swinging his arms wildly at? Is he screaming silently, or trying desperately to breathe because something is choking him? No one knows, because by the time he joins the office meeting at noon, he's in no shape to talk about it. (He's usually very badly beaten!) The Woman Who Lives Under The Glass In The Copy Machine Every office has…
About nine months ago, as it became obvious that I was With Child to even the most absent-minded professors in my engineering research center, I had the following conversation about two or three times a day: Nervous Graduate Student: So, um, when are you going out on maternity leave? (I wrangle all of the ~50 graduate students ‘round these parts.) Me: Well, my due date is March 7th, but since [university name redacted] doesn’t have…
In Colorado the lowest point is three thousand, three hundred and seventeen feet above sea level, where the Arikaree River finds Kansas, and the average elevation is just shy of seven thousand. Spanning from the Great Plains to the Colorado Plateau to the Rocky Mountains, Colorado is a floating quadrangle in the mountain west.
The summer after my freshman year in high school, I took my first real job. Not the first time I’d be working really hard or getting paid, but the first time I needed paperwork. I was 14, uncomfortable with every inch of my body, shy.
Minimum wage was $4.15 an hour, at least in Alaska, but without expenses like a car or kids or booze habit, the money added up nicely.
