“Sympathetic visitors to Williamsburg have been known to bump or block white actor-interpreters who are haranguing or otherwise mistreating enslaved black characters. Occasionally, they’ve grabbed prop guns or started to shout about fighting back. Racist and demeaning comments aren’t uncommon. Willie Wright, a veteran actor-interpreter, said a child once asked him if he was a slave. When Wright said yes, the boy, who was white, demanded that Wright bring him a soda.”
This sounds like a terrible job.
Quite good: Victoria Hannan’s portraits of London cab drivers, with stories. My favorite: Ray (pictured above). “Ray’s been driving cabs for 16 years. He thinks it’s the best working class job there is and that there aren’t many others that let you work every day of your life if you want to.”
A job that lets you work every day of your life = best job. :(
(Another favorite woke up at 4 a.m. everyday for three years to study The Knowledge, “a test which has been described as a bit like having a mental atlas of London in your head.”)
I haven’t read a lot of the articles about raising the minimum wage because it is just so stupidly obvious that the fact that it didn’t already happen yesterday makes me exhausted. But it’s still a thing people are talking about and writing about because it’s still a thing that isn’t settled yet (RIDICULOUS) so Robert Reich made a video with Move On that goes over the pros and debunks the cons in 2 minutes and 25 seconds. Shorter version: DUH.
Christine Baumgarthuber looks at the People’s Kitchens in nineteenth century Europe (“an organization whose mission it was to provide cheap, nourishing meals for the thousands thrown out of work by the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War two years before”) and how they translated when brought to American soil: Employee cafeterias (“Served hot meals by their employers, employees serve their employers’ bottom line”).
In The Globe And Mail last year, an anonymous 29-year-old wrote in to describe the difficulty he’s had finding a well-paid, stable career in a corporate environment and has been getting by on short-term marketing contract jobs. After his letter was published, a few corporate recruiters got in touch with the letter writer and helped him with his resume, which has led to … more contract jobs. From last week’s followup by the Globe:
How was turning 30?
Awful. I didn’t think I’d be here at 30. I thought I’d be a little more settled. By the time my parents were 30, they had kids, they had their first place and they had their careers reasonably settled on. That’s not really the case with me.
Where are you right now?
I’ve done more contract work with various marketing and promo companies. It’s been awesome as far as gaining experience and more contacts.
Are you on a contract as we speak?
No, I’m between contracts.
Does this mean that if I got a job because I said meat processing was my dream job but it actually wasn’t my dream job (fish farming) … I’d be breaking the law?
PULLQUOTE 1: “In March of last year, Iowa became the first state to pass an ag gag law in two decades. It is now illegal to seek employment at Iowan factory farms under false pretenses. Not by coincidence, the bill was formulated soon after a 2010 Humane Society undercover exposé of Iowa egg farms went viral. Cody Carlson, one of the egg farm investigators, took an entry-level job at four different farms and wore a pinhole camera to work every day.”
PULLQUOTE 2: “Ag gag laws are already on the books in Iowa, Missouri, Utah, North Dakota, Montana, and Kansas. If Indiana and the 5 other states mulling these bills follow suit, the facilities producing 99 percent of American meat will be completely shielded from the public eye.”
