Tales from the Underpaid: Don't Look Back in Anger
My mom reads my newsletter. This might be harder if I were a sex columnist or a shameful right-wing shill homesteader, but she did ask me once why I was...
Tales from the Underpaid: Open Borders
Of all the shitty jobs I’ve had, my stint as a bookseller-barista at Borders was the least shitty. Every well-read young person wants to work in a bookstore,...
Tales from the Underpaid: the Haunting of Home Depot
Everybody said that my first Home Depot had a ghost. I’ve lived in places that I felt were haunted, but free-floating dread is plentiful in apartment...
Tales from the Underpaid: the Customer is Often Wrong
One of the best days in a retail career will be the one when you get to tell off a customer for being an asshole. They’re so rare; the job is a pan full of...
Tales from the Underpaid: 80 Quarts of Cornbread Batter
“No, what happened was I got suspended and just never went back.” Mike was pouring the dry cornbread mix sent to us by Boston Market’s corporate suppliers...
Tales from the Underpaid: Drop Dead Ed
Elon Musk was not my boss, but he did fire me on the last day of June. My job as a federal contractor for the Center for Medicare Services was eliminated as...
Tales from the Underpaid: Closing Time
I learned about the party after closing in my first job at the pizza place, but it happens across all lousy jobs. When we closed the kitchen, we’d blast...
Tales from the Underpaid: Jumper Window
Recently, while I was reading Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams’ tell-all about her time as a nanny to the billionaire manbaby who runs Meta, I found...
Tales from the Underpaid: The Break Room
Most of the underpaid jobs that I’ve held had been in the state of California, which mandates paid breaks and unpaid mealtimes for anyone who punches a...
Tales from the Underpaid: Café Cryptids
In my generation, the quintessential underpaid lousy job to have was barista. So many served in the foam and whipped cream trenches that it became an easy...
Tales from the Underpaid: the Cherrypicker
A home-improvement warehouse is a dangerous place. The ads make it look like friendly folks in aprons will show you how to fix your ceiling fan, and that’s...
Tales from the Underpaid: The Slicer
Welcome to my 2025 newsletter, where I tell raucous and memorable stories from the lousy jobs I’ve had in kitchens, retail, and one phone sex hotline....
Truth Wrapped
My goal for 2024 was to tell you one true story every month. I reached way back for some of them. Others arrived on my doorstep wrapped up in bad news. I got...
Love Song
I got a sublet when I moved to Brooklyn, so that I could find a real apartment. It wasn’t actually a bedroom; it was long and skinny with two doors and a...
Tell me one about Joel.
An old friend of mine died recently. I’m at the age where this starts to happen more frequently, but still young enough to be upset at the news. Joel and I...
Bath Poutine
My ex had a gaming group over for a long evening of Changeling or Vampire or Mage; some WhiteWolf game he loved and had crafted for the glory of it. I wasn’t...
The Feast of Ralph
A loaf of Roman Meal wheat bread, from the before times. The dinner guests lounged on their sides, their mouths stained with the grape. They speculated on...
Day of the needles
When I still lived in the Bay Area, I was married to a librarian. His library served one of the richest communities in America, and an alarming percentage of...
Halfway between your birthday and mine.
My mom’s best friend lived with us through most of my teenage years. It was the only time I knew my mom to have a real close friend, a ride-or-die, inside...
Winged lions and #2 pencils
Before I dropped out of high school, I took a lot of AP classes. I wasn't dropping out because of school. Like most people, I had to drop out because of...