Bad Jobs: Why We Stayed

“They tasked me with designing and developing a website, marketing plans and brochures, and dealing with customers, as well as purchase orders, packaging goods and arranging shipments. Most days, I had a lot of independence; I hired printing companies, and sourced out costs, and travel to the U.S. Work made me feel important and valuable. As someone who had grown up working in various not-for-profit organizations, this type of fast-paced capitalist driven enterprise was exhilarating.”

Leonarda Carranza, Tamara Jong – Carte Blanche – January 2019

Advertisements

The Business of Bedtime

“Somewhere, right now, there is a baby who should be sleeping. Instead, she is screaming in a crib, wailing in a stroller, or sitting up, eyes wide open, in a car being driven endlessly in circles. But there is one baby who isn’t. Jack is four and a half months old, and he just passed out in his mother’s arms. She is sitting on a grey felt rocking chair, and on a nearby table, a down-tempo, slightly spacey version of Brahms’s ‘Lullaby’ is playing from a Bluetooth-connected gizmo, a cylindrical speaker and night light, all of which she is controlling with her iPhone.”

David Sax – The Walrus – January 2019

Animal House

“It had become trendy for tech companies to hire media refugees like me to serve as ‘brand storytellers’ instead of spending millions on conventional advertising. Vision Critical had invented a position for me on the marketing team—senior director, content. I knew next to nothing about promoting software to market researchers, yet I would be overseeing an in-house propaganda machine of writers, videographers, graphic designers and social media managers. My salary would be double that of the average magazine editor. I signed the contract.”

Mark Pupo – Toronto Life – December 2018

Money for a post-work world

“Yet here we are, still toiling away with unemployment rates at multi-decade lows. Instead of eradicating work, technology has done what it will surely always continue to do: create more jobs than it destroys. What matters far more in Forget’s view is the quality of those new jobs. And it is the rise of precarious labour, reflected in the side-hustle economy, piecemeal freelance gigs, and endless contract positions, which basic income is perfectly suited to address, by providing a measure of insurance against job insecurity.”

Jason Kirby – Literary Review of Canada – November 2018

The Minister of Everything

“On Nov. 5, 2015, the morning after he was sworn in, Navdeep Bains approached a podium in the halls of Parliament Hill. It took him exactly 23 seconds—barely enough time to recite his unwieldy new title, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development—to announce the return of the mandatory long-form census, which the Conservatives had scrapped in 2010. He lifted a copy of the document and struck a grade-schooler’s show-and-tell pose, flashing a grin for the scrum of photographers surrounding him. The smile wasn’t all show. Bains, a 41-year-old FCPA and four-term Liberal MP, is a self-professed ‘numbers guy.’ And nothing gets a numbers guy going like a census.”

Luc Rinaldi – Pivot Magazine – November 2018

 

Checking in with the oil crowd

“As someone who’s reported on climate justice for years, I decided to make a trip into the belly of the beast to see what the oil business is doing to propel the low-carbon energy transition, or to hinder it. So now I’m at the Calgary Stampede grounds, on Treaty 7 territory, trying to make sense of what the people gathered here believe is next for their industry – and, by consequence, our planet. The conference guidebook tells me we’re here ‘CELEBRATING THE FUTURE OF ENERGY.’ Excuse my skepticism.”

David Gray-Donald – Briarpatch – August 2018

From NAFTA to USMCA: Inside the tense negotiations that saved North American trade

“And there, in Mr. Lighthizer’s e-mail, was what Canada had demanded all along: The United States would leave the Chapter 19 dispute resolution system completely untouched. Ms. Freeland threw up her hands and cheered. ‘Woo hoo!’ This was the crucial moment – described to The Globe and Mail by four sources – of the 72-hour marathon of negotiations last weekend that sealed it. Before Sunday was out, the two sides had announced a tentative deal on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as the United States insisted NAFTA be renamed.”

Adrian Morrow, Barrie McKenna, Stephanie Nolen – The Globe and Mail – October 2018