Posts tagged Working women
The Great Waddle: Office Life on an Exercise Ball
The Great Waddle: Office Life on an Exercise Ball

My desk had become a fortress of pillows, snacks, and motivational sticky notes from my colleagues that read things like “You can do it!” and “Please don’t give birth on my lunch break!” The snacks were essential, as my unborn child had developed gourmet tastes that could rival a Michelin-starred chef. Pickles dipped in Nutella? Sure. Cheese puffs with a side of strawberry jam? Why not? And my chair had been replaced with an exercise ball, supposedly to help with labor prep but mostly making me feel like a circus act.

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Kind of a Funny StoryKristina Buschpregnancy, Working women, women at workComment
ODD JOB
ODD JOB

“Hey Ref! You’re making calls out of your aaass!” the father of a nine-year-old kid in a game I was officiating yelled at me at the top of his lungs, adding a two-handed, open-palm slam against the glass for emphasis.

Handing off the puck to my officiating partner, I skated to my designated position, which happened to be a spot on the ice fairly close to where that parent stood, still pressed against the glass. Slowly, deliberately, I leaned forward with my hands on my knees, focusing on the impending puck-drop—and giving that parent a good look at the region from which my calls were coming.

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Women at WorkKristina Buschsexism, sports, Working women, feminism, confidence Comment
Great Expectations
Great Expectations

I donned an orange safety vest and sparkling new hard hat fresh from its cellophane wrapper and trudged up the wide, steep incline under a blazing California sky. My gait was off-kilter, too much weight in the front of my steel-toed boots. The Sony camera slung across my body hit my back every step I took, like a stranger trying to get my attention. I shoved my small notebook and pen into my jeans back pocket and swung the camera around, securing it with my right hand. Up and up the bridge deck I climbed, all the way to the end, halfway across the San Francisco Bay.

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Women at WorkKristina Buschsexism, Working women, writing, feminismComment
The Poet
The Poet

One of my students, a poet, works at a gas station by night. I picture her under the fluorescent lights, composing sonnets and slam poems (her favorite), reading them aloud to the empty store in rural New Mexico, where only a few cars pass by. When the door chime rings, she stows her notebook under the counter and straightens the array of potato chips next to the cash register.

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Women Who TeachGuest Userteacher, student, Working womenComment
X = No Man’s Land
X = No Man’s Land

At the end of the summer of 1986, I stepped into the elevator and traveled alone from the forty-sixth floor of Chicago’s Mid-Continental Plaza to the ground for the last time. For four years, I had worked in that gray rectangular office building that spans a full city block. Its exterior resembles graph paper—gray metal and concrete run up the building vertically and around it horizontally, forming squares. In between that metal and concrete, set back ever so slightly, are windows.

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SexGuest Usersex, Working women, true storiesComment