BooksBarbecue
Back Nothing to See Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Dedication
  4. Dedication2
  5. 1994
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. 2006
  24. 18
  25. 19
  26. 20
  27. 21
  28. 22
  29. 23
  30. 24
  31. 25
  32. 26
  33. 27
  34. 28
  35. 29
  36. 30
  37. 31
  38. 32
  39. 33
  40. 34
  41. 35
  42. 36
  43. 37
  44. 2018
  45. 38
  46. 39
  47. 40
  48. 41
  49. 42
  50. 43
  51. 44
  52. 45
  53. 46
  54. 47
  55. 48
  56. 49
  57. Acknowledgements

Earlier tonight she was walking home from the station and realised she was going to leave the call centre job. There were always messages and emails about other work she could do at home. Some of the work was way more lucrative. A site where people uploaded pictures of their pets needed people to check that none of the photos included sexually explicit content. The script was working better and better on the words and she was pretty sure she’d be able to train it to analyse images. There was this other thing, a friend-type thing, which needed people to check for hate speech and advertising. Both needed maximum discretion because the sites had told shareholders they could do all the moderation through an algorithm and the pet site had lots of very young users.

Now it was 4:00am. The script was humming away behind the email window happily. ‘Automagical,’ she said to herself, and she smiled at the script – she never knew if she was ahead of anyone, but she was in the ballpark, and she didn’t need it to be a crazy success. She just needed it to work well enough for her to check a lot of items quickly so she could make as much money as possible.

33

33

On her last day, they brought out the barbecue and she brought in some beers and steaks and made salad. In the end it was a kind sort of farewell. People asked where Greta was and others asked where Peggy was, and she said, ‘Oh, I think she’s here.’ And people would look around a bit and say, ‘Oh. Okay. Cool.’

People were politely interested in where she was going and when she told them she was going to freelance from home some of them said, ‘Living the dream.’ She smiled and nodded. ‘You’ll put on weight,’ Duncan said. She must have looked confused for a moment and he said, ‘All that food, just sitting there waiting for you to eat it.’ She laughed. ‘And your kitchen will get clean,’ June shouted from across the group. She laughed at that too. There was a lot of housework to do when there was just one of her, but she was keeping up. She had to keep telling herself that. That everyone else did it. That really she’d been spoilt for twelve years. That really this was what grown-ups did. This was growing up. And then while doing the housework she would find herself sitting in the doorway between the kitchen and the bedroom again, looking at the hinges and looking at her watch, and she’d been sitting there for an hour. There wasn’t time for that kind of self-indulgence. It was such a bind: the grieving took so much time and the loss meant there was much less time for grieving.