Work

Wednesday

Ross Clark

What has become of the Wellcome Collection?

In 2022 the Wellcome Collection caused a stir by closing its Medicine Man exhibition on the grounds that it was ‘based on racist, sexist and ableist theories and language’. Director Melanie Keen had previously talked of reinterpreting the collection but had now evidently decided it was beyond redemption. ‘We can’t change our past,’ she said in a statement at the time. ‘But we can work towards a future where we give voice to the narratives and lived experiences of those who have been silenced, erased and ignored.’ I felt sorry for Sir Henry Wellcome, now dismissed by the organisation bearing his name as an evil colonialist Anyone who wasn’t quite

Thursday

Cindy Yu

Why China’s nostalgia industry is booming

Nostalgia is a thriving industry in China. I first noticed this while walking around Nanjing last summer. There were shops with names like ‘Finding Childhood’ or ‘Childhood Memories’, selling sweets and toys that had long been discontinued. There were posters of TV shows and celebrities from the 1980s and 1990s. The customers were like me – misty-eyed millennials, often women, looking for their lost childhoods. ‘Oh my god, remember that!’ We relished every moment. The shops have sprung up suddenly in the past two years, mostly catering to my generation, who spend more on high-street tat than our elders. But older Chinese have been seeking nostalgia too. They get their

Thursday

Lara Prendergast

Trade like a tradwife

I love to complain about my phone. It has ruined everything, from friendships to childhood to my memory. But if I stop the bitching and think clearly for a moment, I must admit that my phone is a far more liberating bit of kit than the washing machine or the contraceptive pill. Largely that’s because my phone allows me to work from anywhere. For many women, particularly those with children, this is a dramatic and radical change. Claire Roscoe’s story is a good example. Both she and her husband lost their City jobs in the wake of the pandemic. Pregnant with her second child, Claire needed to find work again

Thursday

Cindy Yu

Be more tiger mum!

‘What’s it to do with me if your boyfriend wants to break up with you? Or if you cried, or had a fight, these are not things that I as a supervisor care about. I’m not your mother. All I care about is results. Our relationship is just employee-employer.’ In a series of videos posted on Douyin (China’s version of TikTok), Chinese tech executive Qu Jing was a little too candid about her management style. Sharply dressed and with hair cut formidably short, she said she expected her staff to be on call 24 hours a day, including at weekends, even at the cost of their personal relationships. If Qu

Thursday

Jessa Crispin

A podcast that listens to what anti-vaxxers think rather than lecturing them

Work is our new religion. There are people whose primary job is writing listicles of celebrity gossip, illustrated with gifs from the Fast & Furious franchise, who refer to being a writer as a ‘calling’. If I think about this for too long my brain simply shuts down to protect itself. What we used to do for God we now do for our work. In a secular culture, it seems totally normal — admirable, even — to sacrifice the possibility of having a family, to give up all leisure time, to starve yourself or live on insane, totally made-up diets like intermittent fasting or paleo for the sake of your