Category: Words of Jen

I wrote this piece on April 6, 2018, in response to something that was in the news a few months before.  I read “Barnes & Noble Fired Their Workers” on episode 35 of Words of Jen.

In February of 2018, Barnes & Noble fired a lot of their long-term employees with no warning. People who had been loyal workers for years and years were suddenly out of a job (and in some cases, without a severance package). Some were told they could apply for their job again – but would receive the starting rate of pay.

As a person who worked for Barnes & Noble for a total of five, frantic, frustrating holiday seasons, I have a lot to say about this situation. To be clear, I was not among the people who were fired. I quit Barnes & Noble long before this happened.

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Years ago, I put time and effort into creating blog posts on a website called Bubblews (which no longer exists.)  It was one of those sites that pays writers by the page click.  At first, Bubblews seemed to have potential. That didn’t last, and I eventually quit. I wrote about Bubblews on November 19, 2014.

I read “I Tried Bubblews – and Quit” in episode 34 of my Words of Jen podcast.

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In this episode, I read a piece of writing that I wrote on November 19, 2014 (and then added an update to later on).  The piece was written about a website called Bubblews that closed down forever. I wasn’t surprised when it closed because it had a lot of problems.

I read “I Tried Bubblews – And Quit” in episode 34 of Words of Jen.

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In this episode, I read a piece of writing that I wrote on December 14, 2014, about what it was like to write for a content farm. The piece was written a few days before a website called Helium closed down forever.

I read “Why Helium Failed” in episode 33 of Words of Jen.

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Helium was the first “pay by the page click” website that I contributed to.  I probably made my first post there in 2005.  To the best if my knowledge, it was one of the very first “pay by the page click” websites.

Later, after a series of unfortunate changes, Helium ended up closing (on December 14, 2014).  I wrote this piece on December 12, 2014, a few days before Helium shut down.

I read “Why Helium Failed” on episode 33 of my Words of Jen podcast.

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In this episode, I read a piece of writing that I wrote on December 12, 2017, about things that happened a few days before.  California was on fire (again) and things got surreal.

I read “Smokey Sky” in episode 32 of Words of Jen.

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I wrote this piece on December 12, 2017, after a few days of smoke filled skies.  California was on fire (again) and things got surreal. The photo above was taken on December 10, 2017.

I read “Smokey Sky” in episode 32 of my Words of Jen podcast.

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In this episode, I read a piece of writing that I wrote on November 19, 2017, on a Tumblr account that no longer exists.  The piece has been edited for clarity and updated with what happened next.  It is about a bizarre series of poorly planned out protests, most of which happened at Starbucks.

I read “The Trump Cup” in episode 31 of Words of Jen.

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I wrote this on November 19, 2016, on a Tumblr blog that no longer exists.  The events I mention in this piece of writing took place shortly after the 2016 election. It is about a bizarre, and ineffectual protest, that took place at Starbucks. As I was posting this piece here, I edited it for clarity. I also added an update.

I read “The Trump Cup” on episode 31 of my Words of Jen podcast.

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I wrote this piece in 2014 on a website that no longer exists.  It was about part of a very lengthy interview I went through in 2008 or 2009 in the hopes of getting a job as a teacher’s aide in a special education classroom.

I read “I Locked My Keys in My Car” in episode 30 of Words of Jen.

is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.

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