Working

This week we go back to Wizards of the Coast to talk to Mark Rosewater, the head designer for Magic: The Gathering. Last week, Alison told Jordan all about creating the stories behind Magic cards. And it’s the job of Mark and his team to come up with the mechanics of those  cards. Mark explains how, once he and his team come up with the creative concept for a particular Magic set, there are a lot...

Working’s peek into the business of fun and games continues this week when Jordan chats with Alison Luhrs who works for Wizards of the Coast, the part of Hasbro that is responsible for the classic fantasy games Dungeons and Dragons and Magic:The Gathering. Alison’s job is one you may never have imagined existed. As a narrative designer for D&D and Magic , she does the worldbuilding that brings...

This week, Jordan talks to a couple of Hasbro employees. John Warden and Lynsey Bernier work closely together to create Transformers and Beyblades. John is the designer and Lynsey is the engineer (aka the "reality check"). They tell Jordan about all the fun, nerdiness and math that goes into making toys. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since his first season as the host of Working, Jordan has wanted to interview a Firefighter. It’s a job everyone knows about, but the day to day of the work of Firefighter might not be so familiar to most people. Jordan sat down with Jason Powell, a Firefighter with Engine Company 69 in Harlem, to talk about his four years on the job and all the training, danger and cooking that goes into it. Slat...

Before heading out to Long Island to visit Widow’s Hole Oyster Farm , Jordan couldn’t even picture what an oyster farm looked like. So there was a lot to learn from talking to Mike and Isabel Osinski, the owners of the small family farm that supplies oysters to some of New York City’s most high-end restaurants.  Mike and Isabel discuss how they went from developing financial software in the city t...

When massive container ships arrive at a port city like New York, they find themselves in a tight space with lots of obstacles to navigate. Enter, ship docking pilots, the expert hands that guide these massive ships into place. This week, Jordan is talking to Captain Jeffrey McAllister of McAllister Towing. Jeffrey’s family has been in the tugboat business for decades, which, as it turned out, was...

If you're planning on watching a major fireworks display this Independence Day, there's a good chance it was designed by this week's guest.  Phil Grucci, the CEO and Creative Director of Fireworks by Grucci, is the sixth generation in his family to design, manufacture and engineer firework displays. His family company has made a global reputation by putting on some of the world's most spectacular...

What do you do with an architecture degree and a love animals? Well, as it turns out, running an Aquarium is a great option. This week, Working brings you another standalone episode with Jon Forrest Dohlin, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Aquarium. Jon tells Jordan all about the joys of the job, like educating city dwellers about all the unseen wildlife around them, and th...

This week, Jordan returns to talk nerdy with Tim Crossley, partner and lead designer at Crossley Acoustics . Tim’s company designs and builds recording studios for the music, film and (of course) podcasting industries -- in fact, as it turns out, he built Slate’s own studio! Tim and Jordan get into all the detailed work and planning that goes into making a room sound “good”, from using acoustic mo...

In celebration of Pride Month, Working is revisiting one of its best episodes from the LGBTQ season. In this episode, Jacob Brogan talks to Elizabeth Freeman, a queer theorist and professor of English at UC Davis, about the ongoing role of gender and sexuality studies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To finish out the season on the Comedy Cellar, Laura talks to Marina Franklin a longtime Cellar comic. Marina has gone from comedy newbie to a comedy veteran on the Cellar stage. She has been working there so long not even she can recall exactly when she started. But the place has become like a home to her. Marina’s new special Single Black Female will be out next month. You can email us at workin...

This week, Laura Bennett talks to Ian Fidance, a comic who was passed at the Cellar just last year. For an up-and-coming comic and lifelong comedy fan like Ian, joining the tight-knit community of the Cellar is a true joy and honor. But as you’ll hear, it’s one you really have to earn. You can email us at working@slate.com. Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priv...

On any given night, you can see a line that snakes down Macdougal Street of people waiting to get into the Comedy Cellar. And the man responsible for making sense of this mob of tourists and comedy fans is known as Outside Steve.  Steve Fabricant runs the door at the comedy club, managing the reservations for multiple sold out shows each night, strategically placing guests in either the front or t...

This week, Laura returns to the Comedy Cellar to talk Aaron Nystrup, a manager and server who has been working at the iconic club for 10 years. Aaron talks about what it’s like to hear hours of comedy night after night, how he ended up on stage drunkenly singing with Dave Chappelle, and just what goes on at the Cellar’s famed comedian’s table   Email us at working@slate.com. Podcast production be...

This week, Laura talks to Estee Adoram, a truly legendary figure in the comedy world. Estee has been the booker for the Cellar for nearly four decades, which means she's been a major factor in creating the club's incredible reputation. She's known some of many of favorite comedians since their early days on stage and has remained an essential part of what makes the Cellar so special.  Email us at...

This week, Laura returns to the Cellar to talk to one of the comedians who has become a fixture on stage. Wil Sylvince is a New York comedian and regular MC at the Comedy Cellar. You can email us at working@slate.com. Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For her first season hosting Working, Laura Bennett goes inside New York's Comedy Cellar, talking to the people who help make the comedy institution so legendary. And to kick of the season, she sits down with owner Noam Dworman to discuss what it was like taking the reins from his father, how he dealt the Louis CK controversy and what makes the Cellar so unique. Email us at working@slate.com. Podc...

To wrap up Working’s impromptu mini-season on the inner workings of Bon Appétit, Jordan talks to Rhoda Boone, the Video Food Director for Bon Appétit and Epicurious. Rhoda’s job encompasses so many things, you’ll never watch a food video the same way again. Not only is she the food stylist in charge of making sure every dish looks as delicious as possible, but she’s also responsible for planning o...

This week, Working returns to Bon Appétit to continue its spontaneous micro-mini season on the people who make the seminal food magazine what it is today. In this episode, Jordan talks to the man running the show, Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport. Adam talks about what it’s like to run a food magazine in the age of Instagram, how he edits recipes with home chefs in mind, and extremely precise daily c...

This week, Jordan talks to Molly Baz, Senior Associate Food Editor at Bon Appétit. Molly is part of the team of chefs who create and test recipes for the magazine--which you may already know if you're one of the millions of people who watch Bon Appétit's videos on Youtube. Molly talks life in the BA Test Kitchen, how a recipe makes it to the pages of the magazine, and her secret for a perfect bowl...

In a special five-episode mini-season of Working, we talk with people who have had “second acts,” that is people who made a dramatic career pivot at some point in their working lives. Patty Stonesifer was running a computer-book publisher in Indianapolis when Microsoft recruited her to run its publishing division. In 10 years at the company, she rose to senior vice president of the Interactive Med...

In a special five-episode mini-season of Working, we talk with people who have had “second acts,” that is people who made a dramatic career pivot at some point in their working lives. Nicole Auerbach worked as an attorney for 10 years, first as a federal public defender in the Southern District of New York and then as a media lawyer specializing in First Amendment issues. Realizing she was unhappy...

In a special five-episode mini-season of Working, we talk with people who have had “second acts,” that is people who made a dramatic career pivot at some point in their working lives. Gerry Allen always dreamed of becoming a National Park Ranger, but by the time he graduated from college, family obligations meant that he needed to take a different career path. He went to work for Delta Airlines, e...

In a special five-episode mini-season of Working, we talk with people who have had “second acts,” that is people who made a dramatic career pivot at some point in their working lives. Adriane Fugh-Berman was a writer and reproductive-rights activist when she decided to go to medical school. She is now a professor in the department of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University and the dir...

In a special five-episode mini-season of Working, we talk with people who have had “second acts,” that is people who made a dramatic career pivot at some point in their working lives. If it weren’t for a shoulder injury, Mary Stevenson’s retirement may have looked completely different. After benefiting from classes in the Nia Technique, she decided to teach the fitness method—along with Zumba Gold...