My Life in Desks*
*Not literally; Also news and notes from your long-lost pal Adam
Dear Friends,
I wanted to share this sweet, but chutzpadik email I received from Substack:
I should add that it actually hasn’t been 7 months since I last wrote you all, I got that email back in March!!! 😂
At any rate, heyyyy! And I sincerely apologize to you for not writing (and apologize to Substack for not writing or cultivating community or impacting millions).
What’s Been Going On?
Since we last spoke in September, I’ve been working on my next book, coming your way (hopefully) in the Fall of 2024. I’ve also been trying my level best to not take things off of Buy Nothing Groups on Facebook. For the uninitiated, here’s a good piece about those!1
Along the way, I’ve continued to report from the road, which is life-affirming work that I love a lot. I can’t muster up something insincere to say about it. Since September, I’ve gone to Oklahoma, Indiana, Hawaii, Texas, Orange County/LA, Oregon (x2), France, London, and St. Croix to talk to people, research, and/or write AND….even relax a little when an adequate balance of good weather and THC/CBD allows.
Now before anyone gets the impression that this is all glamorous, I want to show you, more or less, what my set-up usually looks like in the places where I end up:
If I may brag though, one exception here is Paris, where I got to do some work about labor and work culture while glomming onto my better half’s own reporting trip. There, we briefly ended up in the hotel where Oscar Wilde died and where I finished a chapter about immigration.
I’m in the wrong corner of the writing world, WHICH IS TO SAY, if you do have a beach house, mountain chalet, WIFI-enabled yurt, pied-à -terre, or some other property going unused somewhere, please know that I would be very happy to hole up there and write and infuse it with the spirit of creativity and/or water your plants.
Think of me as your own Clarence Thomas. To the extent that I can, I will advance or advocate for whatever interests you want me to or just put you in the acknowledgements of my next book. I am very corruptible and morally flexible about this. Let’s talk!
Latest Work
I did have a piece come out yesterday for The Atlantic about how third-party delivery apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and GrubHub have continued to see wild growth, even though in-person dining at restaurants has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
It’s a weird development and a sad one since these apps also:
are terrible for restaurant owners
are terrible for restaurant workers
are terrible for gig workers
are (ultimately) terrible for diners by making food more expensive, selling user data, reducing menu variety
From the piece:
With millions of restaurant workers preparing orders and millions of gig workers delivering them, an entire food-delivery ecosystem has coalesced, which has enormous implications for both restaurants and dining culture as a whole. These apps can charge restaurants fees that stretch up to 30 percent, imposing a burden that requires wild order volume to break even in a business that already has tight margins. They have so much power that they are now influencing the menus of restaurants, sometimes even if you dine in. The delivery workers making all of this function, meanwhile, are still paid low wages as independent contractors with no protections or bargaining power.
In a way, this is old news. But the reason why the story felt timely is because even Domino’s, which seemed like the one restaurant chain with infrastructure capable of withstanding the growth of these apps, struck a deal with Uber Eats on Wednesday.
If restaurants weren’t waving the white napkin before, they certainly are now.
It’s a big deal.
That’s it for this, The Comeback Issue of The Crunchwrap!
This is also me pledging to write you more regularly now that I’m mostly in my attic talking to myself this summer instead of drinking water-y hotel coffee and declining Hertz car insurance at my own peril.
Thanks as always for reading and I hope all is well with you!
Love,
Adam
Nevertheless, recent acquisitions include a replacement SodaStream, a Ninja blender, a vintage Continental Airlines cap patch, an old push lawnmower, a shockingly heavy folding table, and a lava lamp. I almost volunteered to take a dessert someone got by mistake at a restaurant, but got beat to the punch! Needless to say, the future Mrs. Crunchwrap is not thrilled about this hobby.