Vol. IX · Est. wheneverPrice: one favor
The Factotum

Odd jobs · impossible errands · and, occasionally, a possible one

I do everything.
Mostly.

My name is Ambrose Pell, and I am a factotum: a person employed to do all kinds of work. All kinds. People bring me the errands nobody else will take. I take them. I write down what happens. This is that writing.

— A. Pell, Factotum

See the job board
A wooden desk seen from above: a huge ring of keys, a magnifying glass, a striped single sock, a ball of twine, a wristwatch, rubber stamps and an ink pad, a crumpled fitted sheet, a blue thermos, blank index cards and a coffee.

The job board

Errands currently pinned to my door. Take one, and I'll log how it went. New ones arrive constantly; nobody is ever finished needing things.

The Factotum's ledger

    Nothing logged yet. Take a job, any job.

    Dispatches

    Tuesday, probably

    On the fitted sheet, and other unwinnable wars

    A client asked me to fold her fitted sheet "properly." I asked what properly meant. She said "like in the shop." I explained that in the shop it is folded around a piece of cardboard by a machine that has never known love. She said that's fine, do that. I have been building the machine for three weeks. It has learned to fold a pillowcase. I'm told this is how all great empires begin.

    A Thursday in a long month

    A taxonomy of lost things

    After years in the field I can report that lost things fall into three families. The Wanderers (socks, pens, the remote), which leave on their own. The Hiders (keys, glasses, the passport), which are always in the last place you look because you stop looking. And the Departed (the end of the tape, the name of that actor, your train of thought), which were never truly ours. I charge double for the Departed.

    The morning after the group chat

    How I got eleven people to agree on a restaurant

    I didn't. I picked one, booked it, and told everyone it was someone else's idea. Every one of them believed it was their own. Dinner was lovely. Two people thanked each other. Factotum work is mostly logistics and a little bit of harmless fraud.

    The Weekly Errand

    One impossible errand a week, plus one genuinely useful trick for getting the possible ones done faster. From my desk to your inbox.

    For the possible errands

    Running a small business and drowning in the possible kind (inbox, scheduling, follow-ups)? Our sister outfit SynthOps sets up AI assistants for solo operators, one-on-one.

    Would you use something like these? Nothing is charged; this tells us what to build.

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