I picked up Bait and Switch<\/u> by Barbara Ehrenreich for the trip to VA this week, and finished it off during the plane rides. <\/p>\n
I loved her earlier work Nickel and Dimed<\/u>, wherein she describes her trip “undercover” through a series of service industry jobs. In each book, she pretends to be “just another” middle aged re-entering the workforce without an employment history (i.e: Setting aside a lifetime of books published, columns for major publications, etc) and tries to “get a job” to make ends meet. <\/p>\n
In Nickel and Dimed<\/u>, she succeeds in getting job after job, waiting tables, working at Target, cleaning houses … but each time runs up against serious obstacles to making ends meet. In the end, she concludes that the only way to really build a life at the bottom end of the pay scale is to co-habitate and work well over 40 hours a week. Plus, she described quite well what it was like to be a servant in a society of masters. The indignities from petty tyrants of bosses that white collar denizens are supposedly above. <\/p>\n
Bait and Switch<\/u> tells a similar story, but for the white-collar world. She tries to get a corporate job, without relying on her personal contacts or actual employment history. Just a college education, some free-lance work, and a desire to to good stuff. She networks, interviews, resume-smiths, and even purchases help from job coach after coach … to no avail. The best she can land are offers for sales positions with no salary or benefits, or outright scams. She never, it seems, even gets a real interview for a real position. <\/p>\n
I didn’t like this book as well as the previous one … and I think it’s because of the world she describes than the writing itself. With service \/ hourly jobs everyone knows what they’re getting into. You’re trading time and labor for money. You know you can clean a house, and you find a boss with a set of jobs to do. Corporate jobs are somehow supposed to be better than that, with terms like “job satisfaction,” and similar replacing the cut and dried “do this and I’ll pay you.” I think it’s that lack of focus, more than anything else, that drives me nuts about the world of Dilbert and Wally.<\/p>\n
I didn’t find it to be a great book, but it certainly makes me grateful for my current perch outside of both worlds. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I picked up Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich for the trip to VA this week, and finished it off during the plane rides. <\/p>\n