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Liked It1 of 1 members found this review helpful “I loved this book. In it, Ehrenreich explores unemployment and desparation not from the perspective of uneducated and chronically destitute blue-collar workers, but from that of educated and accomplished white collar professionals squeezed out of their cushy positions by downsizing. She changes...” see full review » see other reviews » |
Didn’t Like It “I picked up this title since I have enjoyed reading Ms. Ehrenreich’s essays in the past. Her insightful essay on the breast cancer cult is one of my all time favorites: insightful without being maudlin, a feminist without the whinging little teddy bears. This book, however, was a real...” see full review » see other reviews » |
Newest Reviews
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“Ehrenreich takes the reader through the process of trying to get a job with all of the right credentials. It is amazing the run around and hoops she has to go through to get nowhere. While it can be a negative read if you are in the process of looking for a job, it can also give you hope by knowing what to look for and what to avoid. She is a great writer and has given us another great book about making it in our world.”
Michelle H wrote this review Thursday, June 11 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Depressing.
Sue S wrote this review Sunday, May 31 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Other than that very good.
But depressing nonetheless.”
“I would recommend that everyone read this book.”
Paul C wrote this review Sunday, May 3 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I thought Nickel and Dimed was such a fabulous book - irrefutable first-hand insight to the plight working poor. This book was just OK for me. There is something to be said for the insight gained by a long, fruitless job search and people she met in similar circumstances. That said, I felt the take home message was more obvious and less pointed as it was from the outsider looking in rather than a participant.”
Kelly R wrote this review Sunday, February 8 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Ehrenreich goes undercover as an unemployed white collar worker and tries to find a job. Not as compelling as Nickel and Dimed. Recent buy.”
ashley wrote this review Wednesday, January 28 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Ehrenreich poses as a mid-career PR person looking for work. She just gets jerked around. Depressing. Probably true.”
Dave C wrote this review Sunday, November 2 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“This book is a bit depressing. Very pointedly accurate. But a downer none the less. It turns the Horario Alger myth on it's head and documents the reality of working in the US. ”
sheri s wrote this review Sunday, August 17 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“I picked up this title since I have enjoyed reading Ms. Ehrenreich’s essays in the past. Her insightful essay on the breast cancer cult is one of my all time favorites: insightful without being maudlin, a feminist without the whinging little teddy bears. This book, however, was a real disappointment.
Laura and Eric wrote this review Saturday, September 19 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
This book falls into the newly re-popularized 'lifestyle stunt as amateur sociology' genre (cf. "Year of Living Biblically," "Supersize Me," "Helping Me Help Myself" etc.) With the right scenario, and an open-minded protagonist, such stunts have the potential to be amusing, informative, and even revelatory. But lifestyle stunt books are a risky proposition for their authors. To get the story they have to misrepresent themselves to others (in this case, the author reverts to her maiden name and fakes a résumé to seek employment as a Public Relations executive,) and/or fake their behavior (in this case, the author overrides her gut instincts when making purchases from the white-collar employment placement industry, which predictably leads to awkward – albeit sometimes humorous – situations.) The even greater risk, if the author’s abilities are not well matched to the scenario, is that all the dishonesty completely overtakes the premise and the whole stunt collapses into complete unreality.
Thus, the lifestyle stunt that is the premise of the book fails; because Ms. Ehrenreich is grossly unqualified for the task she sets out for herself and (spoiler alert) is unable to get even an interview for a standard corporate job. (Ms. Ehrenreich does not analyze her failure very deeply, and so I wish she had included some examples of her faked résumés as an appendix to the book so that readers could draw their own conclusions.) The only jobs offered to her require her to take a level of risk that she finds unacceptable (e.g. working on a commission-only basis.) So, although this book sets out to expose the flaws of corporate America, if anything it only restores one’s faith in the competence of corporate Human Resources departments.
Ms. Ehrenreich somehow manages to draw the opposite conclusion: the problem must be with the system. In her unsubstantiated opinion, unemployed white-collar workers should use their newfound free time to form a political coalition to mandate European-style job security and health insurance. This, she presumes, would make white-collar jobs easier to get and to keep. I must admit, I have a bias against these proposals, as I worked for a German corporation and have found that the labor laws she proposes cause a stagnant, risk-averse job market, making mid-life career moves – especially for women - far more difficult than they are in the US.
But even though I disagree with her proposals, I still would have enjoyed the book if she had found a way to engage with the material at hand, instead of just taking a few obvious pot shots at the self-help industry. Instead, the set-up of the whole charade puts such heavy blinders on the author, that I felt as if she led me through a forest and didn’t even let me see the trees. There are several moments in the book where she feels misled by the coaching industry, and yet she sleepwalks right past all the obvious follow-on questions. If her internal alarm bells are going off, why are the real job seekers playing along? Are they not as smart as she is? Why would her fellow job seekers willing choose and pay for these services out of pocket? What is their success rate compared to a control group? (My anecdotal evidence from colleagues would suggest that many outplacement coaches are paid for as part of package that is usually designed as much to help the employer as to help the employee, thus feeding a captive market into the system.) What she found out might have challenged some of her assumptions, and at very least would have made for a more interesting read.
Mostly, she is distracted by how humiliating it all is. Faking your way through the corporate job search process was no doubt a very unpleasant experience. If I tried to fake my way into journalism, or academia, I would probably find the experience equally frustrating, bewildering, and unpleasant - but I would have the intellectual honesty to admit that, in the end, all I had succeeding in proving was that pulling a foolish stunt is a good way to make yourself miserable.
When her experiment failed, Ms. Ehrenreich should have either set aside the idea for the book, or recast it entirely; but – perhaps she already spent her advance? – she instead fluffs up very little material into the expected book-length exposé…and so the real “bait and switch” is perpetrated on the unfortunate reader, who expects to learn about the realities of the white-collar job market, and instead receives the fantasies of a journalist having a series of bad days.”“A worthwhile attempt, but I didn't consider this book necessarily earth-shattering. Ehrenreich explores the difficulties people have finding a decent white-collar job in America that doesn't involve pyramid schemes, working out of one's car, or buying one's own heath insurance. Spoiler: It's really hard. Sigh.”
Kate B wrote this review Thursday, June 12 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This was interesting, and not what I was expecting. It comes at a key time for me, when I am looking for my own white-collar job with no sucess, despite having done everything right. However, the author's job search really does not represent the search of the rest of us - I, for example, have not spent thousands of dollars on resume and apperance coaches, or travelling all over the country. If you need a job, you probably don't have those resources. I will read more of this author's work, but I take it with a grain of salt against reality.”
Stacy N wrote this review Monday, May 26 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
