Particularize Books Supposing Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
| Original Title: | Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream |
| ISBN: | 0805081240 (ISBN13: 9780805081244) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Barbara Ehrenreich, Patrick Knowles, Leah Gray, Laiman Godel, John D. Wise, Laurie Wise, Rev. Jack Rilger, Tom Chang, Jim Lukasewski, Donna Eudovique, Jeff Clement, Hillary Meister, Dean Gottschalk |
Barbara Ehrenreich
Paperback | Pages: 248 pages Rating: 3.48 | 4500 Users | 557 Reviews
Rendition In Pursuance Of Books Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
The New York Times bestselling investigation into white-collar unemployment from "our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism"--The New York Times Book Review Americans' working lives are growing more precarious every day. Corporations slash employees by the thousands, and the benefits and pensions once guaranteed by "middle-class" jobs are a thing of the past. In Bait and Switch, Barbara Ehrenreich goes back undercover to explore another hidden realm of the economy: the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed. Armed with the plausible resume of a professional "in transition," she attempts to land a "middle-class" job. She submits to career coaching, personality testing, and EST-like boot camps, and attends job fairs, networking events, and evangelical job-search ministries. She is proselytized, scammed, lectured, and--again and again--rejected. Bait and Switch highlights the people who have done everything right--gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills, and built up impressive resumes--yet have become repeatedly vulnerable to financial disaster. There are few social supports for these newly disposable workers, Ehrenreich discovers, and little security even for those who have jobs. Worst of all, there is no honest reckoning with the inevitable consequences of the harsh new economy; rather, the jobless are persuaded that they have only themselves to blame. Alternately hilarious and tragic, Bait and Switch, like the classic Nickel and Dimed, is a searing expose of the cruel new reality in which we all now live.
Point Appertaining To Books Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
| Title | : | Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream |
| Author | : | Barbara Ehrenreich |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 248 pages |
| Published | : | July 25th 2006 by St. Martin's Press (first published August 19th 2005) |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. Sociology. Politics. Economics. Business |
Rating Appertaining To Books Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
Ratings: 3.48 From 4500 Users | 557 ReviewsRate Appertaining To Books Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
This book was frightening. I think every high school student should have to read part of it. The life coaches were particularly frightening. It seems especially appropriate right now.I admittedly had higher hopes for this book after having just read Nickel and Dimed, and I think the biggest downfall -- whether or not there was more Ehrenreich could have done about it -- was not actually ever landing a job in the "corporate sector." All the information she included about job fairs and career coaches and the online job searches was both illuminating (though not surprising) and soul-draining. Some of the organizations and personality tests seemed almost cult-like in the belief
Although this book was published in 2005, I didn't read it until 2010. If I had read it in 2005, I might not have related to it so intensely, as I did in 2009 when I was laid off for the first time. I would get laid off twice more before landing stable employment again in 2012. Back in 2005 I was smug, fully insulated from the severity of unemployment, never having been out of a job since I got my first part-time job at 16, working at the mall. This turned into paid internships at prestigious
"Barbara Ehrenreich is our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism." --Dorothy Gallagher, The New York Times Book ReviewFrom the introduction:"Stories of white-collar downward mobility cannot be brushed off as easily as accounts of blue-collar economic woes, which the hard-hearted traditionally blame on "bad choices": failing to get a college degree, for example, failing to postpone childbearing until acquiring a nest egg, or failing to choose affluent parents in the first place. But
Ugh. This book was a whole lot of nothing. She did not take the project seriously or make a proper effort at getting a middle class sort of a job. To top it off, her tone was extremely smug. For someone clueless, she had no right to think she had it all figured out. It wasn't until the very end of her project, when I'm sure the book was due to her publishers, that she realized she may have made some serious mistakes along the way. I wish she'd started all over at that point and tried again and
journalist who went 'undercover' to see what life is like for white collar folks who find themselves out of work and searching. A sad reflection of the change from corporations that values long time employees and treated them 'as family' to the reality of business today.
Question: As she sets it out in her introduction, the goal of this book is to show what it takes to find a white-collar job in America. So the question now for me is, did she fail because she did not find a job? This is one of those books that, although it's certainly well-written and -observed, I wonder what the big revelation is supposed to be. Corporate jobs (and even the effort needed to find one) are soul-crushing. Large corporations do not reward creativity or independent thinking. And??
0 Comments