About this title: After writing about her dispiriting experiences as a member of the working poor in NICKEL AND DIMED, Barbara Ehrenreich sets out to get a job in the corporate world. What she gets is a job search, rather than a job, as she finds out that getting a job can be real work. "Barbara Alexander" (Ehrenreich's undercover name) spends months with all kinds of people who seem willing to help her polish her résumé and fill her with uplifting motivation--for a price. She learns new ways of dressing, moving, and speaking, and finds that qualifications and experience seem to matter little. Ehrenreich gets ...
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780805076066ISBN:0805076069
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. tight-clean unmarked pages never used. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 256 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780805076066ISBN:0805076069
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 256 p. Audience: General/trade. hardcover, no creases to dj, text in excellent cond, clean and unmarked. read more
"Despite tackling the white-collar industry in BAIT AND SWITCH, Ehrenreich's study of trying to enter the corporate world echoes many of the economy's problems presented in NICKEL AND DIMED. This is in no way a bad thing; I think Ehrenreich is a wonderful writer, who simply and honestly records truths that many people willingly do not see or even acknowledge.
Despite the fact that I know the economy is bad, reading about it from a woman who worked multiple hours on her feet in minimum-wage jobs for another study made it that much more horrifying. Ehrenreich admits more than once that she would rather have been working labor-intensive jobs instead of sitting all day listening to motivational speakers or so-called "experts" on finding a job, when in fact they offer nothing.
This study also struck a cord with me because, although published in 2005, the economy is still struggling, and I was engaged in my own job hunt a year ago. AMany of the tricks of the job hunt that I was told in my searches were reiterated by Ehrenreich. The sense of urgency and panic she feels to find a job, I also experienced, as have many others.
It's a dismal portrait of our economy and what help job-seekers are provided by the government, and this study will be a valuable teaching tool in both within classrooms and without. Hopefully, it will someday just be a discomfiting reminder of how bad the job market once WAS, but no longer is."
"Not recommended because it's not really worth the time for most to read it. In this book, Ehrenreich pretends to be newly unemployed and looking for a middle level executive job. It traces her unsuccessful quest to secure employment and the many avenues open to people who are in her (pretend) position. The focus of the book comes when she goes to employment specialists and seminars that purport to help groom and hone such people and to help them in their search and exposes them for the exploitive or deluded schemes they really are. The book reveals the desperate futility of those jettisoned in mid career by the trend of heartless American contemporary business practices, where executives draw higher and higher wages for "downsizing" their companies, pushing more and more work onto fewer and fewer stressed workers. Besides being depressing, the book doesn't live up to expectations (that she will get work and show the challenges of people in that kind of job.)"
"This book was awful! What I learned from this book is that Barbara Ehrenreich is a ditzy, clueless, intolerent typical liberal who can't see past the nose on her face. She repeatedly makes a point of noting that nearly all the unemployed people she meets are white and mostly men...DUH! Do you know why Barbara??? It's called affirmative action and diversity quotas. As long as these injustices exist, whites will continue to be kicked out of the corporate world and have to seek out retail jobs. That's why many retail jobs now require college degrees for anything above a cashier, leaving people with no degrees to descend towards a welfare lifestyle. DUH!!!!!!!! This book was so utterly clueless and thinly written....obviously written by someone who could never be published unless she knew someone."
"Barbara Ehrenreich is a very compelling non-fiction author. Presumably she is upper class (thanks to her books!), but she's very keen on trying to expose the plight of disadvantaged people in America (i.e., the working class; older women facing age-ism in the workplace).
In this book she goes underground, with the help of some well-placed friends who help her learn (and navigate) the intricacies of the corporate world, as a very highly trained executive with a gap in her resume. As she tries in vain to land a job, she uncovers a host of ways in which even white collar job-seekers are taken advantage of and discriminated against. Though it was written several years ago, it is a fascinating look at the realities many people are facing in our current economy."
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