Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice follow-up to "Nickel and Dimed", 3 May 2006
Barbara Ehrenreich proved she couldn't make a living at minimum wage jobs in Nickel and Dimed. Now in Bait and Switch she proves she can't get a white collar job. But not to worry. Ms. Ehrenreich remains one very fine writer and again has a popular triumph here in this witty and eminently readable shuffle through the land of the unemployed white collar worker.
But why this should be called "Bait and Switch" is unclear. Apparently Ehrenreich believes that many Americans were promised a better life when they entered the corporate structure only to find that what they got was laid off. In the sense that a "bait and switch" maneuver involves promising one thing and then delivering another, this may be correct. It is certainly true in the case of one of her experiences, that of being interviewed for a "job" by AFLAC and finding that the job consisted of no office, no cubical, no salary, no health insurance, no car, no computer even, nothing in fact but the opportunity to sell insurance on commission. Another similar "job" that she found available was a franchise or pyramid enterprise in which the job applicant has to put up some serious money in order to go to work.
As in Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich becomes an actor in her own drama which leaves her again subject to the criticism that what she is doing is artificial and does not allow an accurate take on her subject matter. In Nickel and Dimed, she, unlike her fellow blue collar workers, could always quit and go home to her well-appointed living space. Here, whether she actually lands the job or not doesn't matter since she has an independent income from writing to see her through. So the pain she experiences is only part of the pain experienced by the people she writes about.
However, I don't think this diminishes the value of her work, and certainly she has gotten closer to learning about and living the life of low-wage and out-of-work people than most journalists could ever hope to. Still there is an incompleteness to her experience that might put off some readers. For one thing her approach to finding a job was somewhat limited. She seeks out "coaches" who turn out to be motivational hucksters or evangelicals who offer little more than questionable psychology for hefty fees. Or she goes to job fairs that were inappropriate for the work she was seeking (a middle level position in public relations). Or she relies on job sites on the Internet which mostly just dump resumes on corporate email lists. She "networks" a lot or at least tries to, but with the wrong people (mostly also out-of-work types). She compromises her personality to better fit into what she thinks the corporate structure wants in its employees.
And it is here that I think she made a mistake. While it would seem that corporate American wants employees that give their lives over to the corporation (and that's true!) it is not the case that yea-saying, unimaginative, correctly-dressed and -coiffed types are what they are looking for. Ehrenreich's considerable creativity was held in check and I think that hurt her. After all, Bill Gates may want his employees married to Microsoft, but he will settle for team players who can write good code quickly, and maybe come up with an original idea or two.
What I believe she shows is that if you are a middle-aged person with some serious gaps in your employment record without a highly valued skill and have limited real world corporate experience, you are just not likely to get a $50,000 a year job. She also shows the futility that some very ordinary people are experiencing in a very competitive job market, and her experience gives a warning to the white collar unemployed: watch out for the phony coaches, resume services, and job "boot camps" hucksters who will take your money and not really improve your chance of landing a job.
Furthermore, the idea many Americans had that by getting a bachelor's in finance or business or communications or something similar, they were being given the keys to a secure economic life is wrong, and perhaps those with only a BA ought to lower their expectations if they find themselves out of work. This seems cruel and hits hard at the self-esteem of anyone who has ever been laid off. But it is a fact of life in today's world of work.
One thing I know for sure. If I were in the position of some of the people Ehrenreich met on her job-seeking travels, I would spend whatever money I had left on further education or on getting myself retrained, and not spend it on a new wardrobe or a motivational coach or airplane trips to job fairs. What I tell my grandchildren is, get a PhD.
Bottom line: a fine addition to one of my favorite genres, that of "participatory journalism" by a woman of imagination and courage who writes very well indeed.
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by Polly Toynbee
by Naomi Klein
