Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

Wow, was this book a disappointment! The premise was good and it might have been an interesting read if the author had any clue about what she was writing about, but her condescending attitude about the people she was interacting with made her seem like a total jerk, lacking empathy and understanding. Her snide comments about people's clothing and what they were eating revealed her personal discomfort outside of the ivory tower. Absolutely horrible!

I loved Nickel and Dimed and was happy to find this book. As with her other book, Ehrenreich comes across as a very sincere and compassionate person. She is funny, too, and makes the book enjoyable.
Not sure if I completely buy into her viewpoint and am left wondering how her job search was so futile.
All in all, a good book about real life in the U.S.A.

OK, so it may be that the blue and pink collar work force is easier to love than middle management. It may be that the real heroism in this country is found closer to the poverty line then to middle management. Certainly, it is clear that Barbara Ehrenreich believes this to be true. A comparison of Bait and Switch with her earlier Nickel and Dimed demonstrated that while Ehrenreich finds much to lament in the plight of the working class, she generally finds the corporate world laughable and the white collar unemployed closer to pathetic than tragic. Perhaps these are defensible stances, but not when you present yourself, which she shamelessly and unironically does at one point, as deeply compassionate and empathetic, or as the scholarly investigative writer she equally believes herself to represent.

I am always at least a bit put off by investigative writers and documentarians who put themselves at the heart of the story they tell. While it may be necessary to assume a disguise when penetrating a secretive organization or particularly shadowy corporation, surely at least some of the middle class unemployed are not unwilling to speak frankly about their experiences and expectations. Why would stories told in the real voices of the unemployed be less compelling or insightful than Ehrenreich's own? But, putting this initial, and only slight objection aside (it is fun, after all, to read the narrative of a complete outsider penetrating a new world, even if not entirely convincing) my major objection to this book is how callously Ehrenreich dismisses the unemployed workers she interacts with as automatons and gullible fools. Ehrenreich's time spent among job coaches and consultants as an ersatz job seeker causes her to deride the industry as filled with "victim blamers" who cause the unemployed to question their own self worth rather than external forces like the market and unethical corporations that might be equally culpable.

However, more subtly but equally insidiously, Ehrenreich spends much of the book engaging in equally cold victim blaming: after all, she implies, only the truly stupid and unaware would fall into obvious traps like image consulting and faith-based networking when looking for a new position. Unlike the working class, Ehrenreich seems to suggest, these people should know better. Of course, she never stops to consider that many job seekers likely don't go the route she takes when looking for a new position. I have known a few of the unemployed middle class, at least one of whom was recently without work for more than a year, and none used the myriad methods Ehrenreich so condescendingly employs. But more importantly, are those who do use such methods really to be mocked rather than pitied? Desperation makes even very smart, very capable people fall pray to illogical behavior. Surely this is a demonstration of how much these people want to find employment, not of their congenital stupidity.

But by far the most egregious assumption made by Ehrenreich is that she is not only utterly qualified for a corporate position, but that she is over-qualified. I noticed a similar, although slightly less pervasive suggestion, in Nickel and Dimed. In that book, she mentions that nobody who interviewed or hired her ever commented on her education or that she was a writer. Gee. I've known someone with three degrees, two of them Master's, and two very prestigious schools on her resume who spent the past year working at a minimum wage job in Chicago because nobody wants an historian or a English professor. Maybe the reason nobody hiring her asked about her qualifications is because they see it all the time, and it says absolutely nothing for the applicant's ability to clean toilets or fold shirts. In this newer book, Ehrenreich is even more insulting. She seems to think that people should be lining up to hire someone with her not very impressive sounding and MADE UP credentials. Can't imagine why nobody jumped at the opportunity presented there. I wonder how she would react to a typical corporate-type who showed up at her door, insisted they were qualified to be a co-author on her next project, and then provided a falsified resume to strengthen their assertion. Surely, she would explain the many hours, even years, which went into honing her craft. She would talk about training and education, the commitment needed to get up every day and write a book. But, she thinks so little of the profession she attempts to enter that she assumes her skills are not only transferable, but better than.

Alright, admittedly, this is a really long review and diatribe. And all this being said, I do think there is a great deal in the corporate world that should be changed. I agree with Ehrenreich that we should be marching for health care coverage, and to remove more bias from the workplace. The state of the unemployed from all walks of life is lamentable, and I hope never to find myself back in the grind of job-hunting or working in the corporate world, either as a member of middle management or a blue-collar worker. But, I also think that the academic and non-profit worlds are generally out of touch and condescending. I find it hypocritical to assume that anyone with half a brain, or a conscience, would follow the same path you yourself have taken. There are good people who end up corporate managers, born-again Christians, and Republicans. Really. And if Ehrenreich has no empathy for the middle class, she shouldn't write about them while professing something else entirely.

Barbara Ehrenreich is right: there really is a crisis going on, a "hidden" crisis if you will, although I'm beginning to think this is more of a case of sheer denial.

I can't imagine why any person, knowing the odds, would choose to work in the white-collar "business," i.e. administrative world. There is no security in jobs nowadays, but even less in such work environs. I would certainly never pursue a Masters in Business as I had once envisioned, especially now that I have seen several people I know personally, struggle to find new jobs after mass layoffs.

The entire business of business nowdays seems nothing more than a pyramid scheme, and the hard-working American worker is nothing but a pawn. As Ehrenreich also pointed out, the blame is always placed on the employee. You're either not trying hard enough to "sell" yourself, or you're not wearing the right shades of lipstick. (Nonsense!) I've also noted myself how temp agencies try to blame the employee in this manner.

It's strange how in the past, workers at the top used to take less in pay to keep those around who were lower on the rung, but even that doesn't happen anymore, not in today's sleek and cruel "dog eat dog" world. People should take a look at their priorities and realise that this life isn't all about themselves.

I will start this off by saying I *loved* "Nickeled and Dimed". I worked in low-end retail jobs for years and was surrounded by the kind of people she profiled, who had slipped through the cracks and couldn't climb back up. But this book was riddled with problems.

She wants to write an expose on white-collar jobs, but then couldn't get one. At some point she should have re-pitched the book, retitled it, and made it solely about job hunting. As it is, she starts off talking about A, then couldn't get A, and awkwardly spends the rest of the book talking about B.

And honestly, she didn't do a very good job with B. She tried to get a job as a PR worker to illustrate how hard it is to get a white collar job, but I would have had more sympathy for her if she had actually done that search correctly. She didn't research the jargon she should have known or the subjects she should have been talking about.

She pitched herself, over and over again, with this phrase she thought up about PR being about starting fires, not just putting them out. She talks like this is some kind of clever insight, like this line would get a HR rep thinking, but my first reaction was "DUH". I have worked with plenty of PR people, and NONE of them were ever employed to "put out" a fire. (Companies respond to PR problems by ignoring them, because they know you'll forget everything soon enough.) Every PR person I've worked with knew their job was to "start fires" 8 hours a day. What's especially baffling is that *she's an author*! She must be dealing with PR people every single day! How could she not have known how they talk or what they do? Why does she think they're professional cover-up scandal-spinners?

So the book about white collar America turned into a book about finding a job, but really, it was about people who weren't competent enough to find one.