This one has been on my list of books to read for a while now. It is an eye-opening view of a reporter who after losing her job when her newspaper goes under finds entry-level jobs at McDonald’s, Amazon, and a call center company called Convergys.
What this book showed me was that these jobs have completely changed over the past twenty years, and these changes are focused on squeezing every bit of productivity out of each worker to the detriment to the happiness, health, and mental condition.
I’ve often heard people say that “flipping burgers” back when they were younger was a time that was carefree, with low wages but low stress. This book outlines the changes that employers have made to automate scheduling through software and algorithms to use the least amount of workers to do the job if they are working all out.
The workers (including this author) are pushed to their limits, and when they leave or quit there are plenty more to replace them. The author reminds the reader that she always had the option to leave – but for most of her coworkers that option was much less viable.
The book was grim, but also it showed the cost of rock-bottom prices and 24 hour customer service. Sometimes the tone got a little over dramatic, and although there were sources for some of the academic journals cited other times it felt like more word-of-mouth when relating the point of view of the workers themselves.
She wrote in a very approachable way, and it was fun to kind of sneak into these jobs and see what they are like on the inside. But in the end it tells a pretty depressing story, and shows just how easy some of us have it.
Next I am reading Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather.
