Bait and Switch The Futile Pursuit of the American Dream
Questions for Barbara Ehrenreich
Through over three decades of journalism and activism and over a dozen books, Barbara Ehrenreich has been one of the most consistent and imaginative chroniclers of class in America, but it was her bestselling 2001 book, Nickel and Dimed, a undercover expose of the day-to-day struggles of the working poor, that has been the most influential work of her career. Now, with Bait and Switch, she has gone undercover again, this time as a middle-aged professional trying to get a white-collar job in corporate America. We asked her a few questions about what she found:
Amazon.com: Your previous book, Nickel and Dimed, became a blockbuster bestseller with a classic “there but for the grace of God go I” liberal message just when the general political mood of the country seemed to be going in a very different direction. Why do you think it struck such a chord? What sorts of reactions have you gotten to it over the past four years?
Barbara Ehrenreich: A lot of Nickel and Dimed readers are people who regularly inhabit the low-wage work world, and many of them write to tell me that the book affirmed their experience and made them feel less alone and ignored. Other readers though, are affluent people who write to say I opened their eyes to a world they’d been unaware of. For those people, I think one appealing feature of Nickel and Dimed is that it’s a personal narrative that gives them a look at lives lived at the margins of their own. The most gratifying response has been from people who tell me the book inspired them to become activists for things like a living wage or affordable housing.
Amazon.com: At what point did you realize that your new book, Bait and Switch, in which you went undercover again, this time to tell a story of working in corporate America, was instead becoming one of not working in corporate America? Is that the story you expected to tell?
Ehrenreich: My initial aim was not “to tell a story of working in corporate America” but to try to understand the human underside of corporate America–the job insecurity, the constant layoffs and downsizings that now occur even in the best of times. I expected to get a job and hence an inside view, but I always knew that that would be very difficult. After about 4-5 months of job searching, I began to get seriously discouraged, but I also came to understand that a fruitless search is in fact a very common experience. After all, today 44 percent of the long-term unemployed are white collar folks–an unusually high percentage. It’s their world I entered, and their story that I tell in Bait and Switch.
Amazon.com: For someone with a white-collar career, you didn’t have much experience in corporate culture before you attempted to join it for this book. What surprised you the most about what you found?
Ehrenreich: What surprised me most, right from day one of my job search, was the surreal nature of the job searching business. For example, everyone, from corporations to career coaches, relies heavily on “personality tests” which have no scientific credibility or predictive value. One test revealed that I have a melancholy and envious nature and, for some reason, was unsuited to be a writer! And what does “personality” have to do with getting the job done, anyway? There’s far less emphasis on skills and experience than on whether you have the prescribed upbeat and likeable persona. I kept wondering: Is this any way to run a business? I was also surprised–and disgusted–by the constant victim-blaming you encounter among coaches, at networking events for the unemployed, and in the business advice books. You’re constantly told that whatever happens to you is the result of your attitude or even your “thought forms”–not a word about the corporate policies that lead to so much turmoil and misery.
Amazon.com: You seemed to make much closer ties with your fellow workers in Nickel and Dimed than you did on the white-collar job hunt. What was different this time?
Ehrenreich: You’re right–there is a difference. But it’s not so much a matter of personalities as it is about two different worlds. There’s a lot of camaraderie in the blue-collar world I entered in Nickel and Dimed. People help each other and look out for each other; they laugh together–often at the managers. The white-collar world doesn’t encourage camaraderie, far from it. There it’s all about competition and fear–of losing one’s job, for one thing. Other people are seen as sources of contacts or tips, at best; as competitors or rivals, at worst. And among the unemployed add shame and a sense of personal failure, the constant message that it’s all your own fault. All this discourages any solidarity with others or real openness.
Amazon.com: God forbid anyone would come to your book as a guide for finding a white-collar job, but what advice would you give to someone in the shoes you put yourself in: a middle-aged professional woman, in fear of falling irrevocably out of touch with the world of the regularly employed?
Ehrenreich: You don’t think I’d make a good career coach? OK, but I have three pieces of advice for the middle-aged, middle-class job seeker anyway:
One, be very careful how you spend your money and time. Since the mid-90s, a whole industry has sprung up to help–or, depending on your point of view, prey upon–white-collar job seekers. The “professionals” in this business are usually entirely unlicensed and unregulated. Also, watch out for events billed as “networking” opportunities that really have another agenda–like recruiting you into expensive coaching or proselytizing you into a particular religion.
Two, don’t count on the internet job sites to find you a job or even an interview. On any of these sites, your resume will be competing with hundreds of thousands of others, and most large companies today don’t even bother reading online resumes; they have computer programs scan them for keywords (and you won’t know what those keywords are.)
Three, and most important: stop believing that it’s your own fault. That’s the first step to recognizing the common problems facing white-collar workers and responding to them. I’d be thrilled if this book, like Nickel and Dimed, also inspires readers to get involved and become active in efforts to make life a little easier for the growing numbers of people who are unemployed, underemployed, or anxiously employed. What could they do? Lobby for universal health insurance that’s not tied to a job, for example. Fight for extended unemployment benefits. Raise their voices to complain about corporate tax breaks and subsidies that are justified in terms of “job creation” but often go to companies that are busy laying people off. One major reason job loss is so catastrophic is that we just don’t have much of a safety net in this country. That has to change, and who’s going to make it change, if not people like those I met in Bait and Switch? I’ve got a new website, barbaraehrenreich.com, and I’d like to hear from readers–both their stories and their ideas for how to take action.
Classic Ehrenreich
 Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America |
 Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class |
 Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War |
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars A Good Idea, But Not A Very Good Final Product
I bought this book the week it was released in 2005 because NICKEL & DIMED is one of the best non-fiction offerings I’ve ever read. In retrospect, I should have maybe waited and settled for checking it out at my local library. Just about any book that covered similar themes to N&D would not be as brilliant in comparison, but B&S is a lot less compelling in every area that echoes Mrs. Ehrenreich’s earlier work. Her “work experiences” here are half-baked and don’t bring out the vivid, emotionally arresting individuals she encountered during her secret minimum-wage worker days. It’s also hard to shake the feeling that the author tries very hard to care about both the white-collar world and the people who (are trying to find) work in it, but can’t really pull that off. It’s a shame this one feels padded and non-compelling because it makes some very strong points: the whole career coaching field is ridiculous at best and a scam at work, being good at a job can be as career-euthanizing as being bad at one, the same kind of deal that the U.S. once cut and then let wither away with the working class is unraveling for the shirt and tie crowd. The book isn’t a failure and has worth. It’s just a disappointment overall on a few levels.
4 Stars The Game Exposed
As a former white-collar worker, I can personally vouch for Ms. Ehrenreich’s experience. I haven’t read this book in a while, but the message that stuck with me through the years was the pseudo-psychology and the absurd mythologies related to staying “positive” about a mostly fruitless job search. The headhunters, trainers, and career centers (even my alma mater’s) had nothing of substance to offer me and they simply could not admit it. The vast majority of them wanted money for their services. Their request for money made little sense as I was unemployed and, unlike Ehrenreich, had no money to spare.
The hard truth was that my skill set was mostly soft and had little economic value in 2004. My most recent stint had been a few months in website development (nothing very technical) and before that benefits administration and consulting work with some proposal writing. There were more people than jobs available in those areas, plain and simple, and nothing I could do, short of lying, would have stood me out from the crowd. Some of the “consultants” I talked to did recommend that I lie (they called it “selling yourself”). I blamed myself for picking a fruitless career, but the dishonesty from the job search industry surrounding what I could and couldn’t do to jazz up my resume and interview skills was astounding. Ehrenreich articulated this dishonesty beautifully.
Because I had no choice but to find a job soon, I did a 180 degree turn and began doing restaurant and temporary admin work, but never recovered my income as a white-collar professional. Except for my income loss, I have no regrets about leaving Corporate America.
I now work as a bus operator and find my work to be more physically demanding, but also more honest. I met many others who went through similar experiences.
They have no illusions about the current economy and their place in it.
Ehrenreich’s recommendations at the end of the book are good, but not likely to happen, as most corporations don’t hire people who want to agitate or change things. They hire people who want to fit in, get along, make lots of money, and make as few waves as possible. Hence the need for personality tests. Unfortunately many of those laid off or fired will only want to work their way back into this coccoon of false security as opposed to looking for the flaws in the system in order to correct them.
1 Star Don’t waste your time
This book was a total waste of my time:
- No research or supporting evidence of whatever she is trying to prove
- She attempts unsuccessfully to gain employment with a false resume with no practical experience
- Her techniques to find work are going to job fairs and self-help groups (no networking, direct contacts, etc.). All she proved is that “she” could not get a job
- I grew very tired of her continual self-glorification and mockery of everyone else she came in contact with
1 Star Bait and Switch is Right
I can’t fairly comment on the entire book because after I read about half of it I tossed it in the trash. I assume that the purpose of the book -aside from a means to make the author money – was to prove the futility of using counselors and tests in order to find a job. The author went to great lengths to avoid doing the things she should have done -looking in the wanted ads on line and networking. Of course since she was not really looking for a permanent job but pretending to it might have been difficult to carry off this scam indefinately. In any event, she takes great pleasure in knocking everything about members of job hunting groups and the people she paid. It is not an easy to read book and drags on. It wasn’t worth donating to the Friends of the Library.
5 Stars Chronically poor
Downward mobility, lay-offs puncture the security of the middle class. In 2005 there may have been about seven million underemployed people. The author sought to address white collar unemployment. Posing as a job seeker in the corporate world, she was vulnerable to age discrimination. To mask her identity she resumed the use of her maiden name. She learned the Myers-Briggs test is used to position people in corporate hierarchies, notwithstanding its lack of predictive value.
This book is nonfiction, not fiction, but it reads like fiction and is equally interesting. In an attempt at networking, the author attended a conference of employed people to wonder what separates the employed from the unemployed since everyone has the same attributes. In a one day boot camp Ehrenreich ran into people who have been the survivors of lay-offs and want to find employment in other fields. She learned from one consultant that getting a job is like gaining acceptance in an eighth grade clique.
After the flaws in the the author’s appearance are noted by another consultant, she hesitates to make herself into a product. Her thoughts run along the lines of whether and why all women over a certain age are assigned to the wearing of earth tones. Ehrenreich concludes that there is a long term market in career coaching since corporations are imposing a culture of job change on the U.S.
After four months and four thousands dollars spent, the writer is not any closer to a job than she was at the outset. Obtaining fact to face interviews are important to job seekers in the internet age because the paramount issues are trust and personality. Ehrenreich questions the assumption that corporations behave in an economically rational fashion. Bravo. The book, (at least), is a job well-done.