Product Description
The bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed goes back undercover to do for America’s ailing middle class what she did for the working poor
Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in Bait and Switch, she enters another hidden realm of the economy: the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed. Armed with a plausible résumé of a professional “in transition,” she attempts to land a middle-class job—undergoing career coaching and personality testing, then trawling a series of EST-like boot camps, job fairs, networking events, and evangelical job-search ministries. She gets an image makeover, works to project a winning attitude, yet is proselytized, scammed, lectured, and—again and again—rejected.
Bait and Switch highlights the people who’ve done everything right—gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills, and built up impressive résumés—yet have become repeatedly vulnerable to financial disaster, and not simply due to the vagaries of the business cycle. Today’s ultra-lean corporations take pride in shedding their “surplus” employees—plunging them, for months or years at a stretch, into the twilight zone of white-collar unemployment, where job searching becomes a full-time job in itself. As Ehrenreich discovers, there are few social supports for these newly disposable workers—and little security even for those who have jobs.
Like the now classic Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch is alternately hilarious and tragic, a searing exposé of economic cruelty where we least expect it.
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Amazon.com
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 |
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 good book ( petitpapa )
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.
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 Not a worthy follow-up ( mspencer1818 )
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.
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 If you want to know the truth, read this book . . . ( mouldering_sanctum )
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.
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A letdown after "Nickeled" ( hibryd )
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.
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Good Depressing Story ( rusrus )
Excellently written - I flew through this book. The story--her hunt for a white collar job--is so depressing. For those unlucky-enough to be cast-aside without prospects, the road back to employment is pretty dreary. Between ineffective career coaches, pointless networking sessions, and commission-only sales jobs, I wonder how anyone can stay sane during the ordeal...
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