BAIT AND SWITCH by Barbara Ehrenreich

[raccoon]

I read this a few months ago and there was a lot in it that really struck a chord with me.
As you may have heard, Barbara goes undercover here and looks for a job in PR and/or event planning. The job offer she finally got was working for ALFAC, commission only, no office, no nothing.

She consults career counselors, and also attends an executive “boot camp.” The leader of the boot camp she attends is a dip whose philosophy is “straightforward victim blaming: your problem is YOU.” Such a boot camp is worse than useless; besides blaming the attendants for their plights, I’m sure it cost a big chunk of money.

She talks about “the Gap,” which she defines as, “a chronological defect in one’s resume—caused, for example, by a spell of unemployment…I had not realized that being unemployed may in and of itself disqualify one for a job.” (p.48)

“One thing I’ve learned, though: a Gap of any kind, for any purpose—child raising, caring for an elderly parent, recovering from an illness, or even consulting—is unforgivable. If you haven’t spent every moment of your life making money for somebody else, you can forget about getting a job.” (p. 169)

“And no matter how upbeat they are…the unemployed and underemployed understand that the clock is always ticking in the background. The longer you are unemployed, the less likely you are to find an appropriate job…At the same time, you are inexorably aging past the peak of occupational attractiveness, which seems to lie somewhere in the mid-thirties now.” (p.209)

In the last chapter of the book, she concludes that it’s tragic that so many unemployed people don’t work for improvements in the lives of the unemployed and tentatively employed, such as an extension of unemployment benefits and health care that isn’t tied to one’s employment.

[degreesofgray]

1. Ehrenreich is a must read

I had my students read "Warning: This is a Rights Free Workplace" http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000305mag-workrights.html last year, which, among other things, is about the right to pee on the job and how some workers have had to resort to wearing adult diapers. The American workplace is, as Ehrenreich contends, a dictatorship, and yet American workers continue to put up with mistreatment and infringements on their privacy. Many students, when asked what they could do about this, answered that the best answer is to not work in such places. Sigh.

[raccoon]

2. Sigh, indeed. Guess they haven't looked for a job lately.

At one time, I thought a lot of the problem was my age (when I was mid-forties and job hunting.) Now I've known 20-somethings, well-educated and personable, who've had a heck of a time getting a "good" job.

[tularetom]

3. I read that book a month or so ago

Somebody gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for xmas and I bought this book with part of it. The impression it left me with was that white collar, college educated employees were beginning to wake up to the same bleak choices that have confronted blue collar workers for the past 10 or 15 years. Downsizing, outsourcing, pension "reform" all have pretty much made mid management workers expendable and the days of going to work for a large benevolent corporation and retiring after 40 years with a banquet a watch and a generous pension are gone forever.

The middle class was getting too wealthy and had to be slapped back into place and it appears that its working.

[DS1]

4. I think I'm experiencing some of that 'gap' crap myself

The dot.com industry went 'boom' so I went to school, now people get my resume and hardly ever call back

[Nobody]

5. useful tips that helped me find a job (also my cynical comments)

I'm an ex-PC service tech. I couldn't find a job in my field and now I'm doing something else. Barbara Ehrenreich's experience should be required reading for anyone looking for a job. I could relate to what she was saying. She encountered a lot of scammers that were worse than useless and we should all be warned.

My rules for job searching are:

1. Don't pay money for anything related to job searching unless it's to pay for copying resumes, the stamps or the Internet connection to send them, or the paper you're printing on. You might want to buy a book about your industry, but try the library first. It's FREE, and they have Internet access. Also try the unemployment office before you spend money. This rule does not apply to education and improving your skills. By all means, upgrade your skills.

2. Talk to friends and ex-co-workers. NEVER EVER EVER spend money to attend a place where you will meet other unemployed people and no potential contacts. Headhunters don't frequent these places. These are the places where you're told that you're a loser for your job being shipped overseas or the board of directors decided to raise their stock price by eliminating your job. Barbara hit the jackpot when she signed up for these useless seminars. You can find real contacts FOR FREE.

3. Job Fairs are mostly if you're looking for temp work. Send your resume to headhunters. The good ones don't make you pay them and they do some of your job search for you.

4. Update your resume. Send out resumes to every possible place you can think of. I once grabbed the yellow pages and cold called every electronics retailer in my metro area seeing if they needed a computer repair tech. I only had to go as far as Computer City to get someone who was interested and I did get the job.

5. Lean on your friends. You'll know who the real ones are. They'll keep you from becoming too depressed, and will point you in the way of potential job leads. I'm eternally grateful to the friend who pointed me toward my current job.

6. Do volunteer work. It fills gaps nicely. If you can do something akin to the job you want for your favorite liberal cause or candidate's election campaign, you can put this on your resume. If it's something simple but necessary, like mailings, you can just mention it as volunteer work and not specify. It doesn't have to be high level executive glamorous.

Barbara Ehrenreich's experience seemed to me to be about making money off people who have no income outside of Unemployment Insurance or stashed away savings accounts. The guy whose apartment she went to seemed like an unemployed guy who decided to make job counseling his new job. He knows nothing about how to help, so he steals from every "Motivational" series out there and plays the "Blame the Victim" card. Some of the so-called resume services seemed to me to be other people trying to make money any way they can so they're doing consulting. Remember the 90s. Job Search Services is the new Consulting. Much of it is a scam.

The job clubs, the places that tried to be upscale and charge exorbiotant amount of money that Barbara went to seemed to be intent on making sure the executive level unemployed people didn't drift off to the left. I certainly caught the political undertones with some of them.

None of the Job Search Industry that Barbara interacted with is interested in helping people find jobs. If you find work, you no longer need them and they can't suck more money out of you.

[raccoon]

6. Great post, especially liked your last paragraph. nt