2 comments about The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans.

1. It's not that the content of this book was bad . . . what the author was saying was actually quite insightful. It's just that it's non-stop statistics. I don't think she comes up for air when she writes. I feel like I'm listening to a proof-texted sermon or a Southern Baptist sermon where statistics are looked up to prove things and ripped out of context on top of it. I hate statistics. It could be because I think you can make them say anything you want. But this book is all statistics. With each paragraph usually containing at least 2 sets and then the cited article or study that it was pulled from. But the bottom line of the book is that for the gross majority of Americans, "work" is no longer something that serves them or their community . . . but they serve the corporation. It focuses on the bottom 30% of the population, but discusses every economic class. And ultimately concludes that 60 hour weeks, low salaries, no health care, little vacation, and minimum wage our destroying our country. And that we spend more money fixing the problems in hindsight than creating solutions ahead of the curve. Which I'm down with.



2. Great book. Used it for one of my classes. To me it was a great motivator to extend my vision as far as I can.

No comments about Understanding Social Exclusion.

3 comments about Women and the Criminal Justice System (2nd Edition).

1. Although laid out like a textbook(numerous summary statements and bullet points) and encompassing an enormous amount of literature, the writing is crisp and interesting, liberally sprinkled with quotes, original interviews, vignettes and illustrative sidebars. The chapters fall into the basic categories of women as imprisoned perpetrators, women as victims of crimes, and the place of women in the law enforcement system. The book is a joint effort from a social work professor and a sociology/criminal justice professor. THis resulted in a fruitful interplay between the objective and subjective voice in the presentation of this material. The subject is explicitly approached from an empowerment perspective, which focuses on giving people the information they need to navigate the issues most effectively for helping themselves and others.The assumption is that issues of gender,social class and racial oppression enter into all aspects of the subject.This is a valuable and rare resource in this area of human concern. Reviewed in Social Work Forum Newsletter



2. Van Wormer and Bartollas' book provides a very broad discussion of all facets of women in the criminal justice system, such as rape, spouse abuse, women in prison, women in law enforcement, and women in the legal profession. Because of its broad range of information, it provides a strong book for courses in criminal justice programs involving women. It also provides a strong reader for lay persons who are just interested in knowing the issues involving women and the criminal justice system. In the College of Social Work at Ohio State University, I teach a course entitled social work practice in corrections and would adopt this book as a second book for my course to provide students with broad perspective of women issues in criminal justice.



3. Yet another waste of text. The same old vitim plight of the poor poor female in our modern society. I need a tissue! this book would have gotten a better review if I had read it in the 1960's.

   Get over it.

No comments about Sexual Harassment in the Workplace and Academia: Psychiatric Issues (Clinical Practice, 38).

No comments about Women and Work: A Reader.

1 comments about Women in the Global Factory (Inc Pamphlet).

1. I first read this book (original printing) as a college student for a class on the social situation in developing countries. This book is excellent. While brief, it gives an excellent introduction into the working conditions of women in sweatshops. Many black and white photos. While the book is slightly dated it is sad to note that the working conditions have not changed much.

   I read the book again before being sent overseas to address problems developing at my company's factories. While being chartered to fix the technical problems, it was beneficial to be aware of the social issues. I hope my successors continue to influence management to make social improvements.

   Read the book then do what you can to improve our planet.

5 comments about Losing Your Job-Reclaiming Your Soul : Stories of Resilience, Renewal, and Hope (Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series).

1. In the past few years I've had a series of what I considered negative career experiences. I started out many years ago to be a teacher, but (due to an impossible job market) made a lateral move into a business career in which I'm using the same skills. But I kept on teaching part-time because I felt that was what I "should" be doing. Then I had a series of Classes From Hell that left me psychologically bruised and burned out, and finally, feeling utterly defeated, I quit teaching. A short time later, after years of working as an independent contractor, I took a "permanent" job that turned out to be a serious mistake: it was demanding but narrow in scope, so I was exhausted and bored at the same time; I did a mediocre job and eventually was laid off. I picked up Pulley's book just when I was in my worst "I'm a failure at everything" depressed state. It helped me realize that, on some level, I knew better all along: I went into teaching because of family expectations, and although I'm moderately good at it I was always uncomfortable as a teacher. Likewise, I felt I shouldn't turn down a permanent job because it was "secure" (the Depression-era mentality of my parents!), and, although it was patently wrong for me, I was afraid to quit for the same reason. The collapse of both jobs caused me to question all these assumptions. And Pulley's book helped me to realize that this FREED me to consider what I really wanted to do and what was most important to me in life. A very helpful book for anyone who has been laid off, or who feels he/she might be.



2. There are not many books that I stay up until 2:00am reading, but this is one of them. I was laid of, from a merger/aquisition, after working for the "company" for 10 years. I felt betrayed, I had no loyalty, and I was depressed ! Finding my resilance and takeing the "lessons" from each of the chapters got me through a tough time in my life. The bibliography was accurate and easy to follow. I even learned that "Pandora's Box did not release "HOPE"" from all the evils in the in famous Pandoras' box. One last not I also bought audio cassette of Sara Hickman's "Necessary Angels" when I had no income... not a wise decision you might say ?....wrong Ed Mc Mann....This was one of the best purchases I made when I needed a lift in my sprirts....what am I doing today.... I have started a new home based business, from my skills and past experiences. I may go back to "work" if the right "offer" come to me. I have also gotten involved in a small business group at my church....(sprituality).... I would rate this book right up there with WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE for people who have had an "involuntary job loss". I have also read William Bridges books on transitions which is also referenced in this book !



3. I picked up this book with some skepticism after losing a job, but found that I could not put it down! And after finishing it, I went out and got a temp job in ONE DAY which I still have -- and have been asked to stay on. It is excellent as practical as well as philosophical support for anyone seeking to improve his or her resilience in a crisis. Instead of despair Pulley and Deal offer hope.



4. Ms. Pulley has written a very useful treatise on resilience in the context of the workplace. She very succintly brings out the feelings and emotions that a person who has lost his/her job involuntarily feels and experiences. Her ideas and thoughts based on her interviews with people who have gone through the "trough" would make an invaluable contribution to those who are on their path to recovery and more importantly success on their terms. Though the book is written based on the American experience, I am of the opinion that it is applicable anywhere in the world. For those who live under the threat of likely loss of their job involuntarily, this book would be useful in understanding the feelings that you may be encountering.This book could even be a road-map to move-on and re-define yourself, discover a new dimension of success and of course, get on with re-building and living a more meaningful life in which you will find satisfaction and happiness in.



5. If you have lost your job involuntarily, think you may be on the bubble or are just questioning your whole approach and understanding of the work-a-day world, you should read this book! I lost my job in August of 2002 after returning from a very successful 3-year assignment in London. I was devastated, how could I be treated this way. I thought if you showed up and did a great job, you were in for life. Boy was I wrong! I came across this book recommended by an author of a paperback called The Lay-Off Survival Guide.

   I won't say this book changed my life (I am not sure a book can really do that) but it certainly changed the way I think about work and my own skills - forever! I realized that there are lots of people out there struggling with the same issues and lots of people going through their daily routines and feeling unfulfilled. I also realized that I had the power to change that about my life.

   I find Mrs. Pulley's balance of personal interviews and research as well as reference work of other authors, psychologists, and philosophers to lend credibility, believability and inspiration to this book.

   When someone asks you, "so, who are you?" and your answer starts with "I'm a manager of... or I work for..." then YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK!

   I have now left big corporate America and am working in a 3-person start-up software company. I don't think I could ever go back to the other life. Thank you Mary Lynn Pulley for helping me transform!

1 comments about Work, Consumerism and the New Poor (Issues in Society).

1. Zygmunt Bauman's argument, put very simply, boils down to the fact that in the present consumerist society, the plight of the dispossessed is to be helpless spectators of other people's party, and to be made to experience the humiliating gap between themselves and the successful: the big spenders.
   
   Not so long ago the Protestant "work ethic" was the basis of capitalist societies. It's within the living memory of many older people in the UK.
   
   In the 1950s real unemployment in the UK was below the half million mark, and it was an accepted objective of government to keep it that way. As UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously put it: "You've never had it so good." He was right. Before 1939 unemployment, along with the weather, was regarded as beyond the reach of governments.
   
   The post-war consensus changed all that, and full employment lasted into the early 1970s.
   
   The unemployed were a small minority. The long-term unemployed were an even smaller minority.
   
   Then came Margaret Thatcher, globalisation, and massive unemployment. Previously safe employment in industry was destroyed. The idea of "jobs for life" was finished.
   
   Welcome to the new insecurity. The power of unions to protect employees was broken, and it was `open season' on the welfare state and the public sector.
   
   In parallel, changes from broadly redistributive taxes on income to regressive taxes like VAT - and a growing range of stealth taxes - fuelled the widening gap between rich and poor.
   
   The rich now come from the money markets and banking, and they are joined by a new elite from the media, entertainment and sport.
   
   Globalisation - you could call it `Murdochisation' - injected huge sums into the once-upon-a-time "working man's" sport of soccer, and it did not stop there. Overnight the new mega-rich flaunted their affluence, and became objects of both veneration and envy.
   
   Work appears to be but a small part of the lives of the new elite: conspicuous consumption appears to be all. The "work ethic" suddenly looks dowdy and old fashioned, rather like the sad pit villages left by Thatcher's defeat of the miners, or those Stalinist tower blocks from the sixties. They are archeological remnants from only yesterday.
   
   Bauman describes the tensions at the heart of the consumer paradise:
   
   "Boredom is one complaint the consumer world has no room for and the consumer culture has set out to eradicate it ... To alleviate boredom one needs money - a great deal of money - if one wishes to stave off the spectre of boredom once and for all, to reach the state of happiness."
   
   But, as Bauman perceptively tells us, happiness is not a state of mind, it is a fleeting experience. But globalisation has taken care of that. Planned obsolescence ensures that just as last month's object of desire fails to bring about a state of happiness, this month's upgrade - with life-changing new features - is there waiting to bought online, or at the new cathedral: your local shopping mall.
   
   The new connoisseurs, says Bauman, attain " their right to universal admiration."
   
   And where is this new society at its most successful? You've guessed it: post-Thatcher Britain.
   
   " ... the country widely acclaimed as the most astonishing `economic success' of the western world, has been found also to be the site of poverty most abject among the affluent countries of the globe. ... Nearly a quarter of old people in Britain live in poverty, which is five times more than `economically troubled' Italy and three times more than in `falling behind' Ireland. A fifth of British children live poverty - twice as many as in Taiwan or Italy and six times as many as Finland. ... The wealthiest fifth are among the richest in Europe ... And so the `subjective sense of insufficiency' (of the dispossessed) ... is aggravated by a double pressure of decreasing living standards ... reinforced rather than mitigated by economic growth in it present, deregulated, laissez-faire form."
   
   The problem, now, as Bauman makes clear, is that this society no longer needs a "reserve army of labour" - that has been exported - now, when there is a "downturn" in the economy, politicians call for a `consumer-led' recovery.
   
   In this, the poor can play no part.
   
   "And so, for the first time in recorded history the poor are now purely and simply a worry and a nuisance. ... In a world populated by consumers there is no room for a welfare state ... what used to be a sensible investment now looks like ... an unjustifiable waste of taxpayers' money."
   
   So we reach the point where, as the author rightly points out, " poverty is, first and foremost, perhaps solely, the question of law and order."
   
   We are (in the UK), as he implies, only a few steps away from the Germany of the 1930s. It is a sobering realisation.
   
   The hedonist party effectively stops us from asking more fundamental questions, such as: why does society no longer put itself in question at all? If, as the author suggests, our arrangements are arbitrary, why can we no longer even consider changing them?
   
   History shows that winners release their grip on power only with the greatest reluctance. As would be the case with a solution he offers for consideration: Claus Offe's idea of decoupling income from work.
   
   In what sounds something like Milton Friedman's Negative Income Tax, the idea's main problem is that it would come up against huge opposition from those funding it: the people who might have to cut down on their consumption.
   
   As Margaret Thatcher put it: "There's no such thing as society".

1 comments about Win Your Unemployment Compensation Claim, 2E (Legal Survival Guides).

1. I got this book because I am an employee relations specialist responsible for overseeing unemployment claims. Reading this book gave me insight into what the ALJ's look for when claims are protested. I have since changed some of my responses to reflect what the judges are seeking in making their decisions.

5 comments about Jobshift: How To Prosper In A Workplace Without Jobs.

1. I strongly recommend this book for those feeling overwhelmed by the current challenges in the job market. Bridges wrote the best-sellers "Transitions" and "Managing Transitions," and when not authoring has been a management guru for a couple decades. "Job Shift" serves as a primer for managing your own career in what he views as a fundamentally new career marketplace.

   The main thesis of his latest book is that our country, and indeed our world, is currently in the midst of the Second Great Job Shift. The first was caused by the Industrial Revolution, when people transitioned from village life to urbania. Along with this shift came a redefinition of the very meaning of the word, "job." In the village, it meant a task or project, generally of finite duration and paid fee-for-service if paid at all. (The etymology of the word "job" apparently goes back to "hauling dung.") In the Industrial Age, a "job" was actually a position in the hierarchy of a company, with a clearly-defined set of responsibilities and paid a salary. As long as one stayed properly within the confines of the job description, one could count on advancement up the organizational ladder.

   The current Second Great Job Shift, according to Bridges, is the Death of the Job, at least as it has been defined for the past two hundred years. The Information Age is forcing companies to move and respond more quickly to shifts in markets while at the same time allowing increased automation of information processing. Companies are replacing the traditional corporate structure with project-oriented organization. People are assigned to projects, and performance is evaluated based on the project's outcome, not on how well one fits into some job description.

   Bridges has recommendations for individuals, companies, and even governments for addressing and dealing with this Job Shift. While I'm not entirely convinced that I agree with all of Bridges' vision, his argument is extremely powerful and thought-provoking. It is certainly a different approach than I've encountered in other job search books, and has a certain appeal just on that basis. I highly recommend it as a well-written source of ideas for anyone in the job market, even those who are happily employed. Instead of telling you how to write a resume or shine in an interview, Bridges looks at the overall job environment, and offers general advice on the mentality and approach needed to advance yourself. Reading this book in close conjunction with Bolles' classic "What Color is Your Parachute?" is a frightening, exciting, and empowering experience. Whether you end up agreeing and taking Bridges' advice or not, I think it is always helpful to get exposed to another way of viewing a problem.

   [Longer versions of this review have been previously submitted by the author to the Young Scientists' Network and Network for Emerging Scientists' online discussion forums.]




2. In the era of downsizing and mergers, one hears far too many people bewailing what we've "lost": job security, well-defined career paths, companies that feel responsible for the people who work for them, employee loyalty. Bridges offers a more positive perspective: "work" as we conceive of it was an artifact of the Industrial Revolution, with its view of workers as cogs in a machine; and, as that rigid structure gradually disappears, so will our present concept of "jobs" and "careers."
   This was one of the first ripples in what has become a massive wave of books on the changing business world, including recent examples like "Blur" -- but it's refreshing, easy to read, and can change your whole view of what "work" entails. I think it's especially important for young people still in school to read it: don't waste your efforts preparing for a traditional "career" that may not be there five years after you graduate; focus on developing your talents, your skills, and your entrepreneurial spirit instead, because those are what will be worth the most to you in the future.



3. I first read this book some seven years ago as a text for a class intended to help graduating students prepare themselves for the world of work. Interestingly one of those graduates was intending to work in a start up business with digital cameras which he believed would emerge as the dominant force in the picture business. Probably telling the future is not a good business to be in.

   Here in Northern New Jersey everyone knew, and still knows, all about downsizing and organizational flattening and outsourcing. Since the collapse of the tech-bubble, many of those independent contractors are now looking for work and escaping the computer field alltogether in the face of falling wage rates, excess supply and new entrants from college who expect a lot less!

   Revisiting this book gives one the opportunity to rexamine it's claims and, not surprisingly, finds them lacking. To be fair, much of what the originator describes has come to pass but not in the way that he suggests.

   The main lesson that I come away with from this book is that markets are so powerful that the competitive environment determines the shape of the organization. Obviously, some would say but this is only half of the story. Combine the power of markets which is, after all, only the result of individuals exercising choices, with a proactive government and you get a pretty unstoppable force. If the dollar is high then imports are [inexpensive] as compared to domestic goods which puts intense competitive pressure on companies who then must cut costs. Add to the mix a policy of a free trade area as NAFTA and a competitive labor market and there is even more pressure on costs. Finally have a boyant stock market and increased wealth and you have lots of venture capital looking for profit. The result, falling unemployment with little inflation and downward intense pressure on costs leading to more business. The picture is muddied somewhat by rising benefits costs but they become a force against rising costs too,

   What I am describing is the pressure on business to focus on their core activities and float off internal activities which can be done by service companies contracted for the purpose. Wage bill too high - make workers contractors who then have to pay for their own benefits or better still get the states to introduce basic minimum health care schemes.

   This nirvana of the dejobbed economy never really existed. Sure there are more small businesses and self-employed, sure there is more flexibility among the workforce but there is also compulsion, workfare, for the unemployed as well as the requirement for many families to work two, three or more jobs to make ends meet.

   Hayek the Nobel prizewinner foresaw the person described in this book many years ago as did his mentor Mises. To be successful they argued the individual must market themselves as a self-entrepreneur. Very true.

   This book is an excellent description of a possible future in the light of developments in business at the time. The author is to be commended for the clarity of his thought and exposition. However, he ignores the bigger picture and the implications of a global economy and powerful, interventionist governments. Perhaps he would like to write an update to this book in the light of the events of the last seven years.




4. The book argues that fewer people have jobs and more people are working in less traditional arrangements such as temporary work, consulting, and micro businesses. The book recommends that you assess your desires, abilities, temperament, and assests, and it suggests managing your self like a company.

   This review was written as part of the Annotated Bibliography of Learning A Living; A Guide to Planning Your Career and Finding a Job for People with Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Dyslexia




5. Bridges argues that you must make yourself relevant to the changing economy by managing your career as solo business, finding the unmet needs inside of your company and increasing your contribution to your company.
   
   The traditional workplace, where tasks are broken up into `jobs' with specifically defined duties, is disappearing fast says author William Bridges. Many companies that try to cut costs simply cut jobs. However, more innovative companies are changing the way their employees work altogether. The trend has been to move away from work divided into specific tasks, to work based on teams and project work. People are brought together to work on specific projects and then break up when the project is completed. If this is happening at your company, you can apply for a job someplace else, but the chances are good that you're just exchanging one vulnerable job for another.
   
   The better answer, says the author, is to change your attitude towards work, forget about your job position and start looking for opportunities to fulfill your company's needs. Increasing your contribution to your company will also increase your value to the company.
   · Treat everyone around you as a customer, and start looking for unmet needs. Think of your workplace as a market.
   · Align your desires, abilities, temperament and assets with those of your company or find companies and projects that are right for you.
   · Manage your career as an outside vendor, not as an inside employee. You must find products and services to sell inside your company to ensure your employment. Do market research on your own company.
   · Manage your job insecurity by preparing yourself for constant change, and using new interpretations of work that will help you bring order to chaos.