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165 reviews for:
On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane
Emily Guendelsberger
4.28 AVERAGE
165 reviews for:
On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane
Emily Guendelsberger
4.28 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A Nickel and Dimed for today's era - I couldn't stop reading this book. Emily Guendelsberger lost her job at a paper and decided to head out on the road, to work in three different kinds of workplaces - Amazon, Convergys (a call center), and McDonald's. Guendelsberger shares her real-life experiences with each company, a narrative that is impossible to put down. I was compelled by the similarity to Rob Hart's novel THE WAREHOUSE, and the second section hit a bit too close to home, as my husband is a call center trainer. I found myself questioning everything I know to be true about life, and wondering what exactly we can do to change some of the societal and work problems in this book.
This made me more emotional than anything else I read this year. And the thing is, this book isn't even *for* me. I currently work 2 part time jobs, one as a barista and one at the public library. My library job is my life but the hourly payment for my position is insultingly low and nowhere near a living wage- the person with the closest job description to mine makes almost double what I do. My other job is in food service where I make 50 cents over minimum wage plus tips. So I know what it's like to struggle, because it's still happening for me right now, even with a bachelor's degree. And I've also worked fast food and retail. But reading about Amazon and the call center made me have literal nightmares.
It made me so thankful I don't work in a place so horrible, and then THAT made me angry to feel like making in the low $20,000's a year when you work 40 hours a week is acceptable and I should be grateful because at least my jobs are better than those places (mostly- still almost impossible to get UNPAID time off in food service. Trying to find a cover when you're sick and work in a place with a small staff is a nightmare). The one thing I don't understand is why people continued to work at those particular shitty jobs when there are a million other slightly less shitty jobs that have the same shitty pay. I know, because I've done them all.
If you haven't had to work a fucking garbage job in a long time, if you work somewhere where you can call in sick and still get paid and not have fear of repercussions, if you don't put off your doctor visits because you can't afford the co-pay, if you don't have to drain your bank account to pay rent, then you need to read this book. Because you need to know what it's like, or to be reminded how bad what you've been able to leave behind is. And you need to help fight for us.
Edited for what I forgot to add: Have had multiple doctors tell me that the amount of stress I have been under my entire adult life is taking a toll on me both mentally and physically and I should really try to find a full-time job instead of working 2 part-time ones.
It made me so thankful I don't work in a place so horrible, and then THAT made me angry to feel like making in the low $20,000's a year when you work 40 hours a week is acceptable and I should be grateful because at least my jobs are better than those places (mostly- still almost impossible to get UNPAID time off in food service. Trying to find a cover when you're sick and work in a place with a small staff is a nightmare). The one thing I don't understand is why people continued to work at those particular shitty jobs when there are a million other slightly less shitty jobs that have the same shitty pay. I know, because I've done them all.
If you haven't had to work a fucking garbage job in a long time, if you work somewhere where you can call in sick and still get paid and not have fear of repercussions, if you don't put off your doctor visits because you can't afford the co-pay, if you don't have to drain your bank account to pay rent, then you need to read this book. Because you need to know what it's like, or to be reminded how bad what you've been able to leave behind is. And you need to help fight for us.
Edited for what I forgot to add: Have had multiple doctors tell me that the amount of stress I have been under my entire adult life is taking a toll on me both mentally and physically and I should really try to find a full-time job instead of working 2 part-time ones.
Nickle & Dimed for millennials. Important, essential reading for all workers (which is mostly everyone). Really loved the call to action at the end. Made me feel less alone.
A book everyone should read, especially those who have been out of touch with minimum wage work for some or all of their lives.
Emily Guendelsberger's On The Clock is a shockingly, yet disarmingly simplistically told, cautionary tale of what it means to be a blue collar worker in modern Capitalist America. Many of the readers here on this site perhaps don't belong to that bluest of working class. If we have the time to read, not just out of compulsion but out of an active abundance of choice, and then go on to share our thoughts by writing precise (or sometimes, not as precise!) reviews of those books, we are certainly not who this book is trying very hard to describe, and more importantly, explain. To us.
This book of investigative journalism emanates from a layoff, and goes on to explore what does it mean to draw the short stick when it comes to menial labor - in the service sector. There are some mentions of true, hard labor - construction site, engineering projects, salmon processing and packaging - but those are memories, and often much more cruel comparisons of past lives, for the blue workers of Emily's current subject employers.
Though based on her true interactions, and therefore non-fiction, it reads as well as any page turner by Grisham or Child. The easy flowing conversation, the speed of events, and the clever way by which she leads her readers to her realizations, findings, discoveries and conclusions is eye opening - to say the least. More like eye-popping. The section on the Amazon warehouse is especially poignant, where the workers supposedly have the choice to take breaks, take time off, take leave or just leave - they never really do any of those; or can't, without real consequences, and in each case can quickly lead to termination of employment. While it no shock to anyone who is aware of the existence of Amazon how much money it makes, and how many items it sells, and how many it ships - on any given day of the week or year, it is nevertheless shocking to realize the real human cost of what it really takes to get that product, locate it in this behemoth of a warehouse, pick it, and lead it to the conveyor belt for packing. Since the author spent all her time in picking, we're spared the other side of the story. But make no mistakes - I have absolutely no doubt it is equally as hard, painful and physically torturous, if not more so.
Frederick Taylor's theories on measurable Management is taught in Grad Business schools, but it is incomplete, without also showing the human toll of exacting that kind of throughput from a real person - a person who has to go home to a family, to a spouse, children, a warm refuge. The only time in the book and the only people for whom this work is shown to be good, is the ones who have done much more demanding work, in much worse conditions - often, literally, as bonded labor. And those same companies have the gall to take out full-page ads touting their businesses as using Responsible Harvesting, or Responsible Fisheries, or Environmentally Aware Mining Practices. I won't go so far as saying all profit is bad and always at the expense of someone else, it need not be based upon exploitation. The problem, however, with imagining a more responsible Amazon is - it would simply mean its place would be taken by some other corporation, out to suck the last drop of blood and sweat and tear from its employees. Amazon is by no means the worst employer, given it's nowhere compared to the worst examples cited fleetingly in some of the stories shared.
"Amazon has modesty wrapping - and it knows it", writes Emily.
"And it uses it well", I add to that.
Her experiences in Convergys are equally stunning, if not more so. It is unfathomable (I daresay, to many of us) how cruel customers can be, but the truth is - people are cruel. Sometimes, intentionally, but also often without realizing or unintentionally, or they simply feel they've been pushed into a corner. But that doesn't take away any of the burden of responsibility from these corporations that are the pillars of capitalism in our modern society. I mean, it took a conscious effort and a change in rules to allow to NOT try to cross sell DTV packages to customers if they were calling about cancelling services for a dead family member. How inconsiderate must we be as a society, to not allow that smallest space for grief, and instead insist on making sales pitches to such callers?
In my mind, the author makes a very interesting transition in the three work experiences. There is a definite trend one can see - the cruelty and hardships in the first assignment are all remote, everything is nameless, the corporation is faceless and she doesn't interact with the end customers at all. Next, at the call center, she gets to interact with the ultimate customers but there's still no face or name - it's just a voice on the other end of a phone line, and while it keeps the physical aspect out of the equation, the brutality is abundantly visceral. In the last section, at the fast food counter, she faces the the ultimate customer, and comes face to face with the barbaric treatment that many of those customers pile onto the employees. To the customers, the staff behind the counter represent the corporation, and they are venting their anger at all the perceived and implied mistreatments they believe they have been meted out. They don't know any other way.
I can't find words to describe what must be driving them, and I'm sure they give themselves enough justifications for throwing food at the employees, yelling at them and calling them names. That of course, is my naivete, at best - ignorance, at worst.
The portion describing Wanda seemed circuitous to begin with, but eventually is brought in context - and repeatedly in the narrative, and made good use of. The example of the Schezwan Sauce is disgusting, and to me was an epitome of how trite and futile and self-centered many of today's (and tomorrow's) customers are (going to be).
This book is a must read for its simple language, yet powerful and evocative reflection of that strata of society that works under-deck to keep the engines running, while the Titanic continues to list more and more.
Of course, for those who have not read Nickel and Dimed, you must.
The Atlantic, on America's work culture, an excellent article that led me to this book in the first place: Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore, from the November 2019 issue
Good recent reporting on Amazon's practices, commissioned by ProPublica and NYT from May 2019: Amazon Pushes Fast Shipping but Avoids Responsibility for the Human Cost
A podcast issue from NYT's The Daily on the true cost of instant delivery: The Human Toll of Instant Delivery
This book of investigative journalism emanates from a layoff, and goes on to explore what does it mean to draw the short stick when it comes to menial labor - in the service sector. There are some mentions of true, hard labor - construction site, engineering projects, salmon processing and packaging - but those are memories, and often much more cruel comparisons of past lives, for the blue workers of Emily's current subject employers.
Though based on her true interactions, and therefore non-fiction, it reads as well as any page turner by Grisham or Child. The easy flowing conversation, the speed of events, and the clever way by which she leads her readers to her realizations, findings, discoveries and conclusions is eye opening - to say the least. More like eye-popping. The section on the Amazon warehouse is especially poignant, where the workers supposedly have the choice to take breaks, take time off, take leave or just leave - they never really do any of those; or can't, without real consequences, and in each case can quickly lead to termination of employment. While it no shock to anyone who is aware of the existence of Amazon how much money it makes, and how many items it sells, and how many it ships - on any given day of the week or year, it is nevertheless shocking to realize the real human cost of what it really takes to get that product, locate it in this behemoth of a warehouse, pick it, and lead it to the conveyor belt for packing. Since the author spent all her time in picking, we're spared the other side of the story. But make no mistakes - I have absolutely no doubt it is equally as hard, painful and physically torturous, if not more so.
Frederick Taylor's theories on measurable Management is taught in Grad Business schools, but it is incomplete, without also showing the human toll of exacting that kind of throughput from a real person - a person who has to go home to a family, to a spouse, children, a warm refuge. The only time in the book and the only people for whom this work is shown to be good, is the ones who have done much more demanding work, in much worse conditions - often, literally, as bonded labor. And those same companies have the gall to take out full-page ads touting their businesses as using Responsible Harvesting, or Responsible Fisheries, or Environmentally Aware Mining Practices. I won't go so far as saying all profit is bad and always at the expense of someone else, it need not be based upon exploitation. The problem, however, with imagining a more responsible Amazon is - it would simply mean its place would be taken by some other corporation, out to suck the last drop of blood and sweat and tear from its employees. Amazon is by no means the worst employer, given it's nowhere compared to the worst examples cited fleetingly in some of the stories shared.
"Amazon has modesty wrapping - and it knows it", writes Emily.
"And it uses it well", I add to that.
Her experiences in Convergys are equally stunning, if not more so. It is unfathomable (I daresay, to many of us) how cruel customers can be, but the truth is - people are cruel. Sometimes, intentionally, but also often without realizing or unintentionally, or they simply feel they've been pushed into a corner. But that doesn't take away any of the burden of responsibility from these corporations that are the pillars of capitalism in our modern society. I mean, it took a conscious effort and a change in rules to allow to NOT try to cross sell DTV packages to customers if they were calling about cancelling services for a dead family member. How inconsiderate must we be as a society, to not allow that smallest space for grief, and instead insist on making sales pitches to such callers?
In my mind, the author makes a very interesting transition in the three work experiences. There is a definite trend one can see - the cruelty and hardships in the first assignment are all remote, everything is nameless, the corporation is faceless and she doesn't interact with the end customers at all. Next, at the call center, she gets to interact with the ultimate customers but there's still no face or name - it's just a voice on the other end of a phone line, and while it keeps the physical aspect out of the equation, the brutality is abundantly visceral. In the last section, at the fast food counter, she faces the the ultimate customer, and comes face to face with the barbaric treatment that many of those customers pile onto the employees. To the customers, the staff behind the counter represent the corporation, and they are venting their anger at all the perceived and implied mistreatments they believe they have been meted out. They don't know any other way.
I can't find words to describe what must be driving them, and I'm sure they give themselves enough justifications for throwing food at the employees, yelling at them and calling them names. That of course, is my naivete, at best - ignorance, at worst.
The portion describing Wanda seemed circuitous to begin with, but eventually is brought in context - and repeatedly in the narrative, and made good use of. The example of the Schezwan Sauce is disgusting, and to me was an epitome of how trite and futile and self-centered many of today's (and tomorrow's) customers are (going to be).
This book is a must read for its simple language, yet powerful and evocative reflection of that strata of society that works under-deck to keep the engines running, while the Titanic continues to list more and more.
Of course, for those who have not read Nickel and Dimed, you must.
The Atlantic, on America's work culture, an excellent article that led me to this book in the first place: Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore, from the November 2019 issue
Good recent reporting on Amazon's practices, commissioned by ProPublica and NYT from May 2019: Amazon Pushes Fast Shipping but Avoids Responsibility for the Human Cost
A podcast issue from NYT's The Daily on the true cost of instant delivery: The Human Toll of Instant Delivery
This is a very good book. (Look at me being a professional reviewer, lol)
My actual review goes up on Shelf Awareness right around pub date, but here are my informal thoughts:
On the Clock both infuriated and entertained me. Guendelsberger is a journalist, which means she cites lots of sources and provides a long list of supplemental reading should you wish to do a deep dive. BUT she's also funny as hell, having written for places like The Onion.
The resulting book is that rare non-ficti0n tome that kept me up reading until I should have been in my second REM cycle.
She worked three jobs for this book: in an Amazon warehouse, a Convergys call center, and a McDonald's. Each is repetitive hell in its own way, with stress both physical and mental. All of them strain the boundaries of human tolerance, and it makes sense... because service jobs are meant to maximize productivity for the benefit of the company. (And sometimes for the customer, but let's be honest - make the customer happy and the company makes more money.)
Guendelsberger goes into the history of timed tasks, assembly lines, and now -thanks to technology- the ability to track and monitor everything. Yes, you might be followed into the bathroom to prove that you have stress-induced diarrhea from being screamed at over the phone all day. (WTF, seriously)
If you've never worked a service job, or if it's been a few years, this book is eye-opening. She draws connections between this type of work and the opioid epidemic, the rise of Trump, and the wage stagnation we've seen in the last 40ish years even in the face of massive gains in productivity.
Honestly, I didn't expect such a heavy, complicated subject to be so readable. Strongly recommended.
My actual review goes up on Shelf Awareness right around pub date, but here are my informal thoughts:
On the Clock both infuriated and entertained me. Guendelsberger is a journalist, which means she cites lots of sources and provides a long list of supplemental reading should you wish to do a deep dive. BUT she's also funny as hell, having written for places like The Onion.
The resulting book is that rare non-ficti0n tome that kept me up reading until I should have been in my second REM cycle.
She worked three jobs for this book: in an Amazon warehouse, a Convergys call center, and a McDonald's. Each is repetitive hell in its own way, with stress both physical and mental. All of them strain the boundaries of human tolerance, and it makes sense... because service jobs are meant to maximize productivity for the benefit of the company. (And sometimes for the customer, but let's be honest - make the customer happy and the company makes more money.)
Guendelsberger goes into the history of timed tasks, assembly lines, and now -thanks to technology- the ability to track and monitor everything. Yes, you might be followed into the bathroom to prove that you have stress-induced diarrhea from being screamed at over the phone all day. (WTF, seriously)
If you've never worked a service job, or if it's been a few years, this book is eye-opening. She draws connections between this type of work and the opioid epidemic, the rise of Trump, and the wage stagnation we've seen in the last 40ish years even in the face of massive gains in productivity.
Honestly, I didn't expect such a heavy, complicated subject to be so readable. Strongly recommended.
"To people with education and influence, 'in the weeds' is something academic, about small, important details. It's the footnotes. It's something you observe from the outside. To everybody else, 'in the weeds' is something you experience. It's something you feel. It's your life."
For some people, living paycheck to paycheck is daily life. For others, they couldn't imagine why someone would even live like that. And this divide and lack of understanding is one factor that Guendelsberger observes and breaks down in her book, On the Clock.
Guendelsberger takes on three jobs during the course of a year: 1) A picker in an Amazon warehouse, 2) a customer service rep for AT&T, and 3) a McDonalds employee. In each of these jobs, she details her experiences trying to maintain a sense of sanity in an environment where the only source of relief from walking all day is a pain-reliever vending machine. Clocking in to her job even just one minute late could be constituted as time theft by the company, so better to not let her job go to waste. Depending on your own experiences, there's different ways to experience this book. Speaking for myself, I have known what it's like to work a minimum wage job, but at the same time I'm over 10 years removed. For some people, working a job where every second is tracked can seem like the most foreign concept ever, yet it's a reality for many.
A good chunk of the book focuses on Guendelsberger's anecdotes working these three different jobs, with a few historical stories on the evolution of the labor market thrown in for good measure. However, I do wish more time was spent on proposing solutions, even if they were her personal opinions and theoretical. Most of the problems that she experienced concluded with a 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' mentality that, quite frankly, I was surprised by. She lived these experiences, yet she knew she had a fallback option due to her experience and education. But other people do not, and she acknowledges that the system is broken. So I was a little upset by some of the weak conclusions that she offers. Still, there's a lot to learn from this book, and I do encourage everyone to read it. And I challenge all readers to go beyond the ending of the book. How can we improve equity amongst the workforce of America?
For some people, living paycheck to paycheck is daily life. For others, they couldn't imagine why someone would even live like that. And this divide and lack of understanding is one factor that Guendelsberger observes and breaks down in her book, On the Clock.
Guendelsberger takes on three jobs during the course of a year: 1) A picker in an Amazon warehouse, 2) a customer service rep for AT&T, and 3) a McDonalds employee. In each of these jobs, she details her experiences trying to maintain a sense of sanity in an environment where the only source of relief from walking all day is a pain-reliever vending machine. Clocking in to her job even just one minute late could be constituted as time theft by the company, so better to not let her job go to waste. Depending on your own experiences, there's different ways to experience this book. Speaking for myself, I have known what it's like to work a minimum wage job, but at the same time I'm over 10 years removed. For some people, working a job where every second is tracked can seem like the most foreign concept ever, yet it's a reality for many.
A good chunk of the book focuses on Guendelsberger's anecdotes working these three different jobs, with a few historical stories on the evolution of the labor market thrown in for good measure. However, I do wish more time was spent on proposing solutions, even if they were her personal opinions and theoretical. Most of the problems that she experienced concluded with a 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' mentality that, quite frankly, I was surprised by. She lived these experiences, yet she knew she had a fallback option due to her experience and education. But other people do not, and she acknowledges that the system is broken. So I was a little upset by some of the weak conclusions that she offers. Still, there's a lot to learn from this book, and I do encourage everyone to read it. And I challenge all readers to go beyond the ending of the book. How can we improve equity amongst the workforce of America?
It was especially interesting reading this during a stressful week at my relatively cushy and well-paid job.
This was a very powerful and insightful read. It really highlighted the wealth gap in the United States and Guendelsberger provided well researched evidence and anecdotes to back up her thoughts.
I wish I knew what steps I could take to drive actionable change towards income inequality.
I wish I knew what steps I could take to drive actionable change towards income inequality.