I think we miss the point if we read her as entertainment. She’s a political writer. These books are meant to change the way we think and vote. I’m glad you read them, Trent.

But it was an interesting read and as I said I don’t disagree with her thesis.

I wish I could get paid to write a book on a topic like (for example) how hard dieting is and then prove it by eating lots of fast food, smoking pot and complaining about Christians.

The most offensive part of this is that fundamentally, she has to lie her way through the interviews and the sessions – she just isn’t what she says she is. There’s a moral boundary that is crossed here, wasting people’s time and energy to make a point that she isn’t going to prove. She can get away with it in Nickel and Dimed, because, well, they are min wage non-skilled jobs – they don’t care what your background is.

http://www.amazon.com/Bright-sided-Relentless-Promotion-Positive-Undermined/dp/B003P2VDC4/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4

BUT –

I really disagree with you that this lack of hard core sacrificing causes the book to be a “totally bogus peice of investigative journalism”. (Also, “bogus”? Bill and Ted called, they want their adjective back.)

Despite her not putting herself at risk of rape or injury, the book was very well received including an amazing review by the New York Times Book Review.

You’re free not to agree with them, but I think it’s EXTREMELY negligent of Trent’s review to disparage the book for not being authentic to the really poor when she starts out the book explaining that it is not meant to be authentic to that degree.

I think he wrote the first paragraph of this blog post simply because he desperately wanted to work in the in-his-mind oh-so-clever Pulp song reference…

I agree with you that it was amusing how she revealed she wasn’t poor at all but merely a writer to the maids and they gave a big “whatever” to her. And the plight of affordable housing for the working poor was great too. I enjoyed her trying to get food from the food banks as a member of the working poor who hadn’t gotten a pay check yet, and her choices were very poor nutritionally.

Trent, I’m deighted that someone detested “Nickel & Dimed” as much as I did – it was, disclaimers or not, a totally bogus piece of investigative journalism –

The author didn’t try very hard (less than 4 weeks in each job? Hah!) at any of the three jobs and blew off one interview because she was “totally exhausted” – She didn’t go to another interview because she had (apparently)been smoking dope the night before and the company had the gall to want drug testing of new candidates.

She had a car, she quit jobs by just not showing up, she sneered at home owners because they had the effrontery to have olive oil and balsamic vinegar in their cabinets… in short, she didn’t act in the least like a person who really needed the job.

The most amusing part was that, when she told her fellow house-cleaners that she was really an undercover journalist doing an investigation, they were totally unimpressed (as was I) and didn’t seem to believe her!

The one excellent thing about the book was how it highlighted the total lack of available housing for persons without family or contacts at that economic level, and the portrait of the (Indian?Pakistani?Bangladeshi?) wife of the motel owner was heartbreaking.

After reading Nickel and Dimed, there’s one thing that really stands out for me. This woman is a fabulous writer, and she’s a gutsy reportive journalist, any way you slice it. I wouldn’t want to do what she did.

Here’s my current job search strategy, since the big internet job boards are unlikely to have positions that I am qualified for. First, I made a list of everywhere within my commuting distance that I might like to work. I also added some specialized job boards that pertain specifically to my field, my geographic region, or both. I ended up with a list of about 50 employers and jobs boards, including 3 which I feel I should check every day and the rest which will be okay to check about once a week.

I divided this list into 6 shorter lists- one for each day Monday – Saturday. Every day before I start work, I check that day’s list of sites and look for new positions I might want to apply for. I keep track of those postings and once a week spend several hours applying for the jobs I’ve found throughout the week. I have been doing this for 3 weeks, and so far have found 2-4 positions per week to apply for.

If I don’t have a job lined up by the time my contract runs out, I’m planning to temp- since I feel like this might be the best way to get a job outside of my field if I’m not having any luck in my field. If there is anyone reading who is also looking for work while working full time, maybe my strategy will be helpful.

I found Nickeled and Dimed Better, as I always thought networking events to be a crock, so the later experiment seemed a wasted of time. In Nickled and Dimed I will never forget her description of the working poor in trailers as “canned labor”, which is exactly how many companies see people.

But Adam may not like that I find Will Shatner’s version (on Has Been) to be my all time favorite version of “Common People”. It was produced and backed by Ben Fold’s Five.

This is what happens when you speed read! ;-)

Like you, I found Nickel and Dimed evenhanded. It left me with a heightened appreciation for the folks I encounter working in, say, hotel housekeeping, and at diners and restaurants.

I think Trent just skims these books, and all we see in these “reviews” is a mere superficial summary of each chapter.

Ehrenreich did not expect anyone to hand her anything. She tried to see what opportunities were available for someone with her resume and qualifications – and there were practically none. I’d say, ultimately, the point of the book was in what she didn’t say outright: it’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know. Then it’s about whether who you know can and will ACTUALLY help you get a job.

Oh, and Adam P, you are a rock star. I’ve read both books and you are right on!

Her most recent book, Bright Sided, is particularly interesting. It’s not PF-related, but you might want to check it out. Ehrenreich basically argues that our American optimism is causing major damage to our mental, physical, and social health. It’s a great, short read.

It’s hard for me to put my finger on why this summary irritates me so much. The list just feels fake in a way. While I know people go to boot camps, and get career coaches, stuff like that sits so far at the edges of the white collar world that I don’t think she’s giving an accurate portrayal.

This feels like a book that would be written by an alien anthropologist who watched a bunch of late-night infomercials on “How To Get A Job” and wrote a book based off of those.

Maybe the book is markedly different from the review, but from the summary everything comes off as fake.

On page 6 she says “I am, of course, very different from the people who fill America’s least attractive jobs…” and “With all the real life assets I’ve bulit up in middle age–bank account, IRA, health insurance, multiroom home–waiting indulgently in the background, there was no way I was going to “experience poverty” or find out how it “really feels” to be long term low-wage worker.

She comes out and says right out what YOU say is your biggest criticism of the book, that she can’t know what it is like to be poor.

So I have to ask, did you just skip the chapter where she says what she is doing?!?! If so, you’re a terrible book reviewer.

Also, NEVER take a perfectly wonderful Pulp song to make one of your crazy points again, please.

The worst part is if you ask for support in doing something else, no one in your family or friends or other support group will support you in this. It’s just too different.

So what do you do? You accept the fact that you have no support and do it anyway.