We specialize in hard to find items
All Categories
The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change
Share Tweet
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About The Job: Work And Its Future In A Time Of Radical
Product Description Critically acclaimed journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell uncovers the true cost--political, economic, social, and personal--of America's mounting anxiety over jobs, and what we can do to regain control over our working lives. Since 1973, our productivity has grown almost six times faster than our wages. Most of us rank so far below the top earners in the country that the "winners" might as well inhabit another planet. But work is about much more than earning a living. Work gives us our identity, and a sense of purpose and place in this world. And yet, work as we know it is under siege. Through exhaustive reporting and keen analysis, The Job reveals the startling truths and unveils the pervasive myths that have colored our thinking on one of the most urgent issues of our day: how to build good work in a globalized and digitalized world where middle class jobs seem to be slipping away. Traveling from deep in Appalachia to the heart of the Midwestern rust belt, from a struggling custom clothing maker in Massachusetts to a thriving co-working center in Minnesota, she marshals evidence from a wide range of disciplines to show how our educational system, our politics, and our very sense of self have been held captive to and distorted by outdated notions of what it means to get and keep a good job. We read stories of sausage makers, firefighters, zookeepers, hospital cleaners; we hear from economists, computer scientists, psychologists, and historians. The book's four sections take us from the challenges we face in scoring a good job today to work's infinite possibilities in the future. Work, in all its richness, complexity, rewards and pain, is essential for people to flourish. Ellen Ruppel Shell paints a compelling portrait of where we stand today, and points to a promising and hopeful way forward. Review "Shell has gathered the kindling of true systemic change—social trust, collective ownership, experiments with universal basic income, the concern over alienation—and writes with compassion, heart, and verve.” -Harper's Magazine "Through stories of jobs in places like the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a cooperatively owned laundromat in Cleveland and a small Finnish sausage factory, the author conjures fresh insights about work as a social institution whose value extends far beyond the dollar amount printed on a paycheck… [The book] directly challenges two nuggets of conventional wisdom that Ms. Shell scrutinizes harshly. First, ‘follow your passion’ is often terrible advice. For one thing, paying the bills with one’s passion is typically implausible… Second, better education and more skills are not a cure-all: The data simply do not support the notion that more years of school necessarily translates into better jobs… Through it all, The Job remains ardently optimistic about the prospects for improving people’s working lives regardless of whatever economic changes may come." -The Wall Street Journal “A sweeping, snappily written survey… [Shell] is a lively, engaging writer, with a gift for translating economic abstractions into plain English.” -The Washington Post " The Job is such a fantastic, timely, thoroughly researched, balanced, and beautifully written book that I want everyone to read it. And then I want to talk to everyone who reads it about their experiences with their jobs, and the jobs around them.” -Inside Higher Ed "A sweeping study...According to Shell, Americans as a people must change their way of determining what constitutes a good job and even upend the concept of work as they know it. General readers will appreciate the breadth and scope of Shell’s thoughtful, inquisitive work." -Publisher's Weekly "…Ellen Ruppel Shell has many strong views about the way people earn a living. Accordingly, her new book, The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change, weighs in on the nature of work, its future, its purpose, its meaning, how people prepare for it, government assistance to the
