On the Clock

Intriguing Premise Hurt By Lack of Evidence. This is one of those books that has an intriguing premise and brings some often overlooked aspects to the table and is thus worthy of and even needed in the national conversation, but that is ultimately tainted by the author's own biases and lack of empirical evidence and lack of extensive bibliography. The author does a phenomenal job of showing what it is like to work in the environments she chose to work in - an Amazon Fulfillment Center, a call center, and a franchise McDonald's - and the people who work there. But as she admits repeatedly, she could always leave at any time she wanted - while she rarely if ever mentions what her husband does for work, she does mention during one ordeal at the call center that her father in law is a doctor - and the entire point of getting these jobs was to “test the waters” to see what people who worked them were really like and what their concerns really were. Very well written, just with significant flaws in reasoning due to her own biases, particularly in her ultimate conclusions. Could have been far stronger, but still a recommended read.

We've been dealing with various stomach bugs and general daycare crud on and off for weeks. Ethan has been home more days than he's actually been at daycare this month. It's driving me bananas, and means that when I inevitably got what he had (thanks, dude, for coughing directly into my face constantly!), I got to stay home to rest WHILE taking care of him while he was staying home to rest.

I have it hard in basically no ways, and this month has been so challenging for me.

I would have been fired from every single one of the jobs Guendelsberger mentions in about 30 seconds flat. And yet, because I am a salaried employee, I spend a lot of time worrying about how much work I'm missing, while still having ample vacation/sick and family leave days.

I don't have the book in front of me right this sec to quote exactly, but Guendelsberger describes this whole system as sickeningly, disastrously, painfully, outrageously unfair. It absolutely is.

On the Clock has been hailed as an updated Nickel and Dimed, focusing on the advancement of technology in the workplace to give employers more control and workers less. I never read N&D, so I can't speak to what came before, but I do know that this was NOTHING like my experience when I worked in retail (a grocery store chain and the better of the big box mart stores) even 15 years ago. Technology has come a long way, in what seems like mostly good only for the big companies, because it seems next to impossible to ever get along (let alone get ahead) in one of these jobs unless your life is just miraculously devoid of things like sick kids and illness.

Fascinating read, highly recommend.

One of my Favorite Books of 2019