This book should always be mentioned in the same breath as Nickeld and Dimed to give everyone a full primer in what life under Capitalism is truly like in the land of Capitalism, aka America. Emily Guendelsberger “takes advantage” of a temporary break in employment (funemployement!!!) to work at three separate low-wage, computer-shift-driven jobs that are done by millions of Americans, day in and day out.
To get to the main point: they’re all, pardon the word, crazy making. And in a way that really doesn’t clock (heh) for many of the armchair economists that you encounter in the media world. In my world, they show up on Instagram–people who snarkily take down socialist-minded critiques of capitalism with comments like, “when you don’t realize that your massive rise in living standards comes from the very system that you now can criticize #capitalismrules.” Sure, in a wonderful world where all workers can immediately teleport themselves and their belongings and families and communities to chase the next best opportunity, perhaps the right to work creates optimum outcomes. But I dare anyone to keep their cool in the systems that Guendelsberger describes.
If you’re reading my review of a book on low-wage work, I’m guessing you yourself are not a low-wage worker. I’m guessing you, like me, have always thought that if pushed to it, we’d be able to keep our cool, rise to the top of the worker food chain, become a manager, and continue on our merry way of white collar achieving different from the people who are profiled in this work. At least, I’ll cop to sort of thinking that, and I’m thankful that there are others out there who are happy to disabuse me of that notion. Even with the strongest of support networks–a husband who’s a doctor, no dependents, the knowledge that this is all an experiment, Gudndelsberger cracks quickly and often and multiple times.
