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Title: The Working Life : The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work by Joanne B. Ciulla ISBN: 0-609-80737-4 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 20 March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A more optimistic 'Nickel and Dimed"
Comment: Sciulla's book avoids policy conclusions, and other theoretical certainties as other books like Fogels' 4th Awakening. She notes the interesting point that "Today, clock time measures events" in the past events measured time. For example, in Magadascar a half hour was measured by the time it took to cook rice. She became interested in the nature of work when she subsidised one job teaching philosophy with another as a waitress in a restaurant. Ms. Ciulla is particularly struck by the fact thatt wealth has not brought happiness. People continue to want to earn a living. Even when people have enough to live on, many of them continue to want to work, remaining perplexed at the fact that while life is supposed to be easier, many continue to seek meaning through employment. However, she notes, employment provides a schedule and a rythm for daily life and serves as an outlet ofr greater forms of community participation.
Rating: 4
Summary: Provocative Overview of What We Often Take for Granted
Comment: Joanne Ciulla presents a very well organized, philosophically grounded overview of work -- its varying meanings, its historical evolution, and its paradoxes as found in modern institutions. She is very up front with the reader in her introduction, admitting that this book is not a scientific investigation, but rather a broad interpretation of the meaning of work and how it has come to both bless and curse us in present times. Accordingly, there are succint summaries of some of the major interpretations of work -- from the early Greek philosophers to contemporary management schools.
But this is more than just an overview, too. Ciulla has a way of getting her readers to look at work with unexpected insights every step of the way. She peels away the common sense and taken-for-granted interpretations of work (which are often based on promising the worker some sort of fulfillment, but at the price of surrenduring autonomy). She does a nice job of deflating recent management theories that tout "new" approaches (management theory is woefully a-historical, she asserts, and is always looking at recycled approaches as though they are breakthroughs). There is a tone of leariness here, rooted in a skepticism over those who apply new management theories in order to exert greater control over individuals, and encourage them to shift their focus more and more away from families, community, and individually expressed forms of self-worth.
Overall, if you're skeptical of the latest management promises of creating "fulfilling work" (or if you really think the "Dilbert" cartoon series is right on the mark), you'll like this book. If you are looking for something that offers a new twist to management technique, you will likely find this book impractical and overly alarmist.
Rating: 4
Summary: Culture of Autonomy
Comment: Ciulla places great importance on personal autonomy. She is suspicious of any connection outside of thepersonal that infringrs on that autonomy. She finds difficulty in the fact that people draw at least some of their identity from the world around them and in particular for this book from their occupation or job. Ciulla constantly stresses the implicit danger of betrayal and exploitation in this trust in others for life meaning. She repeatedly draws comparison between this fidning of identity in one's job with that of slavery in which the slaves identity is submerged to the personal interests of teh master.
Ciulla's book is a strong advocacy of her point of view written with an evident extensive background in the subject. It is well worth reading but one must keep in mind that this book is a brief to support one point of view.
As a side note. Ciulla deplores the needs of some people to find their identity in their relationships with others. She calls these people 'other-directed.' This is just the standard extroversion that is highly prized in current culture. It is nice to read a book in which introversion is praised as an ideal rather than being regarded as an ailment to be treated.
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Title: The Future of Success : Working and Living in the New Economy by Robert B. Reich ISBN: 0375725121 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel ISBN: 1565843428 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: March, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Good Marriage: How & Why Love Lasts by Judith Wallerstein ISBN: 0446672483 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Goodbye Without Leaving by Laurie Colwin ISBN: 0060955333 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 16 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Future of Work: The Promise of the New Digital Work Society by Charles E. Grantham ISBN: 0071348301 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade Pub. Date: 26 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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