For the Record; 1511; Barbara Ehrenreich

i finally decided i don't think they hear about your unique personality or maybe somebody wouldn't know is that this has been discredited i think they really want to find the really want one kind of personality in the corporate world and that as it began to emerge from a life in my search with somebody who has always cheerful upbeat positive thinking likable and obedient for the record collection funding is provided by the prairie foundation and by the bern porter found serving the commonwealth of virginia for the rightist created in partnership with the university of virginia's miller center of public affairs their conversation on politics and policy of the president for the record hello i'm violently from the studios of wh tj charlottesville pbs this is for the record today social critic and writer barbara ehrenreich author of thirteen books a contributor the new york times harper's an time magazine for two thousand one book nickel

and dime depicted her attempt to survive in a low paying jobs revealing a side of american life to grab headlines and made the book a national bestseller now she's gone back undercover to experience the struggles of landing a white collar job her new book is called a dance which the fuel pursuit of the american dream barbara ehrenreich welcome for the record start with the title the inflation it for the theme of your book tell us tell us where it came from and whitney well what animation first the volunteers with a publisher who comes up with a snappy title about the awkward but the the meaning of it to me is that i young people are lured into the white collar corporate world you know they go to college and i i've been inside all major and management or marketing or something like that in a corporate job and then they'll be set for life on you know they anticipate some kind of constant wise you know and vengeful retirement and a pension well

that is not true anymore things have really really changed just in the last decade for decades now i'm not not that long term security anymore i'll one sociologist i quoted estimates that you're going to have about eleven jobs in your life after college i mean people are just churned out of the corporate world all the time and then they have to pick themselves up trying to find another job or maybe they just never do when they end up in a low paying blue collar jobs so so you decided to sort of do what you once did for blue collar jobs for for white collar jobs and yet the story becomes just trying to sinbad shout not not not here i am doing this corporate job and here i am try to to find that out and what he did to try to find out you know well i i expected of the law the project would be the job search didn't expect would be quite so much ari but that at least buy the jetta the job search i would be entering into this

world a white collar job seekers i i don't know what to do to start i mean i was much more clueless and i was a nickel and dimed is it straight forward with a blue collar job you see a now hiring sign or help wanted ad you just go and fill out a little application is one page with this and how you do it like artwork well i was presenting myself as a pr person which is a real realistic aspiration for a journalist it's the same skills that as we say in the industry and i started with our career coaches to help me to craft a resume and says can steer me into the job search that was so well a strange right from the alps where there are lots of these career coaches than ten thousand of them in the united states are at the very least and there are no there's no accreditation there's no licensing of the regulations you can set up as a prescription or just hang

out a shingle that's why we want to meet personnel a contest i don't i understand why i said i told you what i want i do what pr what does my personality have to do with that or i mean so what if you just when you find out i have personality and vollmer it's too late anyway it was this anti disney a test which wait there's a lot that i didn't answer the questions and i did my best and then he there was some good news about my personality but the bad thing he told me is that i should avoid occupations involving writing out you know you mention in your book that these personality tests unique myers briggs test are widely used in corporate america but there is a sort of surprising that it's not just the coaches or the corporations themselves got it noticed in the midst of the major corporations fortune top

one hundred added tests are ridiculous analogies are the anagram test is based on the suv is an ancient celtic wisdom says it would philosophy and there are few other little new ag ingredients like that are a lose my mind right now the myers briggs test has been shown have no predictive value can take it on thursday and a different personality that on tuesday or even change for morning after no idea but i know it i finally decided i don't think they care about your unique personality or maybe somebody would notice that this has been discredited i think they really want to find the really want one kind of personality in the corporate world and that as it began to emerge to me was in my search was somebody who is always cheerful upbeat positive thinking are likeable and

obedient do you think his personality tests are almost a certain way of screening out that this early great grouchy you know people who i really didn't know if their sorrow and gracia una maid you know you think you would think i think i think it's something like that or that coach will you just in it for example if you don't have to be an extrovert army myers briggs that's something that we're calling right and recovery expert a unity or an embargo on the memoir if you have your mate just any ill met with these coaches in and came away and then spent a lot of money it seems meeting with coaches and and one of the things that became a money pit was your resume which apparently needed to be polished and polished in and re polish today is that just as a service candidates are part of a i don't know you know the coaches getting paid two hundred dollars an hour this debate is usually a half hour chunks over the phone most of the time and i didn't think that they

resume began to take on the proportions of a doctoral dissertation over the formatting of punctuation in other words your eyes again and again and again while i'm on banks so i'm now spam or not who knows but i do think in general and the coaching is something i would advise jobseekers not to invest more time money and let's back up for a minute and try to understand do you think are some things which phenomenon is unique to certain jobs in inhumane corporate america it it seemed like he talked a lot about it workers he talked a lot about our realtor's are there are there are there certain jobs in which has begun switch phenomenon happens more more more often than did either corporate jobs report are as opposed to say everything a realtor something because there appears to have been a very

mature big change in corporate policy just in the nineties away from saying the white collar workers as assets to be nurtured and toward saying them just as a blue collar workers have always been seen as just expenses to be eliminated so you have you know in companies you have bean counters are sitting in an office somewhere everyday regular your job every year when something bigger than that saves money right to do that they hope that there is a survey which provides eco a stunning measure of that other conference board of it in the late eighties they surveyed i'm you know top budget dot com companies corporations and asking them acquire in a certain degree or disagree of someone does a good job well the company here she deserves assurance of continued employment in a lady's about eighty six percent of our the corporation surveyed a great take that to the late nineties

six percent agreed that is churning change in attitude act or employees said so and you talk about this in your conclusion he is that the core of what's going on is this just as a sense in corporate america there's no longer a sense of loyalty to your employees absolutely no sense of what i know and that are really perverse thing about it i began to learn it i met other jobseekers is that doing your job well could actually go against you because if you do well they do a good job and you get in on that some innocent they've been promoted or praise for give them an award or recognition very shortly before they're firing and you know that sounds bizarre but the problem is if you get paid a little more than other people that's more reason to eliminate you you're more tempting as a cost that it's as a friend of mine who works at

she told me recently if he asked for a raise and abbas said no why would you want that that would be like an app bull's eye painted on your back one of the things that you talk about throughout the book that so interesting is it is the liability of having what you call a gap in your resume you had in your resume unexplained unaccounted for time our it made me think a little bit of a lot of the sort of class of young women who are on mass leaving bear their jobs with their graduate degrees they're high paying jobs to tip to raise children are it sounds like from reading your book that's a pretty dangerous step to take that that gap of employment histories really can be accused of data is that and it had been tested this whole thing from them the event female problem you're taking time off for a child raising four times i asked on one was in it that working group of about sixty people and i said that and that that person lecturing to us to talk about the app

and i said well let's get to how making art because i thought i had a respectable respectable enough to have that gap in my resume armed no no no no no no no no no people will you know does the kind of like i mean i might as well said i've spent the last three years corporate welfare for that with the way that the kind of contemporary help of the room and then i asked another high powered coach in washington dc how the same question and i said well you better have a pretty good story to explain that come up and i the only one word small children so there's no they didn't know it i think they are those women will and i think maybe their numbers are exaggerated american professional woman who drops out to research on it's been a nasty surprise when she tries to go back and it seems from your book that there are sort of two to mental states with which job seekers are are are informed one is that the sort of the

career coaches this is all your fault it's all in your head you need to have a positive attitude anything bad happened to you is your fault and then there's the second straight which is which is a sort of very religious trade which says there's actually nothing that in your control it's all god's will talk a little bit about that the tension between those two two strays as i ventured out that i found a lot of networking groups in issa's ranging from virginia to georgia atlanta area alissa be advertised as in a normal job seekers networking groups which are now to be in fact heavy duty proselytizing for i'm a christian evangelical churches or church sometimes it would be an american mega church and it does seem like there's a big contradiction there between the secular idea that you have to be likeable you can control the universe with europe thoughts you think positively all the things will come here and the religious idea which are cabernets christian groups which is set

are you agree on god's hands but there's a really a connection once you here ben whenever these christian herbst and you see that god does very detail things for your hero entertain them achieve an important email or tell you to try that juggernaut that one if you have a good relationship with him so easy again even have all this power just by you know how you think poor a focus your thoughts and yet in some ways both both of these sort of stranger approaches you argue encourages a sort of pastime it almost certainly not the sort of getting together being angry communicating trying to reverse things and what's that way there is absolutely prohibited and i think that's a drug broadly true in our culture that there's a real we we see egret something dysfunctional in a bad mom and

whenever the in any kind of bitterness you might feel toward the employer like the last time your words you have to like that cow you can't you can't go back you have to fight for what we just so to an extent but that that means in these networking situations of the conversation i cannot even go in the direction of what's going on here what happened to us what happened to the american dream and i saw that happen with one coach's was a bootcamp for job seekers and somebody i was complaining about fourteen hour days or something like that city when you know the job seekers at these groups you get people were being worked to the bar because they can on one effect of downsizing is to create unemployed people the other factors to create the board member and work to sell his ascent somebody else commented i that was stuart fourteen hours a day now and a packet of ancient sects who are they there is no they there is only you your attitude your outlook that has to be changed

so we could go there we could talk about the economy or corporate policy or anything like that you know that's a pretty consistent theme that people seemed unwilling to sort of deeply connect with you unwilling to really sort of share or b you know in any lake sort of organized or systemic about you know why are we unemployed or underemployed we know what what what is going on in this society this economy is just this sort of dog in silent persistent yet remember people open experienced involuntary job loss recently are depressed i mean that's pretty well known by now plenty of studies are likely to get to be depressed they feel very guarded who can you trust i mean you've just been thrown out by people you were you thought your knitting with them and then they passed away so i think there is that element that i i did find this sort of distance

arm it was harder to get people are to open up and be more preston did you come away with from this experience saying undergrad did preserve know utilitarian way that people need six advanced degrees in order to even compete anymore is that an overstatement another six advanced degrees and how i guess is a discussion i'm having with lois peter tell the economics reporter the new york times he claims and he has evidence that said that there just aren't enough jobs in america of all college educated people we find out that start on in our job doesnt mean to meet me because education is yours was but it may not be as important as a certificate as some people are open yes it gives your big as a big gap between college educated worker and a blue collar worker in pe that is not much security for the college educated worker anymore either so we may be exaggerating what

that debris will do for you some of the other things that became survivability is for you quickly i think other than year gap was was your age which was not thirty five i'm your gender can you talk a little bit about the sort of the different roles of those things played in in your job search well the way the age thing came out is with my second career coach i told her i'm you know this was that was a concern that i am in late middle age and says that i'm a question of it we are at your resume what you do that and sees that you have to leave and have no more than ten years of experience matches fifteen years experience on your resume and there i had a going back well to the seventies carson a slice all that up and then i realize something that age discrimination is in just about now form of bigotry against people were rebels is

our real discounting of experience they want that experience forget about you know they're that that struck me as her gender on it's hard for me to tell but i i do i was very aware of it when it comes to oil the problem dress and self presentation because you know men have a corporate uniform that's clear they can address a women are still trying to figure it out and i thought i went i saw her image management consultant i am it and i was dressed in my that was my corporate that's actually kind of like you were that you know tailored shirts under a blazer i thought i would throw a good fight you know i do is i knew you could want to model or too feminine now the data became a soft winds and blowing things up but it certainly can't look too sexy very very bad ones that i have that under control with all the neat angles of every

image management consultant says no and too far in the masculine direction now you're supposed to have curved lines and about you in particular about what they would tell you that you know this is probably a mistake with the end of this it just seemed very strange because women are always trying to figure out how to look not too feminine but not too threateningly masculinity or it's all very influential isaiah me think of the difference are a stranger talking about there's trying to find nice people i'm in is trying to find people who look like they're going to conform in any find people who won't speak out or in anyway excel it's inserted sounds like the perfect preschool classes that's really what's good for corporate america and i started wondering i mean i've been critical of years for gore various corporations and corporations in general for many things but

i came out of this project thinking maybe i should be a management consultant because i don't think this is a way to do business we we we worry a lot now about competition with other rising economies of i'm an indian are really even mean in the story of people monitored on a jury or are really fat latvian you know don't have a taste well i think you're much of the focus and that is spent on the individual american worker and maybe we should look at corporate this corporate culture which i think is becoming a culture of incompetence encourages incompetence when your premium is on conformity rather than creativity on likeability rather than non skills i mean it is rather that experience and i'm going to use it well you know you get things like michael dee brown running theme for harriet miers reversed for the supreme court are people fit in

well i have no notion of how to do their jobs one of the things to you mention in your book is that you did after this intensive job search get two job offers and they were really the jobs are looking forty tells little about you know if it gets in the game i embark saying we loved your resume we think you'd be great for us even though it's appeared to be a sales job i thought i can't be choosing now and it was a job with selling supplemental health insurance well i said and i talked them into how i met army beyond the pri wannabe managing salespeople and went into the actual site of sago for my interview dressed in my best revised corporate outfit and unfettered actually two separate hour long interviews and then the guy says well partly that the job he wanted it's that much fun and there's no pay it just you know commissions as you earn them like a force that our health insurance i know

you know i just i know when i had that so the end and the other big thing that stopped me from going any further is that that you had to put out at least two thousand dollars to get insurance brokers license somali with mary kay and i was approached by them i have to say am i you know no pay no no insurance no benefits and you have to put up a calculator on nineteen hundred dollars just in the inventory to sell so you're taking all the risk they're taking zero that's with you if you screw up to get there unless you think you are at the investment officer at the end of the day these were not janson buy any job is having his salary and i had to find a job is having health insurance namibia was just bit my standards were much too high we have time for one last question and hand if that they were doing you can with it is there a unifying theme between your first global your first major

book on the subject between nickel and dimed and cadence which is there something that we came away with that ties these two books together i'm trying to get to tie them together and that is to break down the gap between the attitudinal gap between white collar blue collar people to be saying to white collar people yeah maybe use it was special but you have those degrees and everything well that's not the reality anymore the reality is you can be treated just as badly as the blue collar people the manual laborers city you may look down on so we've got to get together and as you know we have that we have some serious changes like universal health insurance obviously and images of their safety net for people at at all kinds of levels of envy so much by rare right but erik's book is called vegas which the futile pursuit of the american dream for the staff and crew at the beach tj here in charlottesville for a production partners at the miller center of public affairs at the university of virginia

and dahlia lithwick and please join us for the next for the record for more information about the guests and topics on four the record visit our website at debbie you debbie wu that idea stations dot org things became clear thanks renee

add for the record production funding is provided by the perry foundation and by the burn carter foundation serving the commonwealth of virginia for the record is created in partnership with the university of virginia's miller center of public affairs to gorge is a vhs copy of this program sent a check for twenty one ninety five to the address on the screen or call for three four to nine five seven six seven one please referenced the program number