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  • On the Clock

  • What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane
  • By: Emily Guendelsberger
  • Narrated by: Christine Lakin
  • Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (10 ratings)
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On the Clock

By: Emily Guendelsberger
Narrated by: Christine Lakin
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Summary

The bitingly funny, eye-opening story of a college-educated young professional who finds work in the automated and time-starved world of hourly labor....

After the local newspaper where she worked as a reporter closed, Emily Guendelsberger took a pre-Christmas job at an Amazon fulfillment center outside Louisville, Kentucky. There, the vending machines were stocked with painkillers, and the staff turnover was dizzying. In the new year, she travelled to North Carolina to work at a call center, a place where even bathroom breaks were timed to the second. And finally, Guendelsberger was hired at a San Francisco McDonald's, narrowly escaping revenge-seeking customers who pelted her with condiments.

Across three jobs, and in three different parts of the country, Guendelsberger directly took part in the revolution changing the US workplace. On the Clock takes us behind the scenes of the fastest-growing segment of the American workforce to understand the future of work in America - and its present. Until robots pack boxes, resolve billing issues, and make fast food, human beings supervised by AI will continue to get the job done. Guendelsberger shows us how workers went from being the most expensive element of production to the cheapest - and how low wage jobs have been remade to serve the ideals of efficiency, at the cost of humanity.

On the Clock explores the lengths that half of Americans will go to in order to make a living, offering not only a better understanding of the modern workplace, but also surprising solutions to make work more humane for millions of Americans.

©2019 Emily Guendelsberger (P)2019 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"When former Onion editor Emily Guendelsberger explores how the non-college majority scrapes by, she uncovers a Darwinian hellscape where the richest man on earth munificently bestows painkillers upon his warehouse serfs, telemarketers pitch products to the newly bereaved, and the customer is always right-even when she's lobbing McNugget sauce at your head. Filled with compassion, fury, and an invigorating dose of hope, On The Clock is the laugh-till-you-cry exposé our laugh-till-you-cry nation deserves." (Daniel Brook, author of The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America, A History of Future Cities, and The Accident of Color: A Story of Race in Reconstruction)

"Guendelsberger's narration is vivid, humorous, and honest; she admits to the feelings of despair, panic, and shame that these jobs frequently inspire, allowing for a more complex and complete picture of the experience. This is a riveting window into minimum-wage work and the subsistence living it engenders." (Publishers Weekly)

"Detailed, intelligent, and well-researched, the book provides a sobering look at the inhuman world of blue-collar work while suggesting that creation of a better world starts by connecting to others who also believe 'the status quo is cruel and ridiculous.' An eye-opening, unrelenting exposé that uncovers the brutal wages of modern global capitalism. A natural choice for fans of Nickel and Dimed." (Kirkus Reviews)

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Excellent

Great book. Good research. Hard work trying the jobs! Nice historical background. And good description of disjointed American society and why.

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