Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich Read Free Book Online
Authors: Barbara Ehrenreich
project a kind of confidence I neither feel nor the hell, I agree to go along with her idée fixe that thirty-seven is deserve to feel. Deception is part of the game. Even getting along my "biological age."
with Kimberly, which I admit I haven't done very well—she once
"SO? Then you ARE thirty-seven!" she announces tri-utilized the "dance" metaphor to tell me, "We're dancing, umphantly.
but we're stepping all over each other's toes"—has been part
"But you can figure out my age from my resume, which lists the of the training process. I can be what I want to be, is the year of my college graduation."
message, so long as I act like I believe it. I am ready, or almost
"Absolutely don't put your graduation date on your re-ready, to press on out into the world.
sume," she advises, "and eliminate all the earlier jobs. It shouldn't go back more than ten years, fifteen max."
two
Stepping Out Into
the World of Networking
All the web-site advice I have gleaned about job searching emphasizes the importance of "networking." At first, in my innocence, I had envisioned this as a freewheeling exercise in human sociability, possibly involving white wine. Joanne and Kimberly, though, have impressed on me that networking takes hard work, discipline, and perseverance. When I informed Kimberly of my intention to launch the networking phase, she caught me up short with a demand to hear my "elevator speech." This, it turns out, is a thirty- to forty-five-second self-advertisement, which in my case, Kimberly suggests, should begin with "Hi, I'm Barbara Alexander, and I'm a crackerjack PR person!" In one of our phone sessions, Joanne shared with me her own elevator speech—it turns out that she long, close-fitting skirt that creates a definite mermaid effect, too is job searching—and when I ventured that it sounded a bit greets me in the corridor and directs me to a table where Ted, stiff, she confessed to not having fully memorized it yet.
also about fifty, is presiding over the name tag distribution. He wears Hours of Internet searching have netted me a "networking a wrinkled suit and tie, set off, intriguingly, by a black eye. No, event" only two and a half hours away at the Forty-Plus Club he instructs, I am not to take a red name tag; as a "new person,"
of Washington, D.C. Founded to help middle-aged executive I am assigned to blue. Looking off to the side a little, perhaps to job seekers during the Depression, the club attracted to its first draw attention from his eye, he confides that the networking will advisory board such corporate and cultural luminaries as Tom proceed until 10:00, at which time we will be treated to a lecture Watson, the founder of IBM; James Cash Penney, of JC Pen-on "New Year's resolutions for job searchers."
ney; Arthur Godfrey, the TV personality; and Norman Vincent Time is short, so I get right down to work, going up to my fellow Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking—whom I job seekers, introducing myself, and asking what kinds of jobs take to be the intellectual granddad of Kimberly. Despite their they're looking for. About fifteen people have drifted in so far and establishment origins, the nineteen Forty-Plus Clubs around distributed themselves among the chairs arranged insemicircles the nation are the closest thing one can find to a grassroots or-around a podium. All are middle-aged white guys, and I manage ganization of the white-collar unemployed. The clubs are run to successfully connect with several of them before the seats fill up, entirely by volunteers, conveniently drawn from the pool of hampering my efforts to circulate: Mike, who's in finance; Jim, unemployed, middle-aged, white-collar people.
who is also in PR and, alarmingly enough, has been looking for The event starts at 9:30 on a rainy January morning, at an seven months. A man who identifies himself as a media manager impressive address near Dupont Circle, although the actual latches onto me next, relating
with Kimberly, which I admit I haven't done very well—she once
"SO? Then you ARE thirty-seven!" she announces tri-utilized the "dance" metaphor to tell me, "We're dancing, umphantly.
but we're stepping all over each other's toes"—has been part
"But you can figure out my age from my resume, which lists the of the training process. I can be what I want to be, is the year of my college graduation."
message, so long as I act like I believe it. I am ready, or almost
"Absolutely don't put your graduation date on your re-ready, to press on out into the world.
sume," she advises, "and eliminate all the earlier jobs. It shouldn't go back more than ten years, fifteen max."
two
Stepping Out Into
the World of Networking
All the web-site advice I have gleaned about job searching emphasizes the importance of "networking." At first, in my innocence, I had envisioned this as a freewheeling exercise in human sociability, possibly involving white wine. Joanne and Kimberly, though, have impressed on me that networking takes hard work, discipline, and perseverance. When I informed Kimberly of my intention to launch the networking phase, she caught me up short with a demand to hear my "elevator speech." This, it turns out, is a thirty- to forty-five-second self-advertisement, which in my case, Kimberly suggests, should begin with "Hi, I'm Barbara Alexander, and I'm a crackerjack PR person!" In one of our phone sessions, Joanne shared with me her own elevator speech—it turns out that she long, close-fitting skirt that creates a definite mermaid effect, too is job searching—and when I ventured that it sounded a bit greets me in the corridor and directs me to a table where Ted, stiff, she confessed to not having fully memorized it yet.
also about fifty, is presiding over the name tag distribution. He wears Hours of Internet searching have netted me a "networking a wrinkled suit and tie, set off, intriguingly, by a black eye. No, event" only two and a half hours away at the Forty-Plus Club he instructs, I am not to take a red name tag; as a "new person,"
of Washington, D.C. Founded to help middle-aged executive I am assigned to blue. Looking off to the side a little, perhaps to job seekers during the Depression, the club attracted to its first draw attention from his eye, he confides that the networking will advisory board such corporate and cultural luminaries as Tom proceed until 10:00, at which time we will be treated to a lecture Watson, the founder of IBM; James Cash Penney, of JC Pen-on "New Year's resolutions for job searchers."
ney; Arthur Godfrey, the TV personality; and Norman Vincent Time is short, so I get right down to work, going up to my fellow Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking—whom I job seekers, introducing myself, and asking what kinds of jobs take to be the intellectual granddad of Kimberly. Despite their they're looking for. About fifteen people have drifted in so far and establishment origins, the nineteen Forty-Plus Clubs around distributed themselves among the chairs arranged insemicircles the nation are the closest thing one can find to a grassroots or-around a podium. All are middle-aged white guys, and I manage ganization of the white-collar unemployed. The clubs are run to successfully connect with several of them before the seats fill up, entirely by volunteers, conveniently drawn from the pool of hampering my efforts to circulate: Mike, who's in finance; Jim, unemployed, middle-aged, white-collar people.
who is also in PR and, alarmingly enough, has been looking for The event starts at 9:30 on a rainy January morning, at an seven months. A man who identifies himself as a media manager impressive address near Dupont Circle, although the actual latches onto me next, relating
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