Bait and Switch Read Free

projects I should be called to any firm willing to hire me. I have planned meetings and chaired upon to undertake as a PR person.
    them; I have worked in dozens of diverse groups and often played a I did not, however, embellish my new identity with an affect leadership role in them; I am at ease as a public speaker, whether or mannerisms different from my own. I am not an actor and would giving a lengthy speech or a brief presentation on a panel—all of not have been able to do this even if I had wanted to. "Barbara which amounts to the "leadership" skills that should be an asset to Alexander" was only a cover for Barbara Ehrenreich; her behavior any company. At the very least, I could claim to be an "event would, for better or worse, always be my own. In fact, in a practical planner," capable of dividing gatherings into plenaries and break-out sense I was simply changing my occupational status from "self-

    employed/writer" to unemployed"— a distinction that might be anywhere in the United States to get a job and then live there for imperceptible to the casual observer. I would still stay home most several months if I found one. Nor would I shun any industry—other days at my computer, only now, instead of researching and writing than those where I might be recognized—as unglamorous or morally articles, I would be researching and contacting companies that repugnant. My third rule was that I would have to take the first job I might employ me. The new name and fake resume were only my was offered that met my requirements as to income and benefits.
    ticket into the ranks of the unemployed white-collar Americans who I knew that the project would take a considerable investment spend their days searching for a decent-paying job.
    of time and money, so I set aside ten months 9 and the sum of $5,000
    The project required some minimal structure; since I was for travel and other expenses that might arise in the course of job stepping into the unknown, I needed to devise some guidelines for searching. My expectation was that I would make the money back myself. My first rule was that I would do everything possible to land once I got a job and probably come out far ahead. As for the time, I a job, which meant being open to every form of help that presented budgeted roughly four to six months for the search—five months itself: utilizing whatever books, web sites, and businesses, for being the average for unemployed people in 2004 10 —and another example, that I could find offering guidance to job seekers. I would three to four months of employment. I would have plenty of time endeavor to behave as I was expected to, insofar as I could decipher both to sample the life of the white-collar unemployed and to explore the expectations. I did not know exactly what forms of effort would the corporate world they sought to reenter.
    be required of successful job seekers, only that I would, as humbly From the outset, I pictured this abstraction, the corporate and diligently as possible, give it my best try.
    world, as a castle on a hill—well fortified, surrounded by difficult Second, I would be prepared to go anywhere for a job or checkpoints, with its glass walls gleaming invitingly from on high. I even an interview, and would advertise this geographic flexibility in my contacts with potential employers. I was based in Charlottesville, 9 From December 2003 to October 2004, with the exception of most of July, when I Virginia, throughout this project, but I was prepared to travel had a brief real-life job writing biweekly columns for the New York Times .
    10 John Leland, “For Unemployed, Wait for New Work Grows Longer,” New York Times , January 9, 2005.

    knew that it would be a long hard climb just to get to the door. But I also started with the expectation that this project would be I've made my way into remote and lofty places before—college and far less demanding than the work I had undertaken for Nickel and graduate school, for