On the Clock

What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane

De: Emily Guendelsberger

Narrado por: Christine Lakin

"Nickel and Dimed for the Amazon age," (Salon) the bitingly funny, eye-opening story of finding work in the automated and time-starved world of hourly low-wage 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 U.S. workplace. Offering an up-close portrait of America's actual "essential workers," On the Clock examines the broken social safety net as well as an economy that has purposely had all the slack drained out and converted to profit. 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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Guendelsberger paints a down-to-earth, accessible primer on how dehumanizing and exploitative American wage labor can be-and what can be done to change it."—Vanity Fair

"Nickled and Dimed for the Amazon age."—Salon

"Emily Guendelsberger gives a sense of just how far we are from that dream in On the Clock, a jaunty but dispiriting memoir of her work at three low-rung jobs: at a call center, a McDonald's, and an Amazon warehouse."—Caleb Crain, The New Yorker

"Seen from Guendelsberger's point of view, America's working class is quivering in stress and fear, hurting from torn-up feet, and all covered in honey mustard. The economic miseries inflicted on working-class people are bad enough, but here Guendelsberger has identified something deeper and arguably worse...We've been brutalized, bullied, and baited into being trained work-animals and not even afforded a corresponding. No wonder our society fell apart."—The New Republic

"The understanding that Guendelsberger brings after struggling, even in her somewhat cosplaying way, makes On the Clock the sort of exposé Upton Sinclair would have been proud of."—The Houston Chronicle

"In a timely and important look at the harsh realities of the modern American workplace, journalist Emily Guendelsberger recounts her experiences doing hourly labor all over the country: at a Louisville-based Amazon warehouse, a North Carolina call center and a San Francisco McDonald's."—Laura Pearson, Chicago Tribune, 25 Hot Books of the Summer

"Emily Guendelsberger's On the Clock is among the best of these new accounts of multibillion dollar corporations maximizing profit at the expense of their workforce. In Guendlesberger's case, there are some familiar villains-Amazon and McDonald's-along with a call center job, but what really separates this diaristic account is that it's funny. Which I suppose you have to be when you're doubleshifting in an Amazon warehouse a month before Christmas and the vending machines are stocked with painkillers and you don't even know if you'll have a job in the New Year. Haha!"—Jonny Diamond, Lit Hub Editor-in-Chief

"ON THE CLOCK reads like a dystopian travelogue, the deckhand's journal from a flaming garbage barge on the shoals of late-stage capitalism. Guendelsberger's journey 'in the weeds' of low-wage America is mordantly funny, devastating and rigorous, a broadside against the exploitation of the many by the few and a warning of how easily our sociopathic economy could all come crashing down, leaving even C-suite executives to subsist on ketchup packets and worthless stock options."—Jessica Bruder, author of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

Service work conditions are horrifying.

I worked in fast food for years before landing a white collar job. I've been going through a jarring transition as I find myself immersed in a different culture. Here, everyone has hope, nobody is stressed to the breaking point, and the bosses never try to restrict access to the toilets. On the Clock explores this transition in reverse, as the author immerses herself into the world of service work after a life spent in the middle class. All her observations ring true. In particular, the depiction of the first month at a call center was uncannily accurate. It was painful to read, because remembering my experiences also awakened the despair I had been living in at the time. It made me physically ill.

Much like the author, I used to remark that everyone should have to work a service job at least once, so that they understand just how we shit on them as a society. This book honestly captures some of the experience. I now believe that everyone should have to read this book. If our upper classes understood the horrors we're inflicting on our people, things might change. It starts with everyone respecting the people who are being crushed by our systems, and it ends, I hope, with nobody needing to work in such degrading conditions.

Eye opening, worth reading, one error that I noticed

When the author says she got on bart and saw the golden gate as she crossed the river into Oakland, she made a couple errors. Bart goes under the bay, not a river, and there’s no way to see the golden gate in that process because you’re under water. Made me wonder if there are other inaccuracies. I hope not. I think this is an important book. But that’s a silly error.

Stellar reporting and retelling of...

what happen On The Clock. Ms. Guendelsberger shares her experience at Amazon, Convergys and MacDonalds as an undercover author after hearing horror stories of the working conditions/daily work of these companies. The book is parts retelling, comedy, tragedy and extrapolation. The book made me laugh as well as depressed, but still hopeful. She also masterfully works in scientific theories as well as a few studies on depression, history of Taylorism and Henry Ford and capitalism in America. It was entertaining AND informative, AND relatable as a low wage worker. The reader is also great :) she did a fantastic job and I love that she gives all the characters different voices when they are speaking (I know that's childish but I love it) 11/10

So interesting

This book was so interesting. I am always looking for books to provide an alternate point of view and this one fit the bill. One of the final anecdotes about the Szechuan sauce showed so many points of view and how things are covered in the news. Being from North Carolina - it showed so much about the failing furniture market and how cities now fight to survive.

Excellent check in

Revealing the tangible affect of toxic stress is important. Though I have my own brand of stress as a solo operator of a small business and I subject myself to frequent 17 hour days, the rewards are evident in my station in life. Though my business is feast and famine I forget about my beginnings as a cook constantly in the weeds and my ice cream time constantly in the weeds and my dishwasher days constantly in the weeds. I sympathize with the notion “I get to leave this place”. I always knew those jobs were weigh station placements. They provided books during university and part time income for some discretionary. I never thought it was permanent. The desperation and hopelessness exposed in this examination of everyday life is harrowing. If this book doesn’t offer you some empathic reflection for those you encounter in your day-to-day, you’ve never known ‘down and out’. And it’ll be tough to reach you ever at all. This book is an important reminder for those in the weeds and those out, of those out are receptive to it. Great work.

Informative & engaging

This was a great book. Funny, informative, and validating for anyone who has worked in service or retail. My only criticism is that the accents used by the reader, which feature prominently throughout the book, were so bad as to be offensive in some parts (I’m thinking of the Cuban guy at Amazon in particular.) Would it really have been so bad for the company to just hire one or two more people who could have done those accents justice rather than expecting one person to convincingly do them all?

Insightful

This book was even better than I’d hoped and described a world even worse than I imagined. It also contextualizes the oppressive nature of modern low wage work from a historical and scientific perspective.

Lively and Biting look at low wage labor in America

This is really great journalism and analysis, based on real experience and perspective. A must read to understand the plight of many workers in America, with welcome humor and irony deftly interspersed. To add, the narration of this Audiobook is simply outstanding in every regard.

Everyone should read this book

This book felt like church for my atheist, impoverished soul. I haven’t worked the exact jobs featured in this book, but I have worked in a warehouse, worked in a call center, and worked in fast food. Every single point she made resonated so much with me. I felt seen in a way that feels hard to put into words unless that person has been in the (blue collar) weeds with you.

I’ll think about this one for a very long time.

Actually binged this book

I was fascinated by the descriptions and details of the different work environments the author experienced. She beautifully relayed these experiences and I was completely appalled at the conditions these workers dealt with. Haven’t thought a lot about minimum wage conditions since I got out of college. Her descriptions about how rude the customers behave towards minimum wage workers spot on match what my barista daughter tells me, something that I have shrugged off in the past, and this has me reflecting a lot on this trend of abusive customers ( it would never occur to me that I know more than the employees and demand they open a second register, who does that? ) I could have done with a little less analysis in the end, I was happy with the work stories, though I am never going to forget how rats react to being shocked.