Question: As she sets it out in her introduction, the goal of this book is to show what it takes to find a white-collar job in America. So the question now for me is, did she fail because she did not find a job? This is one of those books that, although it's certainly well-written and -observed, I wonder what the big revelation is supposed to be. Corporate jobs (and even the effort needed to find one) are soul-crushing. Large corporations do not reward creativity or independent thinking. And?? The idea that people with twenty years of experience can spend over a year looking to work before they force themselves to feel optimistic about the employment opportunities at their local Home Deopt or Starbucks just makes me feel even more negative about the prospects that I might someday find a well-paying job that I'll actually be able to hang on to for a while. I guess the problem is that I'll be booted out right around the time I start to really need the money (ie, at the age I'll theoretically be when I have kids going into college. Kids. College. Crap. Let's put a little more distance between me and my own college career before I start seriously thinking about those things). But at least tonight you get two quotes for your troubles:

I force myself to slow down and make small, fretful movements with the various pencils and brushes, since, for some unknown anthropological reason, bold, broad-stroked face paint has the undesirable effect of suggesting savagery or sports mania. Examining myself in the full-length mirror, I conclude that I rock, and that, with the addition of a gold necklace and lapel pin, I might, in Prescott's judgment, even pass for a Republican.

And on job-search workshops and seminars: Maybe it isn't the content of the presentation that matters, but the discipline required to maintain the sitting posture and vague look of attentiveness for hours on end... Maybe the whole point of a college education, which is the almost universal requirement for white-collar employment, is that it trains you to sit still and keep your eyes open. At the moment, I'd rather be waitressing.

Of course, I'm thinking now, the convergence of my own political outlook with Ehrenreich's helped my enjoyment of the book, also.