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 U.S. 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.
