For years, Teresa has passed from one job to the next, settling into
long stretches of time, struggling to build her career in any field
or unstick herself from an endless cycle of labor. The dreaded move
from one gig to another is starting to feel unbearable. When a
recruiter connects her with a contract position at AllOver, it
appears to check all her prerequisites for a "good" job.
It's a fintech corporation with progressive hiring policies and a
social justice-minded mission statement. Their new service for
premium members: a functional fleet of driverless cars. The future of
transportation. As her new-hire orientation reveals, the distance
between AllOver's claims and its actions is wide, but the lure of
financial stability and a flexible schedule is enough to keep Teresa
driving forward.
Joanne McNeil, who
often reports on how the human experience intersects with labor and
technology brings blazing compassion and criticism to Wrong Way,
examining the treacherous gaps between the working and middle classes
wrought by the age of AI. Within these divides, McNeil turns the
unsaid into the unignorable, and captures the existential perils
imposed by a nonstop, full-service gig economy.
