I read this because Ehrenreich's earlier book, Nickel and Dimed, wasn't available from the library - but I thought a close examination of the issues of the US middle class would be equally interesting. Unfortunately, although that's the book Ehrenreich set out to write,it's not what this book turned out to be.Ehrenreich started with the intention of a parallel structure to 'Nickle and Dimed' - she would masquerade as a unemployed white-collar PR professional, get corporate job, work there for se...

journalist who went 'undercover' to see what life is like for white collar folks who find themselves out of work and searching. A sad reflection of the change from corporations that values long time employees and treated them 'as family' to the reality of business today.

I don't really understand all of the vitriol that some of the other reviewer's are expressing about this book. I withheld two stars because I felt that overall she "touched" on the investigative journalism rather than threw herself into it, and it wasn't her most passionate work.That being said, I have to say as a former job seeker (during the 2009 California recession), this book and it's assertions are right on the money. Ehrenreich details the struggle that middle class, otherwise well equipp...

This book was frightening. I think every high school student should have to read part of it. The life coaches were particularly frightening. It seems especially appropriate right now.

From a blog post I wrote in 2006:I was looking forward to reading Barbara Ehrenreich's latest tome, Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. I really enjoyed Nickel and Dimed in which the author took on several minimum wage type jobs and tried to live on her salary. Her latest effort is a look at what the white collar folks go through when they get laid off/fired from their relatively high paying jobs.It wasn't the story I thought it would be. I expected her to go through sev...

Barbara Ehrenreich in this book explores the scary world of white collar unemployment and the “transition industry.” That is a euphemism for the business of helping white collar job seekers. It’s a world of job coaches, head hunters, job seminars, job seeker boot camps, job fairs, and Christian support groups for job seekers (some taking the opportunity to proselytize). She describes passing encounters with sham job offers that advertise “being your own boss” or “get rich quick.” At one point sh...

OK, so it may be that the blue and pink collar work force is easier to love than middle management. It may be that the real heroism in this country is found closer to the poverty line then to middle management. Certainly, it is clear that Barbara Ehrenreich believes this to be true. A comparison of Bait and Switch with her earlier Nickel and Dimed demonstrated that while Ehrenreich finds much to lament in the plight of the working class, she generally finds the corporate world laughable and the

Although this book was published in 2005, I didn't read it until 2010. If I had read it in 2005, I might not have related to it so intensely, as I did in 2009 when I was laid off for the first time. I would get laid off twice more before landing stable employment again in 2012. Back in 2005 I was smug, fully insulated from the severity of unemployment, never having been out of a job since I got my first part-time job at 16, working at the mall. This turned into paid internships at prestigious ac...

While the previous book, "Nickel & Dimed", was revelatory and more significant piece of journalism, I can't say the same thing for "Bait and Switch." In pursuing her next book - she decides to pick a profession she knows little about and FAKE IT. She thinks so little of the corporate world that she thinks that they won't be able to tell. And then - she proceeds to pursue a whole lot of worthless job searching techniques that most unemployed people don't find useful.On top of that - even as an At...

"Barbara Ehrenreich is our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism." --Dorothy Gallagher, The New York Times Book ReviewFrom the introduction:"Stories of white-collar downward mobility cannot be brushed off as easily as accounts of blue-collar economic woes, which the hard-hearted traditionally blame on "bad choices": failing to get a college degree, for example, failing to postpone childbearing until acquiring a nest egg, or failing to choose affluent parents in the first place. But dis...

I had originally intended on writing my master's thesis on the futility of the American Dream in an era of economic uncertainty (this was a couple years before the Great Recession) and picked this book up in the process of conducting research. I cite many of the studies referenced in the book often. Barbara Ehrenreich is a terrific writer - she makes my blood boil simply by explaining the basic workings of our socio-economic system and makes me laugh a few paragraphs later. This is not as good a...

I read Nickel and Dimed when I was a low wage retail worker, so I thought it appropriate to read Bait and Switch now that I work in the corporate world. Although Ehrenreich doesn't accomplish what she set out to do (enter the corporate world as an employee), she offers a scary look at the nature of unemployment in the white collar world. However, I thought she spent a little too much time examining the world of 'career coaching' and not enough focusing on the plight of the unemployed white colla...

While I didn't agree with all of the points raised in Nickel & Dimed, I enjoyed it. I wish I could say the same for this book. Maybe I took things a bit too personally but working in public relations I was insulted that Barbara thinks she can easily step into a director's position in PR with a made up resume and absolutely no contacts in the industry. But she approaches every "adventure" in job searching with snobbish disdain. I agree that it's hard for people to find jobs in America and especia...

Ehrenreich missed the mark with this book. She went out to try to nab a job in mid management with a fake resume and just never made it. She enlisted career advisors, and went to job fairs and spent tons of money with no results. The basic issue here is that she didn't have the 20 or so years of experience, of friends in the business and contacts in her trade to give her a boost. She spent a good part of the book being cynical about the many people and places she enlisted to help her in her sear...

Ehrenreich posits that, no matter your education or previous track record of success in the white collar world, you are not assured of a stable economic future. While her premise is correct, it is neither groundbreaking nor well-presented. Many of the sources cited in the book are 10 or more years old, indicating that the reality of the increasingly “downwardly mobile” economy is one with deep roots. Yet this work is surprisingly shallow in its views. Undercover, trying to break into the corpora...

This was exasperating and sad. The author (who wrote Nickel and Dimed) goes undercover to research what it is like to be a white collar worker who loses his/her job and needs to find another one. It's funny sometimes to see how the corporate world lives and what it believes and the games that people play (use the correct buzz words, know the right people), but it also makes me so mad. Obtaining a good education and working hard are not enough. It was also interesting to see all the "coaches" out...

Part of the reason why I’m a somewhat less than trustworthy reviewer is that writers really do get extra points from me for being able to write well and for being nice people. I mean, if I have enjoyed spending time with a writer over the couple of days it has taken me to read their book, well, that goes a long way towards me thinking that their book was wonderful and worthwhile. This book was wonderful and worthwhile and it was written by someone who can both write and be nice at the same time....

Not so certain why people reaect negatively to this book. Having been through the white-collar lay-off process (and I choose to say "lay off" instead of "in transition" since it is more honest), I have to agree with Ehrenreich. The advice given by career coaches is generally silly EST-like pop psychology. And by focusing on flaws in you -- appearance, body language, resume, etc -- we get distracted from the true costs that outsourcing has had on American culture. The rich get richer, and the poo...

Why do I do this to myself? I feel this guilt that requires me to finish a book, even when doing so makes my blood pressure skyrocket. I wasn't a big fan of Nickel and Dimed, so why would I think it'd be any different when Ehrenreich is piously judging the middle class? In short, the author "goes undercover" to try to land a middle class executive PR job, with a minimum salary of $50,000. She creates a somewhat fictitious resume - she has a background in "event planning" and was a PR consultant

According to the book’s introduction, Ehrenreich decided to investigate the claim that white collar, mid-level employees were exploited by their employers and the corporate culture. As she did with entry level work in Nickeled and Dimed, she set out to infiltrate this world as an undercover journalist by getting this type of job. However, with a falsified resume designed to hide her identity, she spends the entire book in the job search process. The tone of this book is not that of an objective