Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Review: A Working Stiff's Manifesto
Iain Levison's A Working Stiff's Manifesto (Soho Press, 2002) is a memoir of the past ten years he spent working.
He has a "$40,000 English degree" but he spares the issuing agency the embarrassment of association: "where" is never listed. Sufficed to say, he feels like that degree was less than a savvy investment.
In some ways, Levison's memoir is a '90s version of Ben Hamper's Rivethead, the story of working for Detroit auto manufacturers in the 1970s, the bloated inefficiency of the union, and the inanity of spinning your life as a corporate cog on the assembly line. Levison's is that story without the union (or after the plant closes): a would-be writer hops from job to job, learning how to lie to get hired, and learning when to quit. He illustrates the flawed logic of paying minimum wage and abusing workers (they steal from you) and makes me hope that the mackerel I eat is not the same that he describes being cut.
Levison's description of a job advertising for English majors with military experience, which turns out to be a water filter sales scam, is typical of the opportunities that prowl on this level of the workforce, with "investment opportunities" that lead to easy money.
For abject humiliation, perhaps no place is better than Alaska, where the wildest of the wild still trek in search of easy gold, now found in the fishing industry. Levison's best stories might be in the chapter "On the Slime Line," in which he details a sordid assortment of quick jobs and characters that he meets in Alaska. But he also offers apt assessments of drug testing policies and life in the chain restaurant business.
Where A Working Stiff's Manifesto veers from, say, the writing of Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed is that, though he isn't necessarily resigned to his status as wage slave, he is beyond outraged. There isn't much refection on the societal condition that makes such a trap so easy to fall into, although he does express concern at the apparent expendability of labor, which makes things like stock options and health care always a bridge too far.
You can buy this books at Powell's Books; an interesting note: the various editions changed the subhead from "A Memoir" to "Confessions of a Wage Slave" to "A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember" as the publishing houses corrected their course. Their site also lists Since the Layoffs (Soho Press, 2003), the apparent debut novel that hung over Levison's head during those jobs.
The edition reviewed is the first, hardcover. Other changes may have appeared in subsequent editions. I'm sure they are fine.
As for Levison, he recently drummed up some work for Philadelphia Magazine, warranting a mention in Larry Platt's "From the Editor" column for the February 2005 issue.
Additional Links:
Soho Press page
NPR "Day to Day" interview from September 2003
"In the last ten years, I've had forty-two jobs in six states. I've quit thirty of them, been fired from nine, and as for the other three, the line was a little blurry. Sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what happened, you just know it wouldn't be right for you to show up any more."
In some ways, Levison's memoir is a '90s version of Ben Hamper's Rivethead, the story of working for Detroit auto manufacturers in the 1970s, the bloated inefficiency of the union, and the inanity of spinning your life as a corporate cog on the assembly line. Levison's is that story without the union (or after the plant closes): a would-be writer hops from job to job, learning how to lie to get hired, and learning when to quit. He illustrates the flawed logic of paying minimum wage and abusing workers (they steal from you) and makes me hope that the mackerel I eat is not the same that he describes being cut.
"People after my money always have an interesting way of describing it, as if my money was just a pain in my ass. Nobody who wants you to buy something from them reminds you how many days you had to get up early and drag your ass into work, how much humiliation you had to endure from abusive boses and the eternally irritated public, just so you could earn that money. To them, it is stretching the leather on your wallet. That money is 'doing nothing.' Money should be used to earn money, they'll tell you. Even if you don't have a job. Especially if you don't have a job. Only dullards save their money for rent. Dreamers invest in WATER FILTER SALES!!!"
For abject humiliation, perhaps no place is better than Alaska, where the wildest of the wild still trek in search of easy gold, now found in the fishing industry. Levison's best stories might be in the chapter "On the Slime Line," in which he details a sordid assortment of quick jobs and characters that he meets in Alaska. But he also offers apt assessments of drug testing policies and life in the chain restaurant business.
Where A Working Stiff's Manifesto veers from, say, the writing of Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed is that, though he isn't necessarily resigned to his status as wage slave, he is beyond outraged. There isn't much refection on the societal condition that makes such a trap so easy to fall into, although he does express concern at the apparent expendability of labor, which makes things like stock options and health care always a bridge too far.
You can buy this books at Powell's Books; an interesting note: the various editions changed the subhead from "A Memoir" to "Confessions of a Wage Slave" to "A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember" as the publishing houses corrected their course. Their site also lists Since the Layoffs (Soho Press, 2003), the apparent debut novel that hung over Levison's head during those jobs.
The edition reviewed is the first, hardcover. Other changes may have appeared in subsequent editions. I'm sure they are fine.
As for Levison, he recently drummed up some work for Philadelphia Magazine, warranting a mention in Larry Platt's "From the Editor" column for the February 2005 issue.
Additional Links:
Soho Press page
NPR "Day to Day" interview from September 2003
