Bait and Switch: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich

She faced a similar degree of confusion with job-coaching. While some coaches seemed artificially perky, others would string her along (for a fee) suggesting revision after revision. Each also had their own personal philosophy. One particularly vexing example was a coach who tried to apply mathematical principal to personality. The term EP/PSWB, or External Performance varying exponentially with Personal Sense of Well Being was pitched like a scientific formula for success. Ehrenreich voices her frustration with this methodology, quipping in her book, "I can't imagine how you would quantify your personal sense of well being." When asked to elaborate on her frustrations with the coaches, she replied, "There are thousands of coaches out there. It is a big business, and no one is really regulating them. There are no job coach licenses recognized by states."

Ehrenreich found the job-hunting mantra to be network, network, network. While some of the networking events that she attended were helpful at least on a facile level, many of the events (especially in the southern US) had a definite evangelical angle to it. Ehrenreich remarks that she "was disturbed by the homophobic and anti-Semitic comments" made during some of these "networking events". "I was shocked to see how many people would consider Jewish or gay people to be the butt of a joke." Other events were used as a ploy to sell career "boot camps," other job-search tools, and many times used to evangelize. "Networking events would begin and end with a prayer, and the meetings would sometimes be filled with religious testimonials. That may work for some people, but it wasn't working for me."

Controversial filmmaker and writer Michael Moore has tackled many of the issues that Ehrenreich deals with. As such, their work contains similar levels of intellectual interest by audiences and tend to draw as much (if not more) conservative fire from pundits. With a play already out and a movie script being optioned in Hollywood based on the works of Ehrenreich, the comparison between the two seemed natural. However, the author was genuinely surprised.

"No one has ever made that comparison before. I never considered myself to be in the same category as Michael Moore. We have met briefly on several occasions. Michael is much more extroverted than I am." She did mention that while working on Bait and Switch "I asked myself after unsuccessfully applying for work for so long, 'What would Michael Moore do?' I imagined him out on the street with a bullhorn in front of a corporate office with a copy of his resume big enough to fit on a picket sign protesting to get a job interview."

Ehrenreich's sarcasm and wit are considerably more introverted. Ms. Ehrenreich's style keeps her fantasies internal, although she shares them with the reader. One such example occurs while reading a self-help book that suggests that unconscious "thoughtforms" generated by individuals can lead to mishaps such as layoffs. Incensed at the suggestion that hardworking PR execs, middle managers, and the like were the primary cause of their unemployment simply by worrying, Ehrenreich in response imagined her own "thoughtforms" pummeling the self-help authors and simultaneously accusing the authors of unconsciously bringing it on themselves.