Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs

Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs
Price: $16.95 USD
“Amazing . . . a gem of a book that uses only the strength of the human voice to tell an American story -- sometimes dark, always fascinating.”
-- USA Today

“The accounts are wonderfully revealing, with gritty and almost shockingly honest detail. For all their variety, they weave a cohesive, passion-filled story of what people bring to their work. It's an addictive read.”
-- Harvard Business Review's Best Business Books of 2000

“Keen, disturbing, and deeply felt . . . the stories in Gig deliver a more rousing political wallop than those in Working . . . remarkable and strangely moving.”
-- Susan Faludi, The Village Voice

“I love this book! It's surprising and entertaining and makes the world seem like a bigger and more interesting place. Gig manages to document everyday life and give pure narrative pleasure at the same time. One feels proud to live in the same country as the people in this book.”
-- Ira Glass, host of This American Life

“A fascinating compilation of what the American workforce has to say about itself.”
-- George Plimpton

“Eye-opening . . . more revealing than any theories a sociologist could concoct.”
-- The Industry Standard

“Entertaining, sobering, validating . . . Ordinary people discuss their jobs with extraordinary candor.”
-- US Weekly

“In the age of advanced spin, this book accomplishes a very rare thing. It actually lets workers speak for themselves. . . . The result makes for a fascinating read.”
-- Andrew Ross,

director, American Studies Program at New York University

“Emotional and eye-opening, each compelling description offers insight about the job itself and, more important, an intimate view of a single human life.”
-- Austin Chronicle

“An engaging, humorous, revealing, and refreshingly human look at the bizarre, life-threatening, and delightfully humdrum exploits of everyone from sports heroes to sex workers.”
-- Douglas Rushkoff, author of Coercion, Ecstasy Club, and Media Virus


Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Customer Reviews
  • A Must Read!
    An engrossing and insightful book, with first-person accounts of what it's like to work in more than a hundred different job categories - from ambulance chaser to street walker, from psychiatrist to mortician, from lobbyist to commercial fisherman, from CEO to clutter consultant, and more. <br /> <br />Not only is it fascinating, sometimes eye-opening personal reading, but because it provides such rich detail about what the job entails, what it's like to do it every day, what it took to get the job, whether people want to quit or stay and why, it should also be in every high school library, every vocational guidance center, every public library! There is no better way to learn what a job involves than hearing it directly from someone on the job, and "Gig" offers an enjoyable, accessible, easy way to find out. <br />
  • Please write the sequel!!
    I've had this book for a few years, and it's fun to get out from time to time to remind myself that maybe my career choice isn't so bad! These first hand accounts of various jobs are always fascinating, brief and thought provoking. It never ceases to amaze me what people spend their lives doing for a buck. This collection has stories from all strata of American society and captures the true spirit of the daily grind.
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