The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work [Hardcover]

Joanne B. Ciulla (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2000

A wide-ranging look at the allure and changing significance of work.With seductions, misunderstandings, and misinformation everywhere, this immensely readable book calls for a new contract--with ourselves.

Drawing from history, mythology, literature, pop culture, and practical experience, Ciulla probes the many meanings of work or its meaninglessness and asks:

Why are so many of us letting work take over our lives and trying to live in what little time is left?

What has happened to the old, unspoken contract between worker and employer?

Why are young people not being disloyal when they regularly consider job-changing?

Employers can't promise as much to workers as before. Is that because they promise so much to stockholders?

Why are there mass layoffs and "downsizing" in a time of unequaled corporate prosperity? And why are the most common lies in business about satisfactory employee performance?

The traditional contract between employers and employees is over. This thoughtful and provocative study shows how to replace it by the one we make with ourselves.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Work, for most of us, is something we do, not something we think about. We may wonder whether our work is sufficiently stimulating, whether it brings in enough money, or whether it makes a difference in the grand scheme of things, but we don't often question what, in fact, work really is, and why we work in the first place. In The Working Life, Joanne Ciulla asks these critical questions and others, taking a philosophical, sociological, and practical look at the nature of work and its role in our lives today.

As Ciulla points out, we live in a work-oriented society where, even though we have more freedom and flexibility than ever and more tools to increase convenience and efficiency, our work determines our lives. We have "gone beyond the work ethic," she states, to a point where our jobs have become our primary source of identity. To understand this, Ciulla looks at the values we reflect in our choice of jobs and professions, the attitudes we express in our language for work, and the sociohistorical journey that work has taken from cursed necessity to calling. She follows the path of work in our recent past, from unregulated labor and slavery, through unionism, to the rise of the all-encompassing corporation and today's blurred lines between private and public lives. In the final section, Ciulla investigates the role that work plays in our understanding and use of time and our search for meaning.

Now teaching courses on ethics, leadership, and critical thinking at Virginia's University of Richmond, Ciulla has examined and experienced the nature of work from both sides of the managerial divide. After supporting herself through the first nine years of an academic career with bar and restaurant work, she went on to study and teach business ethics at Harvard and Wharton. These varied experiences give the book a balanced and sensitive tone, adding credibility to her insights. She supports and refines her ideas about work with the comments of philosophers, writers, sociologists, economists, management theorists, and even the narratives of popular television shows. Her sources range from Aristotle and the ancient storyteller Aesop to the early-20th-century time-study engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, the comic strip "Dilbert," and modern-day business gurus. The diversity of perspectives is inspiring and helps--together with Ciulla's own interpretations and clear, precise prose--create a thought-provoking and stimulating look at the nature of work. --S. Ketchum

From Library Journal

Ciulla (Univ. of Richmond) has written a stimulating and thought-provoking book that traces the philosophical and cultural conceptions of work and workers over the years while providing a critical survey of management theories and practices. She explores relationships among various kinds of work, the roles of consumption and leisure, and beliefs about what constitutes meaningful work, a meaningful life, and happiness. She points to Scott Adams's Dilbert cartoons as " probably the best and most accurate critique of what many today think about work" and to labor unions as "the most important innovation in the relationship between employer and employee...because they address the imbalance of power between the two parties." Today, the pressures of our consumption-driven, global economy frequently lead to the compromise of individuals' "higher" values when making decisions affecting the overall quality of their lives. This well-written examination of the meanings of work and life challenges that compromise. Highly recommended for academics and the general public.ASuzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology at Alfred
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 266 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business / Times Books; 1 edition (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812929012
• ISBN-13: 978-0812929010
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,100,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking Work, May 17, 2000

By 

Steven K. Szmutko (EWING, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work (Hardcover)

For those of us who truly enjoy our jobs, despite difficulties and challenges, this book is truly enlightening in helping us to understanding the factors that influence our approach to life and its components in general. Whether we work because we must (which indeed is the case for most of us), or because it is stimulating, rewarding or fulfills our inner yearning for depth and meaning is rooted not only in our own psyches, but also in our cultures, traditions, upbringing, etc.

In The Working Life, Joanne Ciulla explores the nature of work, examining the concept the holistic (my word) nature of work from the practical to the philosophical factors that play into our approach to "earning our daily bread."

The author asserts that ours is a society in which we are defined by what we do as much as who we are. We have progressed beyond the traditional Protestant Work Ethic to a point where our jobs often become our primary identity. Whereas some "work to live," more and more of us "live to work" where work is not just a means to an end, but an ultimate end in itself.

Ms. Ciulla, a teacher on leadership, critical thinking and ethics at the University of Richmond, has analyzed the concept of work from the perspective of both management and the managed. Given her diversified work experience, the book is expectedly balanced and even, providing a comprehensive view toward the nuances of the work experience. I particularly enjoyed the wealth of supporting references ranging from philosophers, storytellers, management experts, so-called efficiency experts, modern day management theorists and even cartoon characters to flesh out her concepts, yet she presents these as part of her own creative synthesis.

"The Working Life" is written with and engaging and thoughtful prose, flowing quickly and ending all too soon. It is time well spent and may give the reader additional insight into what makes them "tick" with respect to both the working life and to their whole being.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ciulla knows more than all the management gurus combined, April 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work (Hardcover)

This is a rare find among books about work. I feel that I cannot recommend it too highly. She looks at work from the perspective of the worker, an individual with the right to consider his/her own interests, not of the manager who tries to convince his subordinates that the company is in right next to God and Country as an institution deserving blind, unselfish loyalty and sacrifice. Ciulla makes assertions that are far too daring for the average management "guru": people are different, managers are not all well-meaning, competent and fair. She reviews the history of attitudes toward work and scathingly points out that many experiments in enlightened management worked very well--right up until the company double-crossed the workers.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Provocative Overview of What We Often Take for Granted, February 5, 2001

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"rrr338" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work (Hardcover)

Joanne Ciulla presents a very well organized, philosophically grounded overview of work -- its varying meanings, its historical evolution, and its paradoxes as found in modern institutions. She is very up front with the reader in her introduction, admitting that this book is not a scientific investigation, but rather a broad interpretation of the meaning of work and how it has come to both bless and curse us in present times. Accordingly, there are succint summaries of some of the major interpretations of work -- from the early Greek philosophers to contemporary management schools.

But this is more than just an overview, too. Ciulla has a way of getting her readers to look at work with unexpected insights every step of the way. She peels away the common sense and taken-for-granted interpretations of work (which are often based on promising the worker some sort of fulfillment, but at the price of surrenduring autonomy). She does a nice job of deflating recent management theories that tout "new" approaches (management theory is woefully a-historical, she asserts, and is always looking at recycled approaches as though they are breakthroughs). There is a tone of leariness here, rooted in a skepticism over those who apply new management theories in order to exert greater control over individuals, and encourage them to shift their focus more and more away from families, community, and individually expressed forms of self-worth.

Overall, if you're skeptical of the latest management promises of creating "fulfilling work" (or if you really think the "Dilbert" cartoon series is right on the mark), you'll like this book. If you are looking for something that offers a new twist to management technique, you will likely find this book impractical and overly alarmist.