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Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs

John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, Sabin Streeter, Daron Murphy, Rose Kernochan · 2 HN comments

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Amazon Summary

“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 This wide-ranging survey of the American economy at the turn of the millennium is stunning, surprising, and always entertaining. It gives us an unflinching view of the fabric of this country from the point of view of the people who keep it all moving. The more than 120 roughly textured monologues that make up Gig beautifully capture the voices of our fast-paced and diverse economy. The selections demonstrate how much our world has changed--and stayed the same--in the three decades prior to the turn of the millennium. If you think things have speeded up, become more complicated and more technological, you're right. But people's attitudes about their jobs, their hopes and goals and disappointments, endure. Gig's soul isn't sociological--it's emotional. The wholehearted diligence that people bring to their work is deeply, inexplicably moving. People speak in these pages of the constant and complex stresses nearly all of them confront on the job, but, nearly universally, they throw themselves without reservation into coping with them. Instead of resisting work, we seem to adapt to it. Some of us love our jobs, some of us don't, but almost all of us are not quite sure what we would do without one. With all the hallmarks of another classic on this subject, Gig is a fabulous read, filled with indelible voices from coast to coast. After hearing them, you'll never again feel quite the same about how we work.

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Dec 05, 2020 · why5s on Ask HN: Recommend books that give you insight into other professions

Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs
https://www.amazon.com/Gig-Americans-Talk-About-Their/dp/060...
It's basically a series of interviews with people across various industries talking about their jobs. Not exactly "memoir"-style but more of an anthology.
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber
https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp...
A personal favorite that I read alongside the first recommendation. Just puts a lot of things in perspective with respect to finding meaningful work.

⬐ shicky
With bullshit jobs, could you expand on finding meaningful work? It's something that has eaten me up the last while (non meaningful work and being unsure what direction to head to find it)
I've searched a few reviews of the book but largely seemed to focus on how many jobs are pointless rather than finding non pointless stuff

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May 01, 2015 · a3n on Ask HN: How to not base self worth on your own work?

Tangent, there are two books you may be interested in. Both are about how people view their jobs or work.
Working, by Studs Terkel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working:_People_Talk_About_Wha...
Terkel was a journalist in Chicago, who mastered the art of interviewing/listening to people, and then writing stories and books about it. You'd do well to read just about anything he wrote, over the years.
In Working he would interview someone about their work, to get a sense of how their work defined them and vice versa.
The one I always remember is a stone mason, I think it's the last chapter. He drove around the stone mason's town with him, and he was constantly pointing out what he'd built, walls and buildings, some of it quite old.
This used to depress me, because I build nothing that lasts, it's just code. But over time I've realized that I wasn't looking at the right products of my work. What I'm really building is a body of experience, and a person informed by my experience, and a foundation for growth for myself and my family. But it's taken me a long time to learn that.
The other book is very similar, Gig, about people's jobs and how they related to them. It's very good, but only Terkel is Terkel, so if you have to choose I'd read Terkel. But this is good too. http://www.amazon.com/Gig-Americans-Talk-About-Their/dp/0609...

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