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    Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day
    Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day
    Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day
    Audiobook9 hours

    Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day

    Written by Craig Lambert

    Narrated by James Jenner

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    With the exception of sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than any other activity. It is central to our economy, society, and the family. It underpins our finances and our sense of meaning in life. Given the overriding importance of work, we need to recognize a profound transformation in the nature of work that is significantly altering lives: the incoming tidal wave of shadow work. Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations. It has slipped into our routines stealthily; most of us do not realize how much of it we are already doing, even as we pump our own gas, scan and bag our own groceries, execute our own stock trades, and build our own unassembled furniture. But its presence is unmistakable, and its effects far-reaching. Fueled by the twin forces of technology and skyrocketing personnel costs, shadow work has taken a foothold in our society. Lambert terms its prevalence as "middle-class serfdom," and examines its sources in the invasion of robotics, the democratization of expertise, and new demands on individuals at all levels of society. The end result? A more personalized form of consumption, a great social leveling (pedigrees don't help with shadow work!), and the weakening of communities as robotics reduce daily human interaction. Shadow Work offers a field guide to this new phenomenon. It shines a light on these trends now so prevalent in our daily lives and, more importantly, offers valuable insight into how to counter their effects. It will be essential reading to anyone seeking to understand how their day got so full-and how to deal with the ubiquitous shadow work that surrounds them.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateSep 18, 2015
    ISBN9781501905155
    Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day
    Author

    Craig Lambert

    Craig Lambert, a staff writer and editor at Harvard Magazine, has also written for Sports Illustrated and Town & Country. He trains and races in single sculls on the Charles River in Boston, and occasionally competes in major rowing events, such as the Head of the Charles Regatta.

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    Reviews for Shadow Work

    3.5/5

    12 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Shadow WorkBy: Craig LambertCounter Point Press; 2015Have you ever wondered why your day is so full - and yet you just don't seem to get anything done? Well, Craig Lambert's startling new book, "Shadow Work" will open your eyes to all the "Shadow Work" filling your days!"Shadow Work" is all of the self- serve and automatons affecting your own life. From self-serve gas to researching and booking your own fabulous vacation, "Shadow Work" takes the responsibilities of business - and you do it - for free!As Craig Lambert clearly warns, "Shadow Work" is taking away entry level jobs and decreasing the overall amount of paid work out there - even as we speak."Shadow Work" unravels its own hidden nature and clearly sets out both its advantages and disadvantages.I received this book for free to review. I am a member of NetGalley, GoodReads, Librarything and maintain a book blog at dbettenson.wordpress.com.
    • 2/5
      Bit of a stretchCraig Lambert likes being served. From banking to department stores to rental cars, he’d much rather have a human deal with it than do it himself with a machine. It’s a wonder he doesn’t have a chauffeur, because driving himself deprives someone of a job. The central conceit of Shadow Work is that we provide our labor free to our own detriment. We pump our own gas, assemble our own furniture, and do our banking online. People lose jobs by this, and we consume our own precious time with it. On the other hand, we spend less time at the pump than we would if we had to wait for the attendant, as he spilled gas on the ground overfilling the tank to reach the nearest dollar. Anyone can purchase fully assembled furniture if they want to spend the money and save time. I have not set foot in my bank branch since they gave me an ATM card in 1980. This shadow work I do “for” them has saved me untold hours of aggravation and driving, because in the old days, you could only bank at your branch, weekdays 10-3, stand in line, and eventually have a clerk enter a new line in your bankbook by hand. If the ATM network is shadow work, bring it on. In Lambert’s view, taking a half hour to drive to the bank to deposit a check with the teller is not shadow work. Paying bills online in ten minutes is.Society is constantly evolving. There is no static reference point. Most of us no longer chop down trees to fire up the kitchen stove. On the other hand, labor saving processed foods are declining as more families go back to actually cooking. I no longer change the oil in my car myself, but it doesn’t need it every thousand miles like it used to, either. So there’s movement both ways. Lambert shows this in the ubiquitous mobile phone: kids text parents all day long asking advice. This means parents are doing shadow work for their kids, who apparently should be learning the hard way. On the other hand, they communicate regularly and are a closer family for it. There is flux and there are tradeoffs.The book smacks of maudlin nostalgia. It is not scientific, rigorous, thorough or fair. Lambert waxes longingly for the bank teller making his life a pleasure, for the grocery clerk picking and packing requested items, and the gas pump jockey whose smile made his day. But a salad bar is shadow work. Lambert seems to pine for the drugstores of France, where almost nothing is available on the shelves. You have to go to the counter and ask for essentially anything. And unless you ask to see all the possible products, you can’t compare prices or ingredients, because you can’t get to the shelves. And people are waiting behind you. But the interaction with the clerk makes it all worthwhile for Lambert, who wonders why anyone would use an ATM during banking hours.What we call modern convenience, Lambert calls shadow work. He doesn’t make the case that this is a valuable or necessary distinction.David Wineberg