My Job, My Self: Work and the Creation of the Modern Individual

by Al Gini

In My Job My Self, Gini plumbs a wide range of statistics, interviews with workers, surveys from employers and employees, and his own experiences and memories, to explore why we work, how our work affects us, and what we will become as a nation of workers. My Job, My Self speaks to every employed person who has yet to understand the costs and challenges of a lifetime of labor.

Genres: Sociology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Cultural, Business

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting. I had to read it for a class I'm taking. It was about the philosophical purpose of work and about how our identities are tied to our jobs. It also discussed women in the workplace, hours of work, and why we work they way we do. It dragged at times, but was overall an enjoyable book.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A philosophical look at work. Absolutely fascinating, albeit tough to get through at times. But that's philosophy for you.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Al Gini, who is the "resident philosopher" on the Chicago Public Radio show 848. He's also a professor of philosophy at Loyola University.

However, I found this book a little bit tedious at first. I kept thinking as I was slogging through the first half that it would be a good introduction to the subject of the history of work for a college student. It's very thorough.

The meat of the book comes in the second half, when he picks up momentum as he talks about different ideas about the future of American work and the work of people around the world. In a nutshell - not so great! The experts he quotes predict more of us will be in low-wage, low-benefit jobs, while fewer of us will have access to better, knowledge-worker jobs, and lots of us will be unemployed/unemployable as more jobs are replaced by machines or by outsourcing.