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Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day
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 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.
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.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2015
27 people are currently reading
809 people want to read
About the author
Craig Lambert
29 books8 followersCraig Lambert, Ph.D. is the author of Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day (Counterpoint Press, 2015). He was a staff writer and editor at Harvard Magazine for more than two decades. Lambert’s work has appeared in publications ranging from Sports Illustrated to Town & Country to The New England Journal of Medicine. He is also the author of Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing (Houghton Mifflin, 1998). He graduated from Harvard College and received his doctorate, also from Harvard, in sociology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
June 22, 2015
I had been looking forward to this book for a while and went into it thinking it would be mostly about how I have been robbed of my free time by having to scan my own groceries and pump my own gas. It is a book about that, in small part, but mostly it is a book that lists every pet peeve about modern life the author has. Thus, it is only very loosely about "shadow work."
Among his other rants, Mr. Lambert blasts helicopter parents, youth sports leagues, and beepers at restaurants given to tell you your table is ready. He is really sad that home pregnancy tests rob a woman of the joy of sharing the news with another human at the very first moment. He claims that tipping forces us to be employers and that when we call up an Uber, we are serving as our own taxi dispatchers. Life as we know it is over because a server isn't putting our cream and sugar in our coffee for us.
He blasts self-service scanners because some people try to shoplift and on-line reviews because some of them are faked. He has quite a lot to say about second hand smoke, though I'm not sure how that ties in with the main idea of the book. He has a little rant about targeted marketing and on-line dating. He seems really worried that we are all being tracked by our GPS-enabled devices.
It seems that his issue is that much of the problem with the modern world is that we aren't engaging in enough face-to-face interaction. When we scan our own groceries, we aren't engaging in pleasantries with the clerk. When you make your own salad at a salad bar, you aren't talking to your server. He goes so far as to warn us that this is the cause of psychopathic shooting rampages. It's the loners!
The irony is, that while I too, grumble about what I would consider shadow work: going through email, being my own IT person at work, most of the cultural innovations he describes SAVE my time. I can go on-line, order dog food in a couple of minutes, and the next day, the big bag is sitting next to my front door. Sure, I didn't get to have a conversation with the teenage clerk at Petsmart, but with the time saved I can take my dog to the park and interact with all kinds of people.
So while this book did force me to examine how I use my time and whether I could reorganize it in another way (which Mr. Lambert did not really explore), I think the treatment of this thesis has some big holes in logic.
Among his other rants, Mr. Lambert blasts helicopter parents, youth sports leagues, and beepers at restaurants given to tell you your table is ready. He is really sad that home pregnancy tests rob a woman of the joy of sharing the news with another human at the very first moment. He claims that tipping forces us to be employers and that when we call up an Uber, we are serving as our own taxi dispatchers. Life as we know it is over because a server isn't putting our cream and sugar in our coffee for us.
He blasts self-service scanners because some people try to shoplift and on-line reviews because some of them are faked. He has quite a lot to say about second hand smoke, though I'm not sure how that ties in with the main idea of the book. He has a little rant about targeted marketing and on-line dating. He seems really worried that we are all being tracked by our GPS-enabled devices.
It seems that his issue is that much of the problem with the modern world is that we aren't engaging in enough face-to-face interaction. When we scan our own groceries, we aren't engaging in pleasantries with the clerk. When you make your own salad at a salad bar, you aren't talking to your server. He goes so far as to warn us that this is the cause of psychopathic shooting rampages. It's the loners!
The irony is, that while I too, grumble about what I would consider shadow work: going through email, being my own IT person at work, most of the cultural innovations he describes SAVE my time. I can go on-line, order dog food in a couple of minutes, and the next day, the big bag is sitting next to my front door. Sure, I didn't get to have a conversation with the teenage clerk at Petsmart, but with the time saved I can take my dog to the park and interact with all kinds of people.
So while this book did force me to examine how I use my time and whether I could reorganize it in another way (which Mr. Lambert did not really explore), I think the treatment of this thesis has some big holes in logic.
December 11, 2016
This book tries to do a lot and stretch the motivating idea far beyond its useful range. As a result, the book takes on a sense of crabbing about the changes that have been brought about by automation, digitization, globalization, and a host of other economic and technological "zations" of various sorts. I had heard some good things about the book, but I ended up frustrated and let down. Below, I will try to explain.
The focal idea of the book - shadow work - seems to refer to work that we all do that is not part of our regular jobs but is also not part of our normal lives. It is work that used to be done by someone (paid) on our behalf but is now left to us as customers and users to do for ourselves. People in old time general stores used to get products off the shelf and hand them to us for payment. Now we are forced to walk around the store with a cart or basket and collect the products for ourselves and then take them to check out. We used to go to theaters where we bought our tickets, got food from the stand, were usered to our seats, and then watched the movies we came for. Now we are forced to download the movie from the Internet or even use a DVD and then watch the movie at home with only our family and friends around, and get our own snacks from the fridge or the cabinet. (Oh the horror!). We used to have our gas pumped for us at the station by some attendant. Now we have to do it ourselves and then actually pay for it using some card reader. We used to have to travel to a bookstore and then look around for a book to purchase, purchase it, and then bring it home. Now, increasingly numbers of us are forced to have the books brought to our homes or even downloaded on the computer. At restaurants, we often serve ourseves, make our own salads, pour our own drinks, and do without table service, so that everything the waiters used to do for us, we now must do for ourselves - without receiving any tips!
You get the idea? Lambert shows how for a variety of activities, we now have to do without pay what used to be down by someone else for pay. The result is an intrusion on our time, a blurring of the distinctions between work and home life. While Lambert at times suggests that this development of creeping shadow work is not without positive features, the tone is very clearly a negative one of intrusion and impoverishment because of all of this unpaid and unrewarding work that we are being forced to put up with.
Let me stop here and say that this is not factually incorrect, in that his examples refer to activities that were once indeed part of people's jobs in an earlier time but are not now, since the nature of the jobs in question have changed due to automation, globalization, and other changes in technology and social institutions.
The line of argument that Mr. Lambert draws from these observations, however, strikes me as so much nonsense, in my opinion. Lambert is noting that the division of labor from products and services changes over time as a result of changes in markets and market size, technology, population, social norms, and other factors. The trouble is that this change is always occurring within modern economies - always. So the division of labor that we see at a given time (or that we grow up with) will of necessity change and the factors supporting it change. This is how capitalism works - and how it has always worked. This is not a new point that is being made.
The logic of changing the division of labor is not some nefarious effort to push costs on to others, but a continuing effort to find lower cost ways of doing things that will be attractive to customers. Lambert makes clear that he is concerned about all of the lost jobs due to the proliferation of shadow work, but what is new about this? When caused by innovation, this is what Schumpeter referred to as "creative destruction". There are no more individuals charged with picking up the tons of horse manure that used to grace the streets of growing US cities. While I can sympathize with that dislocation due to the elimation of an entire class of workers, is it really so bad of a development? I worked in factories, fast foods, and racetracks while growing up. While I learned from these positions, I would be in no hurry to defend any of them from automation. A discussion of education, apprenticeships, retraining, and "industrial policy" may be reasonable, but not complaints about disrupting some fondly remembered division of labor from the 1960s.
The logic of changing these products and services is clearly one of "make versus buy" or some form of capital substitution. In my business, do I do some activity myself or do I hire a contractor? Do I get tasks done by people, machines, or some combination of both? To go into the "way back" machine, recalll the chemical spill disaster in Bhopal, India, around 1984. Union Carbide had a similar plant in West Virginia to the one in Bhopal, but it proved not to be an issue because the US plant was automated while the Bhopal plant was labor intensive. This is not a technological artifact but a choice. A labor intensive plant was chosen for India because labor was cheaper than in the US. The choice is a best a guess on the part of managers and owners as to which arrangement will work out better (higher sales, lower costs, higher profits). Guesses can work out or not. Those that work out persist. This is how capitalism works and the sorts of decisions that led to more shadow work are just more recent example tinged with different shades of automation and globalization. There is nothing new here.
.....but wait, there is more. Lambert is also troubled by developments in American work life that have cast a pall of sorts over the traditional ways in which children have been raised, left to play, and educated. Part of this involves the proliferation of dual income families as women have increasingly entered the workforce in recent decades. This has reduced the time that parents can spend with children and thus forced them to overcompensate in the time that can be spent with children by becoming super parents, soccer moms, helicopter parents, etc. The result has been stressed out parents and children, an impoverishment of the childhood play and sports experience, and an actual weakening of the maturation process of children as parents refuse to let their children take responsibility and grown up - a thumbnail sketch of an argument that brings to mind William Deresiewicz's arguments in his 2014 book "Excellent Sheep".
After a while, it is hard to keep track of all the pop psychology and sociology being tossed around here, but let me say that this part of the book does not follow the arguments already presented about shadow work. By shlepping their kids around or doing their homework for them, they are doing what upper middle class and wealthy parents have always done. Nobody changed a division of labor or automated anything to bring about soccer moms, tiger moms, and helicopter or snowplow parents. It is not a cost being forced on parents but one that is gladly chosen to enable their kids to get into the right camp, college, sorority, etc. Lambert tries to fit this part of the book into his general argument by claiming that the problem is that home is being made to be like work, through active management, planning, focus on goals, etc. These arguments can be considered and evaluated, but they are not consistent with his articulation of "shadow work". It is forced and it did not work for me.
He goes through the evolution of shadow work in other sectors, such as in grocery and food stores. This is all well and good, but the story is well known and often told. Consumers liked these developments - the supermarkets would not have succeeded if consumers did not shop there. That was the same with Kroger in 1928 as it is with Wal-Mart today.
There are other side arguments prowling around in the book. Lambert does not like the loss of jobs to shadow work but offers nothing but very general nostrums of retraining as a response. Lambert also does not like the overall decline of communities due to technological changes, globalization, the Internet, and smart phones. I am sympathetic with this, but what to do? Without some thought about alternatives, the arguments comes across as more of a scold than something that informs.
Mostar troubling to me is that Lambert appears to assume some prior golden age after whose passing American society has declined in various ways. I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s too and it was no picnic. Every time has its challenges and its positives and negatives. Welcome to Earth. A recent book that brings this up effectively is Gordon's book on "The Rise and Fall of American Growth", which goes into considerable detail about what economic life in the US has been like since 1870. This type of research is much more convincing to me than Lambert's "survey says" approach to conveniently quoting facts and figures as his commentary requires.
I was expecting a lot more from this book and was disappointed.
The focal idea of the book - shadow work - seems to refer to work that we all do that is not part of our regular jobs but is also not part of our normal lives. It is work that used to be done by someone (paid) on our behalf but is now left to us as customers and users to do for ourselves. People in old time general stores used to get products off the shelf and hand them to us for payment. Now we are forced to walk around the store with a cart or basket and collect the products for ourselves and then take them to check out. We used to go to theaters where we bought our tickets, got food from the stand, were usered to our seats, and then watched the movies we came for. Now we are forced to download the movie from the Internet or even use a DVD and then watch the movie at home with only our family and friends around, and get our own snacks from the fridge or the cabinet. (Oh the horror!). We used to have our gas pumped for us at the station by some attendant. Now we have to do it ourselves and then actually pay for it using some card reader. We used to have to travel to a bookstore and then look around for a book to purchase, purchase it, and then bring it home. Now, increasingly numbers of us are forced to have the books brought to our homes or even downloaded on the computer. At restaurants, we often serve ourseves, make our own salads, pour our own drinks, and do without table service, so that everything the waiters used to do for us, we now must do for ourselves - without receiving any tips!
You get the idea? Lambert shows how for a variety of activities, we now have to do without pay what used to be down by someone else for pay. The result is an intrusion on our time, a blurring of the distinctions between work and home life. While Lambert at times suggests that this development of creeping shadow work is not without positive features, the tone is very clearly a negative one of intrusion and impoverishment because of all of this unpaid and unrewarding work that we are being forced to put up with.
Let me stop here and say that this is not factually incorrect, in that his examples refer to activities that were once indeed part of people's jobs in an earlier time but are not now, since the nature of the jobs in question have changed due to automation, globalization, and other changes in technology and social institutions.
The line of argument that Mr. Lambert draws from these observations, however, strikes me as so much nonsense, in my opinion. Lambert is noting that the division of labor from products and services changes over time as a result of changes in markets and market size, technology, population, social norms, and other factors. The trouble is that this change is always occurring within modern economies - always. So the division of labor that we see at a given time (or that we grow up with) will of necessity change and the factors supporting it change. This is how capitalism works - and how it has always worked. This is not a new point that is being made.
The logic of changing the division of labor is not some nefarious effort to push costs on to others, but a continuing effort to find lower cost ways of doing things that will be attractive to customers. Lambert makes clear that he is concerned about all of the lost jobs due to the proliferation of shadow work, but what is new about this? When caused by innovation, this is what Schumpeter referred to as "creative destruction". There are no more individuals charged with picking up the tons of horse manure that used to grace the streets of growing US cities. While I can sympathize with that dislocation due to the elimation of an entire class of workers, is it really so bad of a development? I worked in factories, fast foods, and racetracks while growing up. While I learned from these positions, I would be in no hurry to defend any of them from automation. A discussion of education, apprenticeships, retraining, and "industrial policy" may be reasonable, but not complaints about disrupting some fondly remembered division of labor from the 1960s.
The logic of changing these products and services is clearly one of "make versus buy" or some form of capital substitution. In my business, do I do some activity myself or do I hire a contractor? Do I get tasks done by people, machines, or some combination of both? To go into the "way back" machine, recalll the chemical spill disaster in Bhopal, India, around 1984. Union Carbide had a similar plant in West Virginia to the one in Bhopal, but it proved not to be an issue because the US plant was automated while the Bhopal plant was labor intensive. This is not a technological artifact but a choice. A labor intensive plant was chosen for India because labor was cheaper than in the US. The choice is a best a guess on the part of managers and owners as to which arrangement will work out better (higher sales, lower costs, higher profits). Guesses can work out or not. Those that work out persist. This is how capitalism works and the sorts of decisions that led to more shadow work are just more recent example tinged with different shades of automation and globalization. There is nothing new here.
.....but wait, there is more. Lambert is also troubled by developments in American work life that have cast a pall of sorts over the traditional ways in which children have been raised, left to play, and educated. Part of this involves the proliferation of dual income families as women have increasingly entered the workforce in recent decades. This has reduced the time that parents can spend with children and thus forced them to overcompensate in the time that can be spent with children by becoming super parents, soccer moms, helicopter parents, etc. The result has been stressed out parents and children, an impoverishment of the childhood play and sports experience, and an actual weakening of the maturation process of children as parents refuse to let their children take responsibility and grown up - a thumbnail sketch of an argument that brings to mind William Deresiewicz's arguments in his 2014 book "Excellent Sheep".
After a while, it is hard to keep track of all the pop psychology and sociology being tossed around here, but let me say that this part of the book does not follow the arguments already presented about shadow work. By shlepping their kids around or doing their homework for them, they are doing what upper middle class and wealthy parents have always done. Nobody changed a division of labor or automated anything to bring about soccer moms, tiger moms, and helicopter or snowplow parents. It is not a cost being forced on parents but one that is gladly chosen to enable their kids to get into the right camp, college, sorority, etc. Lambert tries to fit this part of the book into his general argument by claiming that the problem is that home is being made to be like work, through active management, planning, focus on goals, etc. These arguments can be considered and evaluated, but they are not consistent with his articulation of "shadow work". It is forced and it did not work for me.
He goes through the evolution of shadow work in other sectors, such as in grocery and food stores. This is all well and good, but the story is well known and often told. Consumers liked these developments - the supermarkets would not have succeeded if consumers did not shop there. That was the same with Kroger in 1928 as it is with Wal-Mart today.
There are other side arguments prowling around in the book. Lambert does not like the loss of jobs to shadow work but offers nothing but very general nostrums of retraining as a response. Lambert also does not like the overall decline of communities due to technological changes, globalization, the Internet, and smart phones. I am sympathetic with this, but what to do? Without some thought about alternatives, the arguments comes across as more of a scold than something that informs.
Mostar troubling to me is that Lambert appears to assume some prior golden age after whose passing American society has declined in various ways. I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s too and it was no picnic. Every time has its challenges and its positives and negatives. Welcome to Earth. A recent book that brings this up effectively is Gordon's book on "The Rise and Fall of American Growth", which goes into considerable detail about what economic life in the US has been like since 1870. This type of research is much more convincing to me than Lambert's "survey says" approach to conveniently quoting facts and figures as his commentary requires.
I was expecting a lot more from this book and was disappointed.
July 12, 2015
Amidst valid points there appear gaps and glacial sized chunks in logic here. I did appreciate the few valid points that had to do with "paid for actions jobs within a workplace" tasks that we formerly had gratis as a bought service and now do ourselves as consumers. But that was merely a portion of this book. It was mainly anecdotal in form too, which is also a problem.
Understanding the reality of unemployment in the 20 something generation throughout the world, not just the USA or Europe- I think it holds a real question. The percentages are not what the news media or governments report at all. But not in the way Lambert supplies answers to this void for purposed career work.
This book became a list of pet peeves and vast rationalizations to cultural mores the longer it got. When he redefined the seven deadly sins and rationalized five away, is when I truly laughed out loud.
Just recently for the first time I had to weigh and tag to flight and destination my own luggage. This was always done by the people at the desk upon check-in for stored (not carried on) luggage. I was flummoxed that the handicapped elderly were left at these stations in absolute misery at what to do. And I did see that others of youth and intelligent ability did seem to NOT be able to follow the correct attachment and sealing to the tape arrangement. That airlines are foisting this too on customers who are already over-charged? Well, I will pack my own groceries and have for 30 years, but refuse to do the complete self-check out on top of it. So that's now my list of pet peeves. It's easier to read AND shorter than Lambert's.
Yes absolutely, we used to have immensely better service for all utilities, clerks, banking, repairs, food and clothes shopping, service problems, ordering (yes, just as good as online) etc. You name it.
And I do think that people would be better off returning to those jobs rather than not working at all. In fact, I enjoyed such as job -holding at least 4 hours a day for such work from young childhood. (Probably against the law in at least 40 states now.)Yet again though, I hold that horrendous and despicable American work ethic times two. (What a tragedy of excesses according to Lambert.) But I still completely balked at the illogical inferences to answers in this book, and just plain false strains of rationalization to both the past and to real life facts. And also its directive onus for some "good old days" interchanges as so highly desirable at that. Women do not want to go back to carrying water about 1/3rd of their waking hours. Or using that carried water for another 1/4th of their lives. His gender role and historical context here too was as off as his logic and moral compass. Most women do NOT see men as their enemy or task master, even in 2015. Not even in the category of housework.
But I do agree that we are doing too many "personless contact" tasks ourselves. Too bad Shadow Work is not the main concern of the book, despite the title.
Understanding the reality of unemployment in the 20 something generation throughout the world, not just the USA or Europe- I think it holds a real question. The percentages are not what the news media or governments report at all. But not in the way Lambert supplies answers to this void for purposed career work.
This book became a list of pet peeves and vast rationalizations to cultural mores the longer it got. When he redefined the seven deadly sins and rationalized five away, is when I truly laughed out loud.
Just recently for the first time I had to weigh and tag to flight and destination my own luggage. This was always done by the people at the desk upon check-in for stored (not carried on) luggage. I was flummoxed that the handicapped elderly were left at these stations in absolute misery at what to do. And I did see that others of youth and intelligent ability did seem to NOT be able to follow the correct attachment and sealing to the tape arrangement. That airlines are foisting this too on customers who are already over-charged? Well, I will pack my own groceries and have for 30 years, but refuse to do the complete self-check out on top of it. So that's now my list of pet peeves. It's easier to read AND shorter than Lambert's.
Yes absolutely, we used to have immensely better service for all utilities, clerks, banking, repairs, food and clothes shopping, service problems, ordering (yes, just as good as online) etc. You name it.
And I do think that people would be better off returning to those jobs rather than not working at all. In fact, I enjoyed such as job -holding at least 4 hours a day for such work from young childhood. (Probably against the law in at least 40 states now.)Yet again though, I hold that horrendous and despicable American work ethic times two. (What a tragedy of excesses according to Lambert.) But I still completely balked at the illogical inferences to answers in this book, and just plain false strains of rationalization to both the past and to real life facts. And also its directive onus for some "good old days" interchanges as so highly desirable at that. Women do not want to go back to carrying water about 1/3rd of their waking hours. Or using that carried water for another 1/4th of their lives. His gender role and historical context here too was as off as his logic and moral compass. Most women do NOT see men as their enemy or task master, even in 2015. Not even in the category of housework.
But I do agree that we are doing too many "personless contact" tasks ourselves. Too bad Shadow Work is not the main concern of the book, despite the title.
July 17, 2015
Shadow Work is an attempt to explain why we are so much busier than we sued to be: because of shadow work that we do, which used to be someone else's job. We're talking about pumping our own gas, scanning our own groceries, booking our own travel, etc.
What the author says makes sense to some degree, though his interpretation of shadow work is certainly a loose one and some examples are up for debate. There's a few in there that feel more like a personal rant than a well-though out argument. He definitely succeeded in making me more aware of the concept of shadow work and how I am doing work that used to be done for me.
However, the book is repetitive, the logic is faulty at times, and more importantly: there's no clear takeaway. OK, so we have a lot of shadow work in our lives. Now what? That still isn't clear to me because the author doesn't offer any kind of suggestion on how to deal with this.
What the author says makes sense to some degree, though his interpretation of shadow work is certainly a loose one and some examples are up for debate. There's a few in there that feel more like a personal rant than a well-though out argument. He definitely succeeded in making me more aware of the concept of shadow work and how I am doing work that used to be done for me.
However, the book is repetitive, the logic is faulty at times, and more importantly: there's no clear takeaway. OK, so we have a lot of shadow work in our lives. Now what? That still isn't clear to me because the author doesn't offer any kind of suggestion on how to deal with this.
October 8, 2017
The title intrigued me. I found it only worth skimming through. The information was simply stated and then he gave many examples about how "shadow work" plays itself out.
Shadow work is doing work unpaid. Whether its having to bag your own groceries at Walmart, booking your own flight on Kayak, answering emails when you are supposed to be unavailable or "time off," or even working over your specified time at work because you want a project done.
Volunteering isn't shadow work because its a giving of our time for the benefit of others.
There you have it. You don't need to read the book if you agree with the above. I skimmed to see if there were any great suggestions to fight against shadow work, and I think all I remember reading was: shadow work is a choice. We have some say in when we don't want to do it. But it may cost us money.
Shadow work is doing work unpaid. Whether its having to bag your own groceries at Walmart, booking your own flight on Kayak, answering emails when you are supposed to be unavailable or "time off," or even working over your specified time at work because you want a project done.
Volunteering isn't shadow work because its a giving of our time for the benefit of others.
There you have it. You don't need to read the book if you agree with the above. I skimmed to see if there were any great suggestions to fight against shadow work, and I think all I remember reading was: shadow work is a choice. We have some say in when we don't want to do it. But it may cost us money.
June 17, 2016
If I say "outsourcing" to you, what do you think of? Many will think of businesses and governments cost-cutting, but it's more interesting to think from other angles, which is the heart of this thought-provoking, if stretched, book.
It's the author's contention, and one can imagine him on an episode of "Grumpy Old Men", that a litany of tasks have been outsourced by stealth from organizations to individuals. These range from services previously organized by the state through those once provided by firms before they caught the lean bug. A consistent theme is technological innovation driving standardization which pushes costs onto customer and citizen, for example via tiresome procedures when calling any large organization to get through to a human being. Beyond that, the book helps the reader understand that the "democratization" (often a fig leaf for marketization) of swathes of our life transfers responsibility from collective organizations to the individual. This illusion of choice requires us to spend hours fighting through confusion marketing techniques, often longing for an authoritative regime to sweep away comparison websites. In the end, we are likely to throw up our hands and cede privacy to large corporations as the proceeds of our online shadow work provide ample and valuable metadata.
The author also considers the inequality of shadow work, as a wealthy elite democratize such endeavours to the masses whilst they embrace a "do nothing yourself" attitude to their own time, hiring domestic help to transfer what would be shadow work into the black economy. There's an environmental cost to consider, for example shadow working parents shipping children whose care was previously left to a government authority. Spare a thought too for employees having now to contribute "emotional labour" as the barrier between work and life all but disappears.
It's easy to find yourself cheering along as the author tips various annoying aspects of modern life into the shadow work bucket - for example, tipping "in which customers take on a core role of employers: paying the staff". The internet as a factory and a digital playground is a chief example as shadow work, including churning out overly long reviews for Amazon, delivers nought but shadow reward in the form of digital badges and ego gratification.
So shadow work is irresistible. The problem is that, although a corrective to the useful idiots of the technological solutionist era, shadow work is an umbrella term - it would be tricky to pin down a definition except that it covers any task we don't get paid for that someone else benefits from. The style of the book is readable, but one can sense the padding from the original article. The acknowledgments page is testament to all the shadow workers who helped the author, presumably without payment.
It's the author's contention, and one can imagine him on an episode of "Grumpy Old Men", that a litany of tasks have been outsourced by stealth from organizations to individuals. These range from services previously organized by the state through those once provided by firms before they caught the lean bug. A consistent theme is technological innovation driving standardization which pushes costs onto customer and citizen, for example via tiresome procedures when calling any large organization to get through to a human being. Beyond that, the book helps the reader understand that the "democratization" (often a fig leaf for marketization) of swathes of our life transfers responsibility from collective organizations to the individual. This illusion of choice requires us to spend hours fighting through confusion marketing techniques, often longing for an authoritative regime to sweep away comparison websites. In the end, we are likely to throw up our hands and cede privacy to large corporations as the proceeds of our online shadow work provide ample and valuable metadata.
The author also considers the inequality of shadow work, as a wealthy elite democratize such endeavours to the masses whilst they embrace a "do nothing yourself" attitude to their own time, hiring domestic help to transfer what would be shadow work into the black economy. There's an environmental cost to consider, for example shadow working parents shipping children whose care was previously left to a government authority. Spare a thought too for employees having now to contribute "emotional labour" as the barrier between work and life all but disappears.
It's easy to find yourself cheering along as the author tips various annoying aspects of modern life into the shadow work bucket - for example, tipping "in which customers take on a core role of employers: paying the staff". The internet as a factory and a digital playground is a chief example as shadow work, including churning out overly long reviews for Amazon, delivers nought but shadow reward in the form of digital badges and ego gratification.
So shadow work is irresistible. The problem is that, although a corrective to the useful idiots of the technological solutionist era, shadow work is an umbrella term - it would be tricky to pin down a definition except that it covers any task we don't get paid for that someone else benefits from. The style of the book is readable, but one can sense the padding from the original article. The acknowledgments page is testament to all the shadow workers who helped the author, presumably without payment.
July 19, 2021
inane
August 21, 2018
This book comes off as a crusty old man complaining that "things were better in my day."
The author tries to expand what shadow work is to cover all sorts of non-shadow work. This expansion of shadow work is an elusive shifty piece of logic, and he is unable to give consistant examples.
He is also inconsistent. In one chapter he complains that modern grocery stores have shifts shadow work to the consumers. Then a couple chapter later he states that modern grocery stores lost customer service they used to provide. This customer service is the same item as the shadow work. One chapter it's shadow work in another it's customer service. Same thing, two different views
The author tries to expand what shadow work is to cover all sorts of non-shadow work. This expansion of shadow work is an elusive shifty piece of logic, and he is unable to give consistant examples.
He is also inconsistent. In one chapter he complains that modern grocery stores have shifts shadow work to the consumers. Then a couple chapter later he states that modern grocery stores lost customer service they used to provide. This customer service is the same item as the shadow work. One chapter it's shadow work in another it's customer service. Same thing, two different views
March 9, 2018
A waste of time. The one interesting idea in this book is in the first few pages. The rest is an old man recalling the good ole' days. The whole book gives examples of what shadow work is though a mostly-boring history lesson. There is no meaningful prescription for identifying or evaluating the type and quality of shadow work. If you are thinking of reading this for better time management, skip it. Save yourself the time and money.
December 31, 2016
I read an article online that mentioned this book and thought that it would be great. The author talks a lot about the shadow work that we do, but proposed pretty much no practical ways to deal with it. The last 15 pages or so we're good reading and enlightening, but again did not give any practical advice. I would have been fine just reading the article online.
October 14, 2020
A very hard read. I didn't know where the book was going and even till the end, it didn't.
Short summary:
The advent of technology has brought lots of shadow work that didn't exist before. Shadow work is defined as things that you didn't think it as work but is. Leisure isn't found even work gets automated because people values things and money more than time.
Short summary:
The advent of technology has brought lots of shadow work that didn't exist before. Shadow work is defined as things that you didn't think it as work but is. Leisure isn't found even work gets automated because people values things and money more than time.
April 24, 2018
Meh. Mostly a litany of "Get Off My Lawn" rants by a curmudgeon. It's pretty shallow over all and if it wasn't for the occasional historical tidbit I probably would have quit about halfway through. Don't waste your time or money.
June 7, 2018
An intriguing read about the meanial jobs that suck up our time-- bagging our own groceries, filling our own shampoo bottles, pumping our own gas, using bill pay to pay bills, booking our own travel plans, etc.companies previously did that consume our time. This was a slow read for me because it's a sociology book and reads like it was meant for a class. Also I wondered aren't a lot of those jobs just things a person should do to get through a day--wash your own clothes, walk your own dog etc. And although the author makes interesting points that I could relate to--for example my city government requires homeowners to tend city property adjacent to theirs and I feel my leisure time sucked away by this shadow work required by the city; or waiting for an hour on hold for someone to answer my health questions because there is no "in person" anymore. But this book did not change my life in any way. I had looked forward to the conclusion but felt this so preposterous that I quit reading:
"As knowledge becomes more widely accessible, the democratization of expertise will make workers interchangeable in many generic jobs and functions. This may produce a more collaborative, egalitarian society as the collapse of heriarchies brings a leveling trend. Citizens will resist the idea of putting someone (doctor, lawyer) above them or below them." How does an educated author totally discount the wealth inequality problem? I should have given this book two stars, but I was feeling generous.
"As knowledge becomes more widely accessible, the democratization of expertise will make workers interchangeable in many generic jobs and functions. This may produce a more collaborative, egalitarian society as the collapse of heriarchies brings a leveling trend. Citizens will resist the idea of putting someone (doctor, lawyer) above them or below them." How does an educated author totally discount the wealth inequality problem? I should have given this book two stars, but I was feeling generous.
February 7, 2020
Wasted Premise
Mr., excuse me Dr. Lambert (because he mentions his PhD as a criteria for pumping his own gas as beneath him) has an interesting premise, that tasks have been added so incrementally that one doesn't notice how much more work simple tasks are. However, much of the chapters seem to be him griping about how 'back in his day' going to the bank was a joy or shopping was much more convenient but then highlights some benefits to shadow work (greater autonomy in grocery shopping at a supermarket vs. a general store; being able to customize your own clothes to your own taste or measurement vs. buying something that approximates your size. So, which is it? Shadow work is bad or good? The book basically follows this formula: he traces the history of some task, be it housework, office work, travel and shows how more and more of what was once explicit tasks that were done by paid staff is either been automated by machines/computer/smart phones and now people are responsible for it, some jabs at these tasks and then strangely, one or two inverse examples. The only compelling chapters are the ultimate and penultimate chapters. His conclusion is probably the most cogent and his second to last chapter focuses on data mining via social media. I slogged through this book hoping it would be better but the last two chapters were not worth it.
Mr., excuse me Dr. Lambert (because he mentions his PhD as a criteria for pumping his own gas as beneath him) has an interesting premise, that tasks have been added so incrementally that one doesn't notice how much more work simple tasks are. However, much of the chapters seem to be him griping about how 'back in his day' going to the bank was a joy or shopping was much more convenient but then highlights some benefits to shadow work (greater autonomy in grocery shopping at a supermarket vs. a general store; being able to customize your own clothes to your own taste or measurement vs. buying something that approximates your size. So, which is it? Shadow work is bad or good? The book basically follows this formula: he traces the history of some task, be it housework, office work, travel and shows how more and more of what was once explicit tasks that were done by paid staff is either been automated by machines/computer/smart phones and now people are responsible for it, some jabs at these tasks and then strangely, one or two inverse examples. The only compelling chapters are the ultimate and penultimate chapters. His conclusion is probably the most cogent and his second to last chapter focuses on data mining via social media. I slogged through this book hoping it would be better but the last two chapters were not worth it.
June 3, 2022
I mean, this is ok, but it feels like it romanticises the past as having less "shadow work". Briefly, shadow work is when parents run a volunteer sports league (additional work) instead of kids just playing on their own. It's when you fill up your own gas at the gas station instead of a gas station attendant. It's commuting to your job. It's arranging your own flights instead of asking a travel agent to do it for you.
He argues that it has increased due to four reasons - (1) technology and robotics (e.g. travel websites) enabling people to diy; (2) democratisation of expertise (e.g. downloading a template from a website instead of asking lawyers) (3) information dragnet (institutions trying to collect data, resulting in consumers having to supply information / manage the data that is sent to them); and (4) constantly evolving social norms (e.g. parents having to get ahead).
It's focused on America / American norms too.
I did wish he also provided examples of how shadow work might have arguably decreased - e.g. no more Sears catalogue homes; or loading the dishwasher instead of washing dishes.
He argues that it has increased due to four reasons - (1) technology and robotics (e.g. travel websites) enabling people to diy; (2) democratisation of expertise (e.g. downloading a template from a website instead of asking lawyers) (3) information dragnet (institutions trying to collect data, resulting in consumers having to supply information / manage the data that is sent to them); and (4) constantly evolving social norms (e.g. parents having to get ahead).
It's focused on America / American norms too.
I did wish he also provided examples of how shadow work might have arguably decreased - e.g. no more Sears catalogue homes; or loading the dishwasher instead of washing dishes.
January 12, 2020
I guess the evaluation of this book on this site could be considered shadow work. Yet, it could also be considered leisure, since I freely choose to write this review of the book. After hearing the author being interviewed I decided to purchase this book. I was aware of shadow work, I just wasn't aware of how nefarious it has become and will, for the foreseeable future, continue to be. I enjoyed reading about the segmentation and specialisation of society along with the data over-saturated permanently connected. I also really enjoyed his discussion of leisure. That said, I was raised in a small town and I don't share the author's at times nostalgic distortions of interactions with small-town business owners, who could be quite abrasive, greedy, nosy, and down-right incompetent. So there's a reason why some of enjoy the mixing of brick and mortar with on-line purchases.
June 22, 2020
Five years after publication and read amid a global pandemic which has changed the term "essential worker" and has most sheltering-(and occasionally working)-in-place at home, has our relationship to Shadow Work changed? Yes. Unfortunately, Lambert's book is not a field guide that impartially explains the rise of this phenomenon nor does it provide ideas for managing the extra work it requires. He begins with explanations as to how things have changed (specifically in America) and shows how innovations along with the industrial age caused changes and the burden of work to shift. However, Lambert spends most of the book penning a nostalgic memoir that waxes poetic about how much better things used to be.
I received an eARC of this title from NetGalley in exchange for a review. The FTC wants you to know.
I received an eARC of this title from NetGalley in exchange for a review. The FTC wants you to know.
February 1, 2018
An interesting concept that the author stretches a bit. He draws a lot of very interesting conclusions and makes some in depth links between the rise of shadow work and all types of other issues in society. That said a lot of the book goes on, then seems to stick in "oh right, shadow work" to try and get back to his point. Still, an interesting read that is basically a critique of neoliberalism, even if the author doesn't intend or realize that. How modern capitalism has lead to the rise of shadow work, (work that used to be done by paid employees that we as consumers take on for free) which leads to all types of results on our free time, world outlook and psyche. Some of these impacts are bad, some good, some neutral.
January 20, 2021
This book was an unfocused mess...if it were a term paper, it would be a C minus at best.
That’s it. It starts out with an interesting proposition, but starts to go off the rails in the introductory paragraph, when it provides a definition of ‘shadow work’ that’s too general to be of any use. The rest of the book dances around the topic, but spends most of its time on Andy Rooney-style gripes. It tends to ramble and go off on meaningless tangents and, in the end, offers no real solutions.
The only thing I got from this book is a good example of shadow work: When a book is published without rigorous editing, the reader is forced to mentally edit out the chaff themselves.
That’s it. It starts out with an interesting proposition, but starts to go off the rails in the introductory paragraph, when it provides a definition of ‘shadow work’ that’s too general to be of any use. The rest of the book dances around the topic, but spends most of its time on Andy Rooney-style gripes. It tends to ramble and go off on meaningless tangents and, in the end, offers no real solutions.
The only thing I got from this book is a good example of shadow work: When a book is published without rigorous editing, the reader is forced to mentally edit out the chaff themselves.
January 21, 2017
"Shadow work will grow. It rewards businesses and organizations in ways that are irresitible. No capitalist can refuse a chance to cut those heavy personal costs by transferring jobs to customers who work for free."
"Shadow work pushes us toward isolated self-sufficiency. But this autonomy comes at a price. Those daily interchanges, swapping pleasantries and small talk with service personnel help glue a neighborhood or town together."
"Shadow work pushes us toward isolated self-sufficiency. But this autonomy comes at a price. Those daily interchanges, swapping pleasantries and small talk with service personnel help glue a neighborhood or town together."
July 2, 2019
at the end of life, we need less shadow work, but more time to connect and server others. Let's exam the benefits of self-service business and analytics sort of work to fully understand how technologies shape human species as a whole body. Are we creating our own prisoners to isolate from each other?
May 11, 2022
Is this review shadow work? No, but in other circumstances it could be.
Interesting premise; a few funny one-liners peppered throughout that genuinely made me smile--looking at you, Target pun. Flawed execution; more interesting if you approach it as an unintentional extended essay on generational norms than as a discussion of the ostensible subject matter.
Interesting premise; a few funny one-liners peppered throughout that genuinely made me smile--looking at you, Target pun. Flawed execution; more interesting if you approach it as an unintentional extended essay on generational norms than as a discussion of the ostensible subject matter.
February 28, 2021
There is no need for this subject to be an entire book. A paragraph introducing the main point followed by a bullet list of supporting point or examples would suffice. Reading this entire book felt like an unpaid and unseen job!
February 4, 2025
Interesting exploration and analysis.
But some of it is the whinging of the spoilt. He says pumping your own gas is "unpaid work?" Some would call it being multiskilled, or improvise-adapt-overcome.
But some of it is the whinging of the spoilt. He says pumping your own gas is "unpaid work?" Some would call it being multiskilled, or improvise-adapt-overcome.
August 3, 2020
Good but some of the underlying assumptions should be vetted
September 1, 2025
Complains a lot. Doesn't offer a solution.
August 18, 2015
The majority of our day is usually spent doing work, rather than sleeping or relaxing. This work, however, might not be necessarily putting money in your bank account. We are enslaved to others through shadow work, a series of unpaid, unseen and undervalued jobs that can take up rather a lot of our time!
This book is a mix between social observation, commentary, self-help and realisation: it even has a bit of humour, or as much humour as you might permit it to provide after you are slapping your head in frustration as the realisation of just how much we are doing for others sinks in.
Our lives are busier, there seems to be less time to do the things we want (and we can’t blame Facebook and Twitter for eating up our time with a stream of status updates, cat videos and OMG!!! WTF!!!!!-type outbursts of rage). So what is happening? We are allegedly in the most prosperous era in human history and this should be bringing leisure to us. It is not that long ago that the “computer revolution” was promising home robots and the eternal life of riches and leisure amongst other good things.
Shadow work… the plethora of unpaid tasks we are doing on behalf of businesses and organisations is to blame, the author says. Yet we consider it normal. Filling our cars at the petrol station, building our own furniture from flat-pack kits, checking ourselves in online for flights… the list continues: some of this work is sold to us as offering convenience, choice and freedoms and maybe it is. Yet it all adds up. Recycling, redeeming gift cards, giving feedback and reviews, recommending services and products to our friends, printing off our own travel tickets… and so on and so on.
Why are we paying, for example, with our own time to tidy a table and take all our refuse away, possibly sorting it into recycling bins, after eating a hamburger or taking a coffee at a high-street chain? Would having someone bring the food to us and tidy up afterwards really add much to the bill? Where next? Should we take our own orders? Oh, that’s already happening in some areas, again sold as a “convenience” that we enter our fast food order into a touch screen, swipe our credit card and then take a queue number. All these jobs that disappear; paid jobs that is… don’t worry, there’s a ready stream of volunteer labour. You can always be bribed or rewarded with a trinket, a frequent customer point or a badge or logo to attach to your social media profile.
Sarcastic, cynical or just increasingly aware at the obvious when it is brought to one’s attention. What do you think?
There is also another form of shadow work, albeit with good intentions – volunteering. We often volunteer to a charity or other good cause, gifting our time, yet many of these organisations are run like big corporations, often with the bureaucracy and pay structures at the executive level to match. Is our help necessarily well targeted, well received and justified?
This book gets you thinking about the actual exchange between consumer and corporation as well as society as a whole. It may inspire change, it may lead to higher blood pressure and a great degree of irritation. At times you may consider the book labours a point, becomes over-simplistic or a tad petty and petulant, yet overall it does manage to open up an interesting area of thought and functions as an interesting, different read.
Shadow Work, written by Craig Lambert and published by Counterpoint. ISBN 9781619025257. YYYY
AUTAMME.com
This book is a mix between social observation, commentary, self-help and realisation: it even has a bit of humour, or as much humour as you might permit it to provide after you are slapping your head in frustration as the realisation of just how much we are doing for others sinks in.
Our lives are busier, there seems to be less time to do the things we want (and we can’t blame Facebook and Twitter for eating up our time with a stream of status updates, cat videos and OMG!!! WTF!!!!!-type outbursts of rage). So what is happening? We are allegedly in the most prosperous era in human history and this should be bringing leisure to us. It is not that long ago that the “computer revolution” was promising home robots and the eternal life of riches and leisure amongst other good things.
Shadow work… the plethora of unpaid tasks we are doing on behalf of businesses and organisations is to blame, the author says. Yet we consider it normal. Filling our cars at the petrol station, building our own furniture from flat-pack kits, checking ourselves in online for flights… the list continues: some of this work is sold to us as offering convenience, choice and freedoms and maybe it is. Yet it all adds up. Recycling, redeeming gift cards, giving feedback and reviews, recommending services and products to our friends, printing off our own travel tickets… and so on and so on.
Why are we paying, for example, with our own time to tidy a table and take all our refuse away, possibly sorting it into recycling bins, after eating a hamburger or taking a coffee at a high-street chain? Would having someone bring the food to us and tidy up afterwards really add much to the bill? Where next? Should we take our own orders? Oh, that’s already happening in some areas, again sold as a “convenience” that we enter our fast food order into a touch screen, swipe our credit card and then take a queue number. All these jobs that disappear; paid jobs that is… don’t worry, there’s a ready stream of volunteer labour. You can always be bribed or rewarded with a trinket, a frequent customer point or a badge or logo to attach to your social media profile.
Sarcastic, cynical or just increasingly aware at the obvious when it is brought to one’s attention. What do you think?
There is also another form of shadow work, albeit with good intentions – volunteering. We often volunteer to a charity or other good cause, gifting our time, yet many of these organisations are run like big corporations, often with the bureaucracy and pay structures at the executive level to match. Is our help necessarily well targeted, well received and justified?
This book gets you thinking about the actual exchange between consumer and corporation as well as society as a whole. It may inspire change, it may lead to higher blood pressure and a great degree of irritation. At times you may consider the book labours a point, becomes over-simplistic or a tad petty and petulant, yet overall it does manage to open up an interesting area of thought and functions as an interesting, different read.
Shadow Work, written by Craig Lambert and published by Counterpoint. ISBN 9781619025257. YYYY
AUTAMME.com
July 9, 2015
from the library
books discussed in the text:
The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker
More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave
Never Done: A History of American Housework
The Harried Leisure Class
The Theory of the Leisure Class
The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline Of Leisure
no footnotes, no bibliography
books discussed in the text:
The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker
More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave
Never Done: A History of American Housework
The Harried Leisure Class
The Theory of the Leisure Class
The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline Of Leisure
no footnotes, no bibliography
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 11, 2016
I decided to read Shadow Work because I thought it would relate to my personal experiences. The book began with familiar scenarios such as the evolution of self-service gas pumps. Then, the story seemed to run afield, expanding into more general situations such as shadow work in the office, and other discussions of less individual interest. I put the book aside.
Later, perhaps with renewed expectations, I resumed reading. The book took on new meaning, encompassing present-day phenomena and their comprehensive effects. For example, the author offers this perceptive assessment of Internet sites such as Facebook, where shadow work includes entering your personal data: “If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.” The author concludes with appraisals of the value of time and money, and speculation on shadow work and the future of Western society.
The book presents a dissenting view of delegated work that we accept without question. In this, the author might be overlooking the point that some people enjoy the added control that accompanies shadow work.
Later, perhaps with renewed expectations, I resumed reading. The book took on new meaning, encompassing present-day phenomena and their comprehensive effects. For example, the author offers this perceptive assessment of Internet sites such as Facebook, where shadow work includes entering your personal data: “If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.” The author concludes with appraisals of the value of time and money, and speculation on shadow work and the future of Western society.
The book presents a dissenting view of delegated work that we accept without question. In this, the author might be overlooking the point that some people enjoy the added control that accompanies shadow work.
May 28, 2015
Shadow Work
By: Craig Lambert
Counter Point Press; 2015
Have 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.
By: Craig Lambert
Counter Point Press; 2015
Have 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.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews