Dreams of the Overworked

Dreams of the Overworked PDF Author: Christine M. Beckman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503612333
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
A riveting look at the real reasons Americans feel inadequate in the face of their dreams, and a call to celebrate how we support one another in the service of family and work in our daily life. Jay's days are filled with back-to-back meetings, but he always leaves work in time to pick his daughter up from swimming at 7pm, knowing he'll be back on his laptop later that night. Linda thinks wistfully of the treadmill in her garage as she finishes folding the laundry that's been in the dryer for the last week. Rebecca sits with one child in front of a packet of math homework, while three others clamor for her attention. In Dreams of the Overworked, Christine M. Beckman and Melissa Mazmanian offer vivid sketches of daily life for nine families, capturing what it means to live, work, and parent in a world of impossible expectations, now amplified unlike ever before by smart devices. We are invited into homes and offices, where we recognize the crushing pressure of unraveling plans, and the healing warmth of being together. Moreover, we witness the constant planning that goes into a "good" day, often with the aid of phones and apps. Yet, as technologies empower us to do more, they also promise limitless availability and connection. Checking email on the weekend, monitoring screen time, and counting steps are all part of the daily routine. The stories in this book challenge the seductive myth of the phone-clad individual, by showing that beneath the plastic veneer of technology is a complex, hidden system of support—our dreams being scaffolded by retired in-laws, friendly neighbors, spouses, and paid help. This book makes a compelling case for celebrating the structures that allow us to strive for our dreams, by supporting public policies and community organizations, challenging workplace norms, reimagining family, and valuing the joy of human connection.

Dreams of the Overworked

Dreams of the Overworked PDF Author: Christine M. Beckman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503612333
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

Get Book Here

Book Description
A riveting look at the real reasons Americans feel inadequate in the face of their dreams, and a call to celebrate how we support one another in the service of family and work in our daily life. Jay's days are filled with back-to-back meetings, but he always leaves work in time to pick his daughter up from swimming at 7pm, knowing he'll be back on his laptop later that night. Linda thinks wistfully of the treadmill in her garage as she finishes folding the laundry that's been in the dryer for the last week. Rebecca sits with one child in front of a packet of math homework, while three others clamor for her attention. In Dreams of the Overworked, Christine M. Beckman and Melissa Mazmanian offer vivid sketches of daily life for nine families, capturing what it means to live, work, and parent in a world of impossible expectations, now amplified unlike ever before by smart devices. We are invited into homes and offices, where we recognize the crushing pressure of unraveling plans, and the healing warmth of being together. Moreover, we witness the constant planning that goes into a "good" day, often with the aid of phones and apps. Yet, as technologies empower us to do more, they also promise limitless availability and connection. Checking email on the weekend, monitoring screen time, and counting steps are all part of the daily routine. The stories in this book challenge the seductive myth of the phone-clad individual, by showing that beneath the plastic veneer of technology is a complex, hidden system of support—our dreams being scaffolded by retired in-laws, friendly neighbors, spouses, and paid help. This book makes a compelling case for celebrating the structures that allow us to strive for our dreams, by supporting public policies and community organizations, challenging workplace norms, reimagining family, and valuing the joy of human connection.

Dangerously Sleepy

Dangerously Sleepy PDF Author: Alan Derickson
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812245539
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Dangerously Sleepy explores the fraught relations between overwork, sleep deprivation, and public health. Health and labor historian Alan Derickson charts the cultural and political forces behind the overvaluation—and masculinization—of wakefulness in the United States.

Alter Your Life

Alter Your Life PDF Author: Kathleen Hall
Publisher: Alter Your Life
ISBN: 9780974542720
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Themes like "I just don't have time" and "I'm exhausted" rule our lives today. We are overbooked, overworked and overwhelmed. Just getting done what must be done fills our days. The notion of finding the time needed to discover an intentional life seems daunting for many. But it doesn't have to be!

The Paranoid Chronotope

The Paranoid Chronotope PDF Author: Frida Beckman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781503631601
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Why does it seem like our everyday life is shadowed by something menacing? This book identifies and illuminates paranoia as a significant feature of contemporary U.S. society and culture. Centering on what it identifies as three key dimensions - power, truth, and identity - in three different contexts - society, literature, and critique - the book explores and explains the increasing influence of paranoid thinking in U.S. society during the second half of the twentieth century and first decades of the twenty-first, a period which has seen the rise of control systems and neoliberal ascendency. Inquiring about the predominance of white, male, American subjects in paranoid culture, Frida Beckman recognizes an antagonistic maintenance and fortification of a conception of the autonomous individual that perceives itself as under threat. Identifying such paranoia as emerging from an increasingly disjunctive relation between this conception of the subject and the changing nature of the public sphere, she develops the concept of the paranoid chronotope as a tool for theoretical analysis of social, literary, and critical practices today. Investigating 21st century paranoid fictions, phenomena, and debates such as New Sincerity novels, conspiracist online culture, and postcritique, Beckman shows how the paranoid chronotope constitutes a recurring feature of modern consciousness.

La Boutique Obscure

La Boutique Obscure PDF Author: Georges Perec
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612191762
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The beguiling, never-before-translated dream diary of Georges Perec In La Boutique Obscure Perec once again revolutionized literary form, creating the world’s first “nocturnal autobiography.” From 1968 until 1972—the period when he wrote his most well-known works—the beloved French stylist recorded his dreams. But as you might expect, his approach was far from orthodox. Avoiding the hazy psychoanalysis of most dream journals, he challenged himself to translate his visions and subconscious churnings directly into prose. In laying down the nonsensical leaps of the imagination, he finds new ways to express the texture and ambiguity of dreams—those qualities that prove so elusive. Beyond capturing a universal experience for the first time and being a fine document of literary invention, La Boutique Obscure contains the seeds of some of Perec’s most famous books. It is also an intimate portrait of one of the great innovators of modern literature.

Alice + Freda Forever

Alice + Freda Forever PDF Author: Alexis Coe
Publisher: Millbrook Press
ISBN: 1541581679
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Alice + Freda Forever is a gut-wrenching story of love, death, and the dangers of intolerance."—Bustle In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenage murderess, but it wasn't her crime that shocked the nation—it was her motivation. Nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell had planned to pass as a man in order to marry her seventeen-year-old fiancée Freda Ward, but when their love letters were discovered, they were forbidden from ever speaking again. Freda adjusted to this fate with an ease that stunned a heartbroken Alice. Her desperation grew with each unanswered letter—and her father's razor soon went missing. On January 25, Alice publicly slashed her ex-fiancée's throat. Her same-sex love was deemed insane by her father that very night, and medical experts agreed: This was a dangerous and incurable perversion. As the courtroom was expanded to accommodate national interest, Alice spent months in jail—including the night that three of her fellow prisoners were lynched (an event which captured the attention of journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells). After a jury of "the finest men in Memphis" declared Alice insane, she was remanded to an asylum, where she died under mysterious circumstances just a few years later. Alice + Freda Forever recounts this tragic, real-life love story with over 100 illustrated love letters, maps, artifacts, historical documents, newspaper articles, courtroom proceedings, and intimate, domestic scenes.

Busier Than Ever!

Busier Than Ever! PDF Author: Charles Darrah
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804768184
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Busyness defines the lives of most Americans. For some, the focus of busyness is family. For others, it is career or social activities. Sometimes busyness results from a big event, like the catastrophic illness of a family member, but much of it builds from many seemingly inconsequential demands that collectively become overwhelming. We search for the best airline prices on the Internet, are "partners" with teachers in our children's education, and employ a battery of devices that promise to save labor if only we can learn how to use them. Busier Than Ever! follows the daily activities of fourteen American families. It explores why they are busy and what the consequences are for their lives. Busyness is not just a matter of personal time management, but of the activities we participate in and how each of us creates "the good life." While numerous books deal with efficiency and the difficulties of balancing work and family, Busier Than Ever! offers a fresh approach. Busyness is not a "problem" to be solved—it is who we are as Americans and it's redefining American families.

Befiddled

Befiddled PDF Author: Pedro de Alcantara
Publisher: Yearling
ISBN: 0307514056
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Becky Cohen has a rough life. She’s an outsider everywhere she goes: shunned and mocked at school, at her violin lessons, and at home by her disapproving mother. Her only true friend is her brilliant little brother, newspaper-loving Benjy. She dreams of becoming a great violinist, but at the group lessons she’s forced to take at the Y, Becky panics and plays badly. Then Becky meets Mr. Freeman, her building’s handyman. He has a lot to teach her about becoming a musician, and being a friend. Gradually, Becky begins speaking her mind more often, and finds that people are actually listening. Then Mr. Freeman tells Becky about a local performing arts high school’s scholarship contest. With the lessons learned from Mr. Freeman and Benjy, can Becky overcome her fears and play what’s in her heart?

Life Is a Startup

Life Is a Startup PDF Author: Noam Wasserman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503607429
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
After two decades of research on founders, a best-selling book on the subject, and experience teaching and mentoring thousands of students in this field, Noam Wasserman is a prominent authority on startups. Hearing from countless readers and students that his insights helped them with important life decisions, beyond the incubator and boardroom, Wasserman brings us a new book that applies to everyday life his research on the methods of successful startup founders. Like entrepreneurs, we all deal with uncertainty, tough decision-making, and necessary problem-solving. Whether we freelance or work for large organizations, whether we're married or single, have kids or not, we must be able to think on our feet, assess risks and opportunities, and recruit others to help us navigate them. This book offers important advice for envisioning change in our lives—from contemplating the next step in a relationship to making a radical career move—and managing changes to which we've already committed. We can learn to recognize our own well-worn patterns and keep our tendencies and habits in check, recruit a personal taskforce—our own board of directors—to advise us, and plan ahead for growth. With his extensive database of entrepreneurship case studies—from Pandora to Twitter to Nike—complemented with data on 20,000 founders, Wasserman is able to go deeply into the entrepreneurial mindset and show us how startups provide specific lessons for crafting our most successful lives.

Bait and Switch

Bait and Switch PDF Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1429915706
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
The bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed goes back undercover to do for America's ailing middle class what she did for the working poor Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in Bait and Switch, she enters another hidden realm of the economy: the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed. Armed with a plausible résumé of a professional "in transition," she attempts to land a middle-class job—undergoing career coaching and personality testing, then trawling a series of EST-like boot camps, job fairs, networking events, and evangelical job-search ministries. She gets an image makeover, works to project a winning attitude, yet is proselytized, scammed, lectured, and—again and again—rejected. Bait and Switch highlights the people who've done everything right—gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills, and built up impressive résumés—yet have become repeatedly vulnerable to financial disaster, and not simply due to the vagaries of the business cycle. Today's ultra-lean corporations take pride in shedding their "surplus" employees—plunging them, for months or years at a stretch, into the twilight zone of white-collar unemployment, where job searching becomes a full-time job in itself. As Ehrenreich discovers, there are few social supports for these newly disposable workers—and little security even for those who have jobs. Like the now classic Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch is alternately hilarious and tragic, a searing exposé of economic cruelty where we least expect it.