The Good Enough Job

Informationen zum Autor Simone Stolzoff is an independent journalist and consultant from San Francisco. A former design lead at the global innovation firm IDEO, he regularly works with leadersfrom the Surgeon General of the United States to the Chief Talent Officer at Googleon how to make the workplace more human-centered. His feature writing on the intersection of labor and Silicon Valley has appeared in The Atlantic , WIRED , The San Francisco Chronicle , and numerous other publications. He is a graduate of Stanford and The University of Pennsylvania. Klappentext Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Michelin star chefs, Wall Street bankers, overwhelmed teachers and other laborers across the American economy, a designer and journalist reveals we are obsessed with our work and makes the urgent case for us to emotionally extricate ourselves from our jobs to reclaim our lives. Leseprobe 1 For What It's Worth On the myth that we are what we do Sufficiency isn't two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn't a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn't an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough. Brené Brown Divya Singh was sitting in her college dorm room when her roommate's boyfriend said something that changed her life: "You couldn't get an internship at The Restaurant even if you tried." Divya was a nineteen-year-old Indian American culinary school student with sleek bangs and a single pronounced dimple under her left cheek. She was studying to become a nutritionist. Her dream was to design recipes for a glossy food magazine like Bon Appétit or Saveur, but that comment changed things. Cody, the boyfriend, was a tall, confident Midwesterner on the fine-dining track. Even as a student, he assumed the bravado common among male chefs. Little did he know, Divya was the wrong person to be told what she couldn't accomplish. Every year, one student from the culinary school Divya and Cody attended was awarded an internship at The Restaurant, which was widely considered to be one of the best in America. It had just received three Michelin stars, another accolade for its famed chef, Stephen Fischer, whose home adjoined The Restaurant's kitchen. The internship would be awarded by Randy Garcia, a faculty member at Divya's culinary school who used to work at The Restaurant. Garcia evaluated prospective students on their knife skills, solicited feedback from places where they had worked, and conducted interviews with each applicant. Divya had never worked in fine dining. But after she set her sights on The Restaurant, she spent the rest of her nights and weekends of the school year working in high-end kitchens. At the end of the year, Divya and Cody both applied for The Restaurant's internship. Divya got it. Garcia told me she was the most prepared student he had ever recommended for the role. Even after securing the position, Divya continued to go to Garcia's classroom to practice chopping onions, carrots, and celery in anticipation of the summer ahead. The Restaurant is a picture of culinary sophistication. The rustic stone building was a turn-of-the-century saloon before becoming a restaurant in the 1970s. When Fischer remodeled the kitchen, he told the architects that he wanted The Restaurant to resemble the Louvre-a mix of the historic and the contemporary. Every detail-from the cerulean front door to the "Sense of Urgency" sign that hangs below the kitchen's Vacheron Constantin clock-carries Fischer's fingerprint. The nine-course prix-fixe menu is $350 dollars a head. Most fine-dining kitchens are organized by the so-called brigade system, made popular by a nineteenth-century French chef who based it on the hierarchy of European military kitchens. The head chef barks orders that the rest ...

Auteur
Simone Stolzoff is an independent journalist and consultant from San Francisco. A former design lead at the global innovation firm IDEO, he regularly works with leaders—from the Surgeon General of the United States to the Chief Talent Officer at Google—on how to make the workplace more human-centered. His feature writing on the intersection of labor and Silicon Valley has appeared in The Atlantic, WIRED, The San Francisco Chronicle, and numerous other publications. He is a graduate of Stanford and The University of Pennsylvania.

Texte du rabat

Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Michelin star chefs, Wall Street bankers, overwhelmed teachers and other laborers across the American economy, a designer and journalist reveals we are obsessed with our work and makes the urgent case for us to emotionally extricate ourselves from our jobs to reclaim our lives.

Résumé
A challenge to the tyranny of work and a call to reclaim our lives from its clutches.

From the moment we ask children what they want to “be” when they grow up, we exalt the dream job as if it were life’s ultimate objective. Many entangle their identities with their jobs, with predictable damage to happiness, wellbeing, and even professional success.
 
In The Good Enough Job, journalist Simone Stolzoff traces how work has come to dominate Americans’ lives—and why we find it so difficult to let go. Based on groundbreaking reporting and interviews with Michelin star chefs, Wall Street bankers, overwhelmed teachers and other workers across the American economy, Stolzoff exposes what we lose when we expect work to be more than a job. Rather than treat work as a calling or a dream, he asks what it would take to reframe work as a part of rather than the entirety of our lives. What does it mean for a job to be good enough?
 
Through provocative critique and deep reporting, Stolzoff punctures the myths that keep us chained to our jobs. By exposing the lies we--and our employers--tell about the value of our labor, The Good Enough Job makes the urgent case for reclaiming our lives in a world centered around work.

Échantillon de lecture
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For What It's Worth

On the myth that we are what we do

Sufficiency isn't two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn't a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn't an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.

Brené Brown

Divya Singh was sitting in her college dorm room when her roommate's boyfriend said something that changed her life: "You couldn't get an internship at The Restaurant even if you tried." Divya was a nineteen-year-old Indian American culinary school student with sleek bangs and a single pronounced dimple under her left cheek. She was studying to become a nutritionist. Her dream was to design recipes for a glossy food magazine like Bon Appétit or Saveur, but that comment changed things. Cody, the boyfriend, was a tall, confident Midwesterner on the fine-dining track. Even as a student, he assumed the bravado common among male chefs. Little did he know, Divya was the wrong person to be told what she couldn't accomplish.

Every year, one student from the culinary school Divya and Cody attended was awarded an internship at The Restaurant, which was widely considered to be one of the best in America. It had just received three Michelin stars, another accolade for its famed chef, Stephen Fischer, whose home adjoined The Restaurant's kitchen.

The internship would be awarded by Randy Garcia, a faculty member at Divya's culinary school who used to work at The Restaurant. Garcia evaluated prospective students on their knife skills, solicited feedback from places where they had worked, and conducted interviews with each applicant. Divya had never worked in fine dining. But after she set her sights on The Restaurant, she spent the rest …