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The Overworked Consumer
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Book Synopsis The Overworked Consumer by : Christopher K. Andrews
Download or read book The Overworked Consumer written by Christopher K. Andrews and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses empirical data to qualify contemporary social concerns regarding automation and jobs, while raising questions about the increasing creep of unpaid work into Americans' leisure time.
Book Synopsis The Overworked Consumer by : Christopher K. Andrews
Download or read book The Overworked Consumer written by Christopher K. Andrews and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-12-11 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Overworked Consumer examines how the growing use of self-service technology in the U.S. economy has contributed to Americans’ feelings of busyness and overwork by asking them to perform a variety of tasks in work-like settings for free. Focusing on the adoption of self-checkout lanes in the retail food industry, the book describes how self-service technology is changing the meaning of service in an economy where the boundaries between work and leisure are becoming increasingly blurred. Are big businesses simply being cheap and lazy, preferring to automate and outsource work to unpaid consumers instead of raising wages, or is self-service and its do-it-yourself ethos a response to consumers’ demands for faster, easier ways of buying goods and services? And what exactly are shoppers getting when they go through the self-checkout lane? Is it really faster than the cashier lane or just another illusory speed-up meant to distract them from the realization that they are performing unpaid work, unwitting participants in a new retail experiment whose roots can be traced back to the very invention of the modern supermarket? And what about the effect on jobs; is this the end of the checkout line for cashiers and similar forms of work, or are such anxieties over automation overstated? To answer these questions, the author takes readers inside SuperFood, a regional supermarket chain, drawing upon extensive interviews with managers, staff, and customers as well as an array of examples, retail studies, and statistics to separate fact from fiction and figure out what is actually happening in stores. Concluding with a cautionary tale of two grocers, the author suggests the future of retailing is still undetermined, meaning shoppers still have time to decide whether or not they really want to “do-it-yourself”. Caveat emptor.
Book Synopsis The Consumer Society Reader by : Juliet Schor
Download or read book The Consumer Society Reader written by Juliet Schor and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Consumer Society Reader features a range of key works on the nature and evolution of consumer society. Included here is much-discussed work by leading critics such as Jean Baudrillard, Susan Bordo, Dick Hebdige, bell hooks, and Janice Radway. Also included is a full range of classics, such as Frankfurt School writers Adorno and Horkheimer on the Culture Industry; Thorstein Veblen's oft-cited writings on "conspicuous consumption"; Betty Friedan on the housewife's central role in consumer society; John Kenneth Galbraith's influential analysis of the "affluent society"; and Pierre Bourdieu on the notion of "taste." "Consumer society--the 'air we breathe,' as George Orwell has described it--disappears during economic downtruns and political crises. It becomes visible again when prosperity seems secure, cultural transformation is too rapid, or enviornmental disasters occur. Such is the time in which we now find ourselves. As the roads clog with gas-guzzling SUVs and McMansions proliferate in the suburbs, the nation is once again asking fundamental questions about lifestyle. Has 'luxury fever,' to use Robert Frank's phrase, gotten out of hand? Are we really comfortable with the 'Brand Is Me' mentality? Have we gone too far in pursuit of the almighty dollar, to the detriment of our families, communities, and natural enviornment? Even politicians, ordinarily impermeable to questions about consumerism, are voicing doubts... [and] polls suggest majorities of Americans feel the country has become too materialistic, too focused on getting and spending, and increasingly removed from long-standing non-materialist values." —From the introduction by Douglas B. Holt and Juliet B. Schor
Download or read book Born to Buy written by Juliet B. Schor and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ads aimed at kids are virtually everywhere -- in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at slumber parties and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Companies are enlisting children as guerrilla marketers, targeting their friends and families. Even trusted social institutions such as the Girl Scouts are teaming up with marketers. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, New York Times bestselling author and leading cultural and economic authority Juliet Schor examines how a marketing effort of vast size, scope, and effectiveness has created "commercialized children." Schor, author of The Overworked American and The Overspent American, looks at the broad implications of this strategy. Sophisticated advertising strategies convince kids that products are necessary to their social survival. Ads affect not just what they want to buy, but who they think they are and how they feel about themselves. Based on long-term analysis, Schor reverses the conventional notion of causality: it's not just that problem kids become overly involved in the values of consumerism; it's that kids who are overly involved in the values of consumerism become problem kids. In this revelatory and crucial book, Schor also provides guidelines for parents and teachers. What is at stake is the emotional and social well-being of our children. Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Born to Buy is a major contribution to our understanding of a contemporary trend and its effects on the culture.
Book Synopsis Consumer Credit and the American Economy by : Thomas A. Durkin
Download or read book Consumer Credit and the American Economy written by Thomas A. Durkin and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumer Credit and the American Economy examines the economics, behavioral science, sociology, history, institutions, law, and regulation of consumer credit in the United States. After discussing the origins and various kinds of consumer credit available in today's marketplace, this book reviews at some length the long run growth of consumer credit to explore the widely held belief that somehow consumer credit has risen "too fast for too long." It then turns to demand and supply with chapters discussing neoclassical theories of demand, new behavioral economics, and evidence on production costs and why consumer credit might seem expensive compared to some other kinds of credit like government finance. This discussion includes review of the economics of risk management and funding sources, as well discussion of the economic theory of why some people might be limited in their credit search, the phenomenon of credit rationing. This examination includes review of issues of risk management through mathematical methods of borrower screening known as credit scoring and financial market sources of funding for offerings of consumer credit. The book then discusses technological change in credit granting. It examines how modern automated information systems called credit reporting agencies, or more popularly "credit bureaus," reduce the costs of information acquisition and permit greater credit availability at less cost. This discussion is followed by examination of the logical offspring of technology, the ubiquitous credit card that permits consumers access to both payments and credit services worldwide virtually instantly. After a chapter on institutions that have arisen to supply credit to individuals for whom mainstream credit is often unavailable, including "payday loans" and other small dollar sources of loans, discussion turns to legal structure and the regulation of consumer credit. There are separate chapters on the theories behind the two main thrusts of federal regulation to this point, fairness for all and financial disclosure. Following these chapters, there is another on state regulation that has long focused on marketplace access and pricing. Before a final concluding chapter, another chapter focuses on two noncredit marketplace products that are closely related to credit. The first of them, debt protection including credit insurance and other forms of credit protection, is economically a complement. The second product, consumer leasing, is a substitute for credit use in many situations, especially involving acquisition of automobiles. This chapter is followed by a full review of consumer bankruptcy, what happens in the worst of cases when consumers find themselves unable to repay their loans. Because of the importance of consumer credit in consumers' financial affairs, the intended audience includes anyone interested in these issues, not only specialists who spend much of their time focused on them. For this reason, the authors have carefully avoided academic jargon and the mathematics that is the modern language of economics. It also examines the psychological, sociological, historical, and especially legal traditions that go into fully understanding what has led to the demand for consumer credit and to what the markets and institutions that provide these products have become today.
Book Synopsis The Overworked American by : Juliet Schor
Download or read book The Overworked American written by Juliet Schor and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 1993-03-24 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pathbreaking book explains why, contrary to all expectations, Americans are working harder than ever. Juliet Schor presents the astonishing news that over the past twenty years our working hours have increased by the equivalent of one month per year—a dramatic spurt that has hit everybody: men and women, professionals as well as low-paid workers. Why are we—unlike every other industrialized Western nation—repeatedly ”choosing” money over time? And what can we do to get off the treadmill?
Book Synopsis The Overspent American by : Juliet B. Schor
Download or read book The Overspent American written by Juliet B. Schor and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1999-04-07 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Overspent American explores why so many of us feel materially dissatisfied, why we work staggeringly long hours and yet walk around with ever-present mental "wish lists" of things to buy or get, and why Americans save less than virtually anyone in the world. Unlike many experts, Harvard economist Juliet B. Schor does not blame consumers' lack of self-discipline. Nor does she blame advertisers. Instead she analyzes the crisis of the American consumer in a culture where spending has become the ultimate social art.
Book Synopsis Powerful Exhibit Marketing by : Barry Siskind
Download or read book Powerful Exhibit Marketing written by Barry Siskind and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-02-23 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete guide to successful trade shows and exhibitions Trade shows, consumer shows, product launches, sporting events, and other opportunities to interact face-to-face with customers have become an important part of the marketing mix. Recent studies show that the percentage of the total marketing communications budget spent on event marketing ranged from over 9% to a staggering 29%. In 2003, North America alone hosted over 13,000 trade and consumer shows, each one with hundreds of exhibitors, and thousands of visitors. Beyond traditional trade shows, there are countless other opportunities for exhibitors to interact with their customers directly and improve the bottom line, such as mall displays, corporate events, road shows, and permanent displays. Well chosen and executed events can shorten the sales cycle significantly and put you miles ahead of the competition, but you need to have an exhibit plan that's well thought out, organized, and executed. While some large organizations have a dedicated exhibit staff, often the role of exhibit management lands on the desk of an unsuspecting, overworked, or unwilling sales or marketing person who needs to get results from their exhibit investment, but doesn't know where to start. The Power of Exhibit provides the step-by-step advice you need to exhibit successfully. This definitive guide to trade shows and other event marketing shows how to set objectives, budget for your event and measure its success in ROI, choose the right show and find the right audience, turn leads into business, design booths, work the show, gather information and intelligence, and much more.
Download or read book Work + Life written by Cali Williams Yost and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-12-28 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The empowering new 3-step guide to combining work and life strategically, creatively, and successfully. The message is simple: Work doesn't have to be all or nothing. There are countless combinations of balancing work and life between these extremes. People can establish boundaries and change the way work fits into their lives, in a way that's good for employees and employers. Work+Life provides the tools to adjust the "work" portion of life in order to have more time and/or energy for personal responsibilities and interests. Even a small change can make a big difference. Industry expert Cali Yost has been working with people on all sides of the issue: employees and managers at companies such as General Electric/NBC, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceuticals, and Ernst & Young, and EAPs nationwide that help companies help their employees. They all say the same thing--Work+Life is the missing piece of the puzzle, providing readers with invaluable work life balance tips and putting them on the cutting edge of the workplace revolution.
Download or read book Do Nothing written by Celeste Headlee and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A welcome antidote to our toxic hustle culture of burnout.”—Arianna Huffington “This book is so important and could truly save lives.”—Elizabeth Gilbert “A clarion call to work smarter [and] accomplish more by doing less.”—Adam Grant We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? Despite our constant search for new ways to optimize our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can’t we just take a break? In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won’t find what we’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost—we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile. Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It’s time to reverse the trend that’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thrive.
Book Synopsis Take Back Your Time by : John De Graaf
Download or read book Take Back Your Time written by John De Graaf and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2003-08-31 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is timed to publicize Take Back Your Time Day on October 24, 2003, this date intended to highlight that Americans typically work nine weeks longer than Western Europeans. The collection comprises 30 essays by people like Cecile Andrews, author of Circle of Simplicity; Kirk Warren Brown, psychology, U. of Rochester; David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World; Christine Owens of the AFL-CIO; and Camilla Fox of the Animal Protection Institute in Sacramento (Ms. Fox argues that overwork means neglect of pets). Other contributions include short essays (with even shorter editorial introductions) addressing such topics as making the right pitch to supervisors for reduced time, "overemployment" (being forced to work longer than one wants), and overwork's impact on community and the environment. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Book Synopsis Overworked and Overwhelmed by : Scott Eblin
Download or read book Overworked and Overwhelmed written by Scott Eblin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-10-13 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leverage mindful awareness and intention to achieve better outcomes Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative offers practical insights for the executive, manager or professional who feels like their RPM is maxed out in the red zone. By making the concepts and practices of mindfulness simple, practical and applicable, this book offers actionable hope for today's overworked and overwhelmed professional. New research shows that the smartphone equipped professional is connected to work 72 hours a week. Forty eight percent of Americans report that their stress level is up and that the number one source of stress is the job pressure of a 24/7 world. What's the alternative? Top leadership coach and educator Scott Eblin offers one in Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative. While mindfulness is one of the "Top Ten Trends for 2014 and Beyond," many professionals think it's just too hard to give it a try. In this book, Eblin shows that mindfulness that makes a difference doesn't require meditating like a Buddhist monk. Overworked and Overwhelmed is a handbook for more mindful work and living that offers: "Must know" mindfulness basics that today's professional needs to thrive in a 24/7 world. Inspiring examples of mindfulness in action from dozens of leaders ranging from a U.S. Coast Guard Commandant to the CEO of Hilton Worldwide. A self assessment for readers to understand how they perform at their best. Simple routines to reduce stress and sustain peak performance. A personal planning framework for creating the outcomes that matter most at home, at work and in the community. Even small increases in mindfulness can lead to big changes in productivity and quality of life for the overworked and overwhelmed professional. Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative is a guide for doing just that.
Download or read book Malled written by Caitlin Kelly and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-04-14 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One woman's midcareer misadventures in the absurd world of American retail. After losing her job as a journalist and the security of a good salary, Caitlin Kelly was hard up for cash. When she saw that The North Face-an upscale outdoor clothing company-was hiring at her local mall, she went for an interview almost on a whim. Suddenly she found herself, middle-aged and mid-career, thrown headfirst into the bizarre alternate reality of the American mall: a world of low-wage workers selling overpriced goods to well-to-do customers. At first, Kelly found her part-time job fun and reaffirming, a way to maintain her sanity and sense of self-worth. But she describes how the unexpected physical pressures, the unreasonable dictates of a remote corporate bureaucracy, and the dead-end career path eventually took their toll. As she struggled through more than two years at the mall, despite surgeries, customer abuse, and corporate inanity, Kelly gained a deeper understanding of the plight of the retail worker. In the tradition of Nickel and Dimed, Malled challenges our assumptions about the world of retail, documenting one woman's struggle to find meaningful work in a broken system.
Book Synopsis Dreams of the Overworked by : Christine M. Beckman
Download or read book Dreams of the Overworked written by Christine M. Beckman and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Book Synopsis The Tiny House Movement by : Tracey Harris
Download or read book The Tiny House Movement written by Tracey Harris and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tiny House Movement: Challenging Consumer Culture features in-depth interviews with movement residents, builders, and advocates, as well as the author’s insights from her fieldwork of living tiny. In it, we learn how the movement is challenging consumerism, overwork, and environmental destruction and facilitating a more meaningful understanding of home. This book highlights that the tiny house movement is more than a lifestyle choice and that the movement challenges the consumerist lifestyle. In Canada and the United States, we are taught that bigger is better and that constant growth in our personal wealth, accumulation, and in the economy is a sign of our success. We sacrifice well-being and life satisfaction because of our relationship with ‘stuff.’ This leads to personal debt and unsustainability in our relationships, communities, and the environment. This is the first book to examine the tiny house movement as a challenge to consumer culture by demonstrating its potential to offer individual, collective, and societal change.
Download or read book Work Time written by Cynthia L. Negrey and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Work Time is a sociological overview of a complex web of relations that shapes much of our experience of work and life yet often goes without critical examination. Cynthia Negrey examines work time past and present, exploring structural economic change and the gender division of labor to ask: what are the historical, cultural, public policy, and business sources of current work-time practices? Topics addressed include work-time reduction in the US culminating in the 40-hour statute of 1938, recent trends in annual and weekly hours, overtime, part-time work, temporary employment, work-family integration, and international comparisons. She focuses on the US in a global context and explores how a new political economy of work time is taking shape. This book brings together existing knowledge from sociology, anthropology, history, labor economics, and family studies to answer its central question and will change the way upper-level students think about the time we devote to work.
Download or read book Pressed for Time written by Judy Wajcman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The technologically tethered, iPhone-addicted figure is an image we can easily conjure. Most of us complain that there aren't enough hours in the day and too many e-mails in our thumb-accessible inboxes. This widespread perception that life is faster than it used to be is now ingrained in our culture, and smartphones and the Internet are continually being blamed. But isn't the sole purpose of the smartphone to give us such quick access to people and information that we'll be free to do other things? Isn't technology supposed to make our lives easier? In Pressed for Time, Judy Wajcman explains why we immediately interpret our experiences with digital technology as inexorably accelerating everyday life. She argues that we are not mere hostages to communication devices, and the sense of always being rushed is the result of the priorities and parameters we ourselves set rather than the machines that help us set them. Indeed, being busy and having action-packed lives has become valorized by our productivity driven culture. Wajcman offers a bracing historical perspective, exploring the commodification of clock time, and how the speed of the industrial age became identified with progress. She also delves into the ways time-use differs for diverse groups in modern societies, showing how changes in work patterns, family arrangements, and parenting all affect time stress. Bringing together empirical research on time use and theoretical debates about dramatic digital developments, this accessible and engaging book will leave readers better versed in how to use technology to navigate life's fast lane.
