My Job, My Self Book

"There's no more hiding after reading My Job, My Self. I'm a workaholic just like Al Gini and the rest of us who answer the question 'How are you?' with a remark about our workload. It's time to start living -- not working -- my life." --Julie Danis, The Chicago Tribune When Al Gini sat on the steps of his Brooklyn home as a boy, he noticed the neighborhood men talked only of one thing: work. They bemoaned it, complained about it, dissected and decried it. They also bragged and boasted about their work, extolling their efforts and responsibilities on the job. Their work defined them for better or for worse. It was as life-confirming as it was enervating, as purposeful as it was consuming. In My Job My Self, Gini plumbs a wide range of statistics, interviews with workers, surveys from employers and employees, and his own experiences and memories, to explore why we work, how our work affects us, and what we will become as a nation of workers. Arguing that adults require work in the same way that children need play, Gini views work as a fundamental part of our humanity whose purpose is not merely to generate products but to produce emotionally healthy people. A lively, humorous, unconventional mediation on the nature of work and identity -- with allusions to literature, economics, history, philosophy and psychology -- My Job, My Self speaks to every employed person who has yet to understand the costs and challenges of a lifetime of labor.Read More