Summarize and reference if needed
to the test generates a lot of the objective experience of work," he told me from his office at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "The self-help industry convinces us they have a secret, and they will help us become the sort of person employers are looking for. We're warned that you can't just pretend to have that passion for the job, you have to make yourself feel it. What this means for many American workers is that any urge to distance yourself from your job identity is undermined by what it takes just to get the job." This edict applies not only to the sort of high-paying white-collar jobs sought by people like Gorelick but also to the basic entry-level jobs sought by recent graduates. Where I teach, students are advised to prepare for interviews with an "elevator speech" that at once showers praise on their potential employer and reflects their ability to conform to the company's presiding "corporate culture." Concocting such "interpersonal chemistry" requires a substantial outlay of what Sharone calls "hard emotional labor" to sustain "a whole new persona." This includes meticulously crafting a rhetorical style that projects a passion for career goals that match the objectives of the employer. Job seekers must portray themselves as team players also willing to take initiative while at the same time conveying an undying enthusiasm for whatever service or product the company delivers. In the course of playing this "chemistry game," many applicants experience a decline in feelings of self-worth-blaming not the job or the employer or the system but themselves for any failure. Many workers with whom I spoke-machinists, waiters, chemists-ascribed their difficulties on the job, or, especially, in getting a job, to personal failings rather than to economic forces beyond their control. Sharone told me this was tyzeal: in his surveys, asked whether "something is wrong with me," 84 percent of unemployed American job seekers responded yes. The idea that we must sell ourselves-not merely our time, effort, and skills-to get and keep a job is so commonplace in the United States that it's become a subject for parody. In an outtake of the hit television series Girls, Hannah Horvarth, played by Lena Dunham, enters a bakery where she has previously dropped off a resume. Equipped with a freshly minted-but apparently useless-college degree from a prestigious liberal arts college, she is clearly desperate for a job. As she approaches the manager, he winces. "I'm sorry, the position is filled," he says, pointing to a newly hired employee spreading frosting on a cupcake in what appears to be a state of
