BAIT AND SWITCH

Intrigued by reports of increasing poverty and despair within America'swhite-collar corporate workforce, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to infiltratetheir world as an undercover reporter and learn about the problems facingmiddle-class executives at first hand. Thinking she had set herself apretty easy challenge, the author was quite unprepared for what happenednext. Ehrenreich found herself entering a shadowy world of Internet jobsearches, lonely networking events and costly career-coaching sessions, aworld in which 'professional' mentors and trainers offer pop-psychologyand self-help mantras to desperate would-be employees. Her story is animportant one - poignant and blackly funny - that delivers a stark warningabout the future that faces corporate employees everywhere and calls forcollective action to guard against it.