[inaudible conversations] hello everyone. I think there is a few more seats if we want to fill up in the front. My name is nick and i work here at powerhouse arena and i think i want to thank you all for being here tonight for the launch of on the clock by emily. Please give her a round of applause. [applause] and we would also like to welcome jessica who will be joining emily on the stage or in the chairs. So powerhouse, where an independent bookstore so events like this help us stay here in changing neighborhoods. I encourage everyone to buy a book if you do not have one and im sure emily will be happy to sign them. So tonight we will hear a little reading from a book, conversation, q a and then the worst job reading. Before i bring them up let me read some bio. Emily guendelsberger has worked at the Philadelphia Weekly in the Philadelphia Daily News and contributed to the philadelphia inquirer, Washington Post, political magazine and vice, and jessica is a producer of nomad lynn, awardwinning journalist who focuses on subcultures in the dark corner of the economy. She has written for harpers magazine, New York Times and Washington Post and also teaches at Columbia School for journalism. Give them a round of applause. [applause] also, i know there is a couple people who meant to because they heard dan ginsberg for ten years, he still said my name wrong on the podcast. So do not feel bad about that even a tiny bit. I am going to start with the reading and thank you all for putting up with the broken ac. This one is from amazon. How many people have read this book or know what its about . Good, making sure. When my alarm goes off for my second day of thinking, its the worst my body has felt in my entire life. Im not unfamiliar with pain. As a kid away for years of complicated surgeries on my legs followed by nappy physical therapy, i broken bones and capacity migraines, playing rugby i was matched up against the woman named rhonda, it felt like those hit by garbage truck. Everything hurt. My feet are the worst but my back, shoulder arms and neck feel terrible too. My hips, knees and thighs ache. My right wrist, hand and fingers from operating the scanner gun. My right elbow aches from pulling open hundreds of doors. I even have a throbbing headache. Ive grown involuntarily as a force myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed. The carpet feels like is made out of knives but it force myself to win upstairs to the shower. Even before i make coffee as well a double dose of advil and pop a bottle in my purse for later. I will need it. The name of the full Moment Center i worked in, i popped advil like candy all day not having to bother to track with my last dose was. I dont talk to anyone at break or lunch, im too tired. My head pounds and i feel old. By the end of my shift im almost staggering from the stabbing pain in my feet and tried to lose the weight on the cart as i lose it. The next morning, i wake up feeling even worse. The day goes by in a blur of pain and exhaustion but i do remember checking my bracelet that i snuck in with curiosity at the end of the day to find it on the recorded about 7 miles. This time i am proud that it is wrong. It kept swinging back and forth because my hands are pushing the cart. Whatever, who cares. I fell asleep and my close again. The next morning, i somehow wake up feeling even worse. I make it through lunch but an hour later a stabbing pain in my feet has spread up through my legs and hips and every time the scanner has me swat entrance want him to get from a lower drawer its harder to force myself back up. Finally i do a full squat to retrieve an item from a bottom drawer. My body says stand up i order my legs. But is fed up with the abuse. Stand up you idiot, my brain screams and i go backwards into a sleeping position but its not happening. I might as well run my feet while im down here. I start to take off my shoes and slightly horrified to find my feet are so swelling there straining my solutions, untying them feel simply good. A simple part is reinforced by my scanner which is notified me and 0 seconds remaining to take my next item. If you think i try to rub life back into my feet how many minutes can i get away with before time algorithm to the manager. It could take 15 minutes to get to a bathroom and back, if i keep it under 15 minutes maybe itll look like a bathroom break. I want to leave this so i do. I realize that this gang gun gps gave me away. I reached for the little bottle of advil and find out im down to my last two. How do the hopper. I consider taking one now and save the other for later but if i cared about future emily i would not give her future stomach ulcers of ibuprofen. I swallowed the pills. Several minutes later my brain goes over my legs. I ho myself to my knees and proceed initially and will to the next stop. Of course the last two advil were off with three hours left on my shift and i curse as a stabbing pain starts up again. Eventually i have to get something from a top shelf and i cannot get back out. This time i almost not off when my back against the corporate shelf. The get up you idiot yelling at myself. The thought of giving fired and giving up is awful. The thought of getting fired and starting this process all over again is awful. The thought of going through more hours without something for the pain is awful. I sit on the floor wayne my awful options into my shock i start to cry crying on the job is a common thing amazon workers regardless of gender. I so wish i had room for all the stories are read and heard but since base is limited here is one example. I worked for a Catering Company contracted by amazon for a thanksgiving meal for every amazon employee for every shift. This was a 24 hour gig each shift had three or four groups the following amazon employees seemed totally unfazed and active this is nothing out of the norm. What are you doing. I desperately tried to put together but the further shame of crying and public didnt work. It only made things worse. Nobody walked by. That is one upside of isolation. Its pretty clear whatever algorithm around the warehouse is indians man and complicated and set to key people getting within speaking distance of one of other. Anns form with people during peak is a very lonely place. I kept people pushing carts. Keeping us isolated makes logistical sense because its so narrow but also limit its opportunity for workplace chatter which im convinced is a goal rather than a side effect. When im sent over to learn packing workspaces are set up at a quarter which makes it impossible to talk. I have been much more productive where i was able to talk to people and not been a journalist either. Of getting up to speed in the agony has kept my mind occupied so far but i can tell the loneliness and boredom are going to be something, whats the word, a problem. A big problem. Wait what was i thinking about again, i jerked away. A few myself beginning to panic. Amount of advil, what am i going to do. Then i remember the painkiller vending machine. Supposedly these are free with a swipe of your id badge which is good because we cant bring our wallets inside. I see other vending machines but the only one im positive i can find is by the standup area of fiveminute walk from where im sitting. Get up i yell at myself, you cannot lose this job. I bring myself to my feet to the staircase but i finally arrived at the vending machine it does not recognize my badge. I beat my forehead against the glass staring in the foil packets. So close. So far. A woman notices me being pathetic and comes over. Let me guess its your first week she says pity in her kentucky drawer. She is middleaged with blue badge and a fulltime amazonian and management. I told her its my third day on training. Will the second days worst than the first and the third worst in the Second Period but its as bad as it gets. If you can make it through the first two weeks it gets easier it really does. She looks sympathetic is the machine not working with the badge, it should. She takes my id and try swiping it. As she tries a few more times every speech i asked about the vending machine which are apparently new. They came in last year after peak. There been problems with ibuprofen zombies outside the Nurses Office to put foot traffic. Because nearly all of them just wanted overthecounter painkillers management installed these vending machines lost her. No more traffic jams and workers get free drugs a short walk away. Winwin. The woman gives up enhancement back my badge whirling her eyes. You could take it and they will fix it for you after work in the meantime what do you want. Swiping her own badge for me. I select ibuprofen and think the woman from the depths of my soul. She smiles and taps the badge on her chest. Everyone with the blue one is right where you are now. I took back my head to swallow the pill. It really does get better, you just have to get used to it. Be careful about overusing those, as they limped back towards the stairs. I had to take four to get the effect of two now. If this were a representation of my months there the next 40 pages would be entirely complaints about constant pain, waking up at 4 00 a. M. , being too tired to talk to anyone, eating a lot of mcdonalds, never seen the sun and passing out the minute i get home from work. Im so exhausted that my husband leaves an entire weeks worth of voicemails before i call him back and the only time we could talk is after i get off work and though i feel bad i lack the energy to hide the fact that calling him feels like another task i have to complete before i can escape. That is pretty nice of them i guess. When i tell him about the painkiller vending machine. He is a very logical thinker, i appreciated the hell out of the advil. But he is wrong. We dont fight a lot especially about dumb stuff, were good about talking through things before they get to fight territory. But today im so tired im too exhausted to drill down, locate the misunderstanding and explain to you can understand what i am thinking. Instead i resent he wont take my word that it is messed up, find the energy i defense but i dont. On a day off, after ive had a rest i apologize imposed the situation as a multiplechoice question. Question, your warehouse workers work 11 and half hour shifts, in order to make wage they have to take overthecounter painkillers multiple times which means regular backups of the medical office. Do you a, peel back the rates, clearly workers are at the physical limits, b, make shifts shorter, see, increase the number or duration of the brakes, d increase staffing at the Nurses Office, e, install vending machines to make english more efficiently. What kind of sociopath goes to eat, thats how amazon is, thinking outside the box. After just one week it is so obvious how ambulance weight outside around so workers with heatstroke can go to the hospital after words seems like a clever solution to anybody. [applause] and, one thing that i wanted to start with the initial title was in the weeds, the changing is on the clock which is a more good idea. The whole point of in the weeds there are two definitions and theres not that much lapse between the definitions. So what is your primary definition of in the weeds . I like this and getting attribute. So i was undercover and we tl was generic, saving money, i got so much of it, i still have little foil packets, i dont think i brought any with me today but if you need i am set up. I did not see one of those its my memorial of which i couldve took some of those ho home. Im a hoarder i collected a lot of stuff. Didnt we i know the intro of the book is in the weeds and the working title of the book. And i love the way that use it. When i think of in the weeds and my own experience as either a time i got fleas as a child because he spent too rich time in the weeds i got fleas. Or when im being aggressive writer in the have to pull me out of the week to get me back on track. But now i no other meetings from reading your book. Comedy people have that definition, the one that youre set on the details, the primary definition . All. The definition the island first which is the one thats my primary definition, i learned being an ice cream scoop or when i was a kid in the waitresses there with a get out of my way im in the weeds, and the weeds with service work in the Restaurant Industry means you are slammed, youre too much work to do that you cannot keep up and youre trying to keep her head above water. How many people have a definition . A lot of people i found have one definition are actually not super aware of the other definition. When i made the transition from service work into journalism, i would go when someone would ask if i wanted to go smoke and had too much to do i would say im in the weeds. And it did not work, people would be confused. So eventually wanted to fit in so i said oh im slammed, i have too much to do. But i found it interesting in the way that this phrase means two Different Things to two different classes of people. I have found the central metaphor for the book in that there are similar misunderstandings between class of what a good job is, what good benefits are, what stresses, what exhaustion is so theres a fundamental disconnect when people who are able to get in the public fear and mostly on the migh whitecollar into thins talk about work stress what it means to them and what a good job is and what about job and what hard work is. They are basically seeking an entirely different language from Service Workers and i do not think either side realizes it but i wrote this book as an attempt to bridge the gap and the people who do have power in this country and probably a lot of them have not ever held a service job to let them know that service work today is much harder then you see and chronically stressful which we will get into in a little bit. I also wanted one of the things i did not realize, a lot of these people have never had a job where the break was not 30 minutes timed by the second and expected to be productive for every single second there on the clock and feel like robots and its so much more stressful than any whitecollar job that i ever had in my life. And i dont think people realize that. Thats what im attempting to do with this book. So you went undercover in three different places, you took three different jobs and wrote about it. Your amazon, call center converged and wrote mcdonalds in san francisco. When we were talking this before coming here talking about how onthejob with both encountering people all of a sudden from an older generation, who are a few steps ahead about the bus. And even though you watch people in my case writing about retirement age people and a lot of them saw everything evaporate into thousand eight and the retirement encasement and low wage jobs, around the treadmill where it looks like they can never retire. At the same time when i would interview them they would say have you been talking to the whiner, have you been talking to the people who cannot just mess up because its hard work but im here to make an honest days living and then they would check down and tell you how they were financially screwed, and how hard the job was. But they had to make that distinction before talking to you, i am not a whiner, i am proud to be a worker but yet it also really sucks. Did you encounter that and how did you deal . All the time. It is really hard for people to complain about things that seem individually to be so small in one of the foundational parts of my life was nickel and dime at the first ice cream scoop job when i learn whats in the weeds. And she did an amazing job of showing how grains of sand are difficult to complain about on their own can build up and crush you. And she made you feel that rather than showing you statistics about each individual grain of sand because like human beings, not particularly quick to deal with. We are a species that thrive on stories and thats how we pass information to the dawn of time and telling each other stories and avoid conference and stuff like that. Whereas, statistics do not get across to people that i found in my 15 years being a journalist. Ive given up trend to do that and that why i did this experience because people dont read things that are not fun and that is not their fault. Who wants to read something that is not fun to read. This is funny. A lot of people sent, why are these people seeing import and timbre case, why are we not joining their crusade . And i said im really tired, people are tired. And when i worked at starbucks we would get slammed and i did not know. But basically a lot of people were in the weeds and a lot of people were doing whatever they could do to psychologically cope. Theres another book about the side effects of appositive psychology in a culture where does anybody know the look on the legal movie, everything is awesome. Did you encounter what i like to call weapon i psychology which puts play into a lot of Big Companies and people say i am not a complainer and i will focus on the positive. Yes, definitely. I see that stuff in the amount of antidepressants people are on and thinking positively and like the equivalent of the ibuprofens vending machines. They are to find that what were doing is making us crazy. And its not satisfying and this is what we can do in the drug that we can take or this is the way we have to change ourselves to adopt to what is being asked of us. Instead of questioning what is being asked of us i guess. Certainly at amazon there was a lot of gorgeous banners all over the place trying to into the amazon spirit. There were a lot of people i met there were very enthusiastic at the time but they work hard, have fun and make history. They were just, i found them very weird but a lot of people did not. When it comes to the thing about the work i and its different from generation to generation. I would take probably older people, i know this is true of my dad is a very solid work ethic. Civic for the country in general. Which is probably the world in general. You can see all of these were defects of chronic stress not just here but in look at yellowjacket, like these are happening in a lot of first world countries. And i thank they are all symptoms of all the same thing which is society realizing, this isnt working anymore. What we do. Now i have to build a new way of thinking of the world from nothing. In this terrifying honestly. That is a really scary way to go about your live. Makes you feel completely out of control. Makes you feel like you know where the rules are. It makes you feel like you dont know what you have to do to be able to feed your family anymore. That is really bad for people. Is challenging given the option of adopting a narrative for yourself and on the one side, letterpress and theres no future here and this is hopeless. Or i am part of building some thing but its hard but were going to do it. It is complicated. You dont w