When Work Doesn't Work Anymore : Women, Work, and Identity

Rating:
Summary: A relevant thought-provoking resource for making changes.
Review: Amongst a historical and social backdrop, Elizabeth McKenna tells her personal story about choices she made in an effort to balance her career and family. She illustrates the diverse choices and experiences of other women to make her point that all working people are asking a similar question about their careers---is this worth the personal sacrifice---despite marital status, being parents or non-parents, race, and/or age.

This book goes further to make suggestions for making changes to the old corporate environment that has such a strong hold on who we are and what is expected of us. Traditionally, women have been the "caregivers" but more and more men are asking for many of the same things women want in the world of work.

As the subtitle suggests, McKenna discusses how social expectations can have an impact upon our identity as women [playing by men's rules in the corporate world], wives and/or mothers.

I found "When Work Doesn't Work Anymore" compelling due to my desire to stop the chaos in my life and spend more time doing what I believe is most important. McKenna summarized what I had been feeling during the past four years working in a super conservative environment with little pay-off.

This is not a anti-feminist book. McKenna does not advocate leaving work as the only means of solving inner turmoil or balancing many roles. Rather, she explores radical and moderate changes people have made and how those changes contributed in both positive and negative ways to how they feel about themselves and their approach to work.

If anything, McKenna poses thought-provoking questions and maintains that holding to one's personal values is the best choice.

Rating:
Summary: This Book Set Me Free
Review: As an executive coach and psychologist, I have provided this book to several of my clients. The overwhelming feedback is positive. Many have changed their lives (or at least their perspectives about work) as a result of further exploring the themes in this text. Most comment -- "I am not alone. Many people feel the way I feel." This book should be a business best seller. My hats off to the author for her research.

Rating:
Summary: This Book Doesn't Really Work Either
Review: As I read this book, it occurred to me that Ms. McKenna seems only to be talking to women like herself who apparently come from upper class, successful families, and who have had great educations and connections to hit the ground running with promising, fast-track jobs. Had she been an immigrant, or someone from a less privileged background, she may have been a little less whiney. I was annoyed with paragraph after paragrph of "we" grew up believing this, and "we" went to school and learned that, and "we" entered the work force and accomplished this. I'm about the same age as McKenna and female, and that sure wasn't my experience. After working my way through college in a paper mill, I finally got a job-- slinging hash! So when I finally landed a job in New York City and started my own meteoric rise, I was probably a little more mercenary. I was in it for the money. PERIOD. I had no illusions about getting satisfaction for my soul with (hello?) corporate life! McKenna just seems naive to me. A poor little rich girl.

At the risk of sounding like a 60s radical, doesn't she know that corporations --and our capitalistic society-- is based on the exploitation of people and other organizations? Of course you're unhappy at the end of the day! My advice: Make as much money as you can, then get out before they steal your soul!

Finally, and one of my biggest issues with this book, is-- Why does she target this book & her ideas toward women? Men can feel the same dissatisfaction that the author does, and would probably like to chuck it all as much as she does. They just don't whine about it as much as McKenna. She does the battle for equality of the sexes a disservice by defining this as a "women's problem" and by moaning that corporate life is only for men with wives who will keep the home fires burning.

Rating:
Summary: Work versus personal interests, repetitively.
Review: Author Elizabeth Perle McKenna brings up some good points regarding how typical work situations in the US often require too much personal sacrifice. Particularly, this is the case for working women who often juggle more family responsibilies than men in addition to working full time.

Conversely, McKenna notes that the other extreme of not working at all can provoke a loss of identity and feeling of lost purpose in life.

She writes about her experience in both arenas. The first, overwork at her high-powered publishing position, produced exhaustion and little energy for family, home and community. After quitting, she developed an identity crisis.

After this period, the author created for herself a different kind of working life by writing this book. Presumably this work provides a sense of purpose as well as the flexibility she was unable to obtain in her previous job. She interviews other women (Gloria Steinem, Anna Quindlan and some other big names) and a few men ! who relate similar experiences. Finally, she advocates combining efforts with other women to demand more humane working conditions from corporate America.

The main flaw with this book was the repetition. The book would be much more palatable if it were excerpted down to half the number of pages. (But, ironically, that would make McKenna's new job of writing books more demanding!)

Rating:
Summary: For those of us who feel like "square pegs in round holes"
Review: Brillant, could not put it down. It solidified all the feelings I had been having about work and a career and wondering which direction I should go (which was not in the same direction as everyone one else!), and made me feel normal again with a great view to my future work.

Rating:
Summary: For those of us who feel like "square pegs in round holes"
Review: Brillant, could not put it down. It solidified all the feelings I had been having about work and a career and wondering which direction I should go (which was not in the same direction as everyone one else!), and made me feel normal again with a great view to my future work.

Rating:
Summary: This Book Set Me Free
Review: I had a baby in early 1997 and have been struggling since then with juggling my high-powered executive level job with my family and my own needs. This book was the catalyst in my life for making a change to a low-pressure, individual contributor job which allows me to flex my hours on a daily basis and doesn't penalize me for wanting a life outside of work. My next step is to go to part time work, which is what will really fit with my goals for my life. I would never have taken the risk of jumping off the fast track if I hadn't read this book

Rating:
Summary: perfect timing
Review: This book came along at the perfect instant in my life...having been stuck and miserable in an abusive health care job situation for months and months, I couldn't figure out why, since I am financially independent, I was still torturing myself going to work in the OR (the ultimate abusive job) This book helped to crystallize my scattered thinking, and I was able to look at the job situation as an abusive relationship and finally get out. Last night I saw a number of my former colleagues atr a baby shower and could honestly say I don't miss it at all and that quitting was the best thing I have ever done for myself. I will also admit to my good fortune in being financially independent and to having had the good sense to begin my second career as a massotherapist several years ago. The identity issues and the "What will I do every day" issues are key. I am passing this book on and on and on to anyone who will read it. The workplace will have to change if enough of us blow it off.