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The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism
by Richard Sennett
from W. W. Norton & Company
Customer Reviews:
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Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0 
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Should have been better. 
This should have been a better book. It focuses too much on downsizing (which is important, but is a different topic) and not enough on how actual people experience work inside corporations. I don't really disagree with anything Sennett says, but would like a richer insight into how people are actually working these days. Fear of layoffs is part of it, but how work today impacts people socially and psychologically is equally important. I'd recommend Lilian Rubin's Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working-Class... more info
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How Instability and Superficiality Destroy the Inner Meaning of Work 
Transient consultants have replaced entrenched bureaucrats. Teams and teamwork have replaced adversarial labor/management and individual ego-driven rivalries. Knowledge gleaned from marketing studies has replaced knowledge gained from every day experience. New machines have made the once complex extremely simple, and the once dangerous safely sanitized. Companies that were once entrenched ethnic enclaves are now look more closely like America.
While not totally disapproving, the author looks at these... more info
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fight against "de-characterization" 
An important book, in which some of the undesirable effects of the ways our every-day working lives are organized are put under scrutiny and criticized. All those who want to continue to work with real human beings rather than with post-modern robots should read this book.
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Sympathetic to workers' problems but you may find little new here 
A doctor warned me once that people weren't built for rapid mentally jumping from one thing to another and that hi-tech companies tended to use people up. Sennett's warning came quite late.
Sennett's findings seem well intended but not surprising at all to anyone who has worked in hi-tech. I suspect many other workers have noticed the consequences of the "new" capitalism. Similarly, there seems nothing wrong with trying to simplify what is happening by noting a few key characteristics and values.... more info
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