Convenience Store Woman
reviewdate:
Sep 3 2019
isn:
9780802165800
Tagged with work
From the Corner of the Oval
reviewdate:
Mar 23 2018
isn:
9780525509127
book type:
The Devil Wears Prada
I learned that TDWP is someone I work with's favorite movie, so of course I had to watch it. Twice. Since the movie was based on a book, of course I had to read it. Just once so far; I'm waiting on the sequel to become available electronically at my library.
reviewdate:
Jun 27 2016
isn:
9780385510912
book type:
recommendation:
Swimming in the Steno Pool: a Retro Guide to Making It in the Office
I can’t remember how I found this book--review in Bust? It seems like a Bust type of book--but I know I was interested because the author was a zinester in the 90s. (Mystery date : one gal's guide to good stuff Zines P4755m) It reads like a long magazine article on the history of women’s office support work: typing, stenography, secretaryship, written in a personal tone, through a feminist lens, and with enough endnotes to convince you of its authority. It is accompanied by lots of sidebars and historical photos and ads and a lengthy index (♥).
Quotations:
re: 19th century typewriter, “There was also a question of etiquette, which deemed handwriting more polite than mechanical type. ‘I do not think it necessary . . . to have your letters to me taken to the printers’ and set up like a handbill. I will be able to read your handwriting, and I am deeply chagrined to think you thought such a course necessary,’ read the handwritten reply to a typed missive sent by an early adopter in the insurance industry.” p.17-18
re: feminism and working class, “In fact, what the Miss America protestors should have thrown into the Freedom Trash Can was a coffee pot, because when it came to gender politics in the office, the battle was fought over coffee--and who should make it.” p.200 (citing a Fortune article “Beyond the Liberated Secretary.”
reviewdate:
Jun 21 2011
isn:
978-0393338546
author gender:
book type:
medium:
recommendation:
Help, the
I'm wary of wildly popular Oprah-ish books, admittedly not because I'm afraid they'll be bad, but because I'm afraid they'll be good. It would be bad for my literary cred if I embraced every manipulative mass appeal tearjerker that came along! As it turns out, The Help is worthy of adulation. It's a brave book, written by a white author about the black servant/white employer relationship in 1960s Mississippi.
"I was scared, a lot of the time, that I was crossing a terrible line, writing in the voice of a black person. I was afraid I would fail to describe a relationship that was so intensely influential in my life, so loving, so grossly stereotyped in American history and literature." p.450
reviewdate:
Apr 13 2010
isn:
978-0-399-15534-5
author gender:
book type:
medium:
recommendation:
Status Update, October 2009
In case anyone cares, or maybe just for the record, I'm on a part-time sabbatical this year. I had the option of taking six months off completely or a year off part-time. PT seemed the wiser choice, productivity-wise. Plus we're in transition at Barnard--the College and the Library, so being around a couple days a week seemed like a good idea.
Barnard Library seeks Information Services Technologist
The bad news at Barnard is that some really great people have accepted retirement incentives. The good news is that we get to keep their positions. I hope we get someone with imagination and gumption in this newly created Information Services Technologist position. A coupla things...
Be a Professional Bitch
Bitch magazine is looking for a Program Director.
Great publication, great town (Portland, OR), great people, living wage ($36,680*) and medical/dental/vision. I'm half tempted to apply for it myself, not that I'm qualified.