Description
Book SynopsisSurveying the new culture of corporate employment and unemployment.
Trade Review"A Company of One is a commendable addition to the growing literature on the New Economy. Carrie Lane makes her contribution by focusing on the ideologies and internal thought processes of workers affected by tumultuous employment and the emphasis on career managementrather than just on the documentation of those trends... A Company of One is smoothly writtenwell organized and a pleasure to read... Lane accomplishes what she set out to dowhich was to detail how individuals wrap their minds around tumultuous employment and march on." —Kathryn DensbergerUniversity of Richmond,
* The British Sociological Association *
In A Company of One, Carrie Lane reveals ways in which unemployed technology workers seek to manage the uncharted territory between jobs. She documents the strategies these workers use and analyzes the cultural logic through which they understand unemployment. Her analysis reveals the contradictions of an ideology of independence that obscures structural disadvantage and impedes recognition of broader relations of power.... Historically and geographically situated, this book helps to explain the resilience of individualism. Ideas about work, Lane shows, can withstand considerable challenge and yet continue to inform both meaning and action.
-- Debra Osnowitz * British Journal of Industrial Relations *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Fortitude, Faith, and the Free Market
1. Silicon Prairie
2. A Company of One
3. The Hardest Job You'll Ever Have
4. Rituals of Unemployment
5. Man Enough to Let My Wife Support Me
EpilogueNotes
Bibliography
Index
