Charlottesville Words

‘What is it you want to buy?’ the Sheep said at last, looking up for a moment from her knitting.`I don’t QUITE know yet,’ Alice said, very gently. I should like to look all round me first, if I might.’`You may look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like,’ said the Sheep: `but you can’t look ALL round you — unless you’ve got eyes at the back of your head.’

But these, as it happened, Alice had NOT got: so she contented herself with turning round, looking at the shelves as she came to them.

The shop seemed to be full of all manner of curious things — but the oddest part of it all was, that whenever she looked hard at any shelf, to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was always quite empty: though the others round it were crowded as full as they could hold.

`Things flow about so here!’ she said at last in a plaintive tone, after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box, and was always in the shelf next above the one she was looking at. `And this one is the most provoking of all — but I’ll tell you what — ‘ she added, as a sudden thought struck her, `I’ll follow it up to the very top shelf of all. It’ll puzzle it to go through the ceiling, I expect!’

But even this plan failed: the `thing’ went through the ceiling as quietly as possible, as if it were quite used to it.

Alex Frankel‘s role models as a boy were adventurers like Ernest Shackleton, not paper-shufflers like Tom Rath. He dreamed of “traveling to far-off locales and crossing mountain ranges,” not selling overpriced coffee to spoiled cubical jockeys. So it’s not surprising that he chose journalism as his profession, one that let him set his own terms. Many of us have those dreams, but not the means or courage to fulfill them. If, like millions of people, you get up every day and go to a nine-to-five job that more or less bores and frustrates you so that you can pay the mortgage and put food on the table, you might at first wonder what the big deal is about Punching In, Frankel’s expedition into the wilds of corporate front-line culture.

Yet despite his footloose lifestyle, Frankel grew deeply curious about the work that most Americans take for granted as their lot in life: schlepping packages, folding sweaters, selling computer accessories, renting cars. Like any good journalist, he decided to investigate, and he starts with a company he’s had his eye on for some time: UPS.

It’s exciting at first. After donning the coveted brown uniform, Frankel feels like he’s in a movie. He sees himself as part of a global force: “We were part of a far-reaching, high-tech, and no-nonsense service industry that allowed the city to connect to the larger world.” A few days later, bored, tired, and sore, he’s trying to decide on the best way to quit.

Because of his lack of familiarity with the world of ordinary work, Frankel is often unintentionally funny. At least, I don’t think he meant me to actually laugh out loud at this passage, describing his work at a Gap store:

Because I’m someone who needs more quantifiable and meaningful signs of achievement, walking around looking for stacks of shirts to refold neither came naturally to me nor satisfied me. I’m usually one who excels at hard, repetitive tasks, but there was something ridiculous about constantly folding shirts that were constantly being unfolded.

All you mothers reading this are laughing with me, aren’t you?

Frankel infiltrates five corporate cultures in all: UPS, Gap, Starbucks, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, and the Apple Store. Many of his observations intrigued me. For instance, sometimes it’s the employees who appear to be the real customers of a company. Enterprise managers devote hours of training time to selling their staff on the concept of “career advancement,” with the effect that the employees work long hours for short wages in hopes of breaking into management ranks themselves someday. Other times, the friendly, welcoming atmosphere mandated by the employee handbook is hard to achieve. Frankel comes to despise his Starbucks clients:

As days turn into weeks at Starbucks, instead of bonding with my customers or even getting to know them, I felt more alienated. I began to loathe them as they treated themselves to the products we offered. The individualized orders and particulars so many customers seemed to cherish — having a coffee handmade just so — struck me as a societal illness underwritten by corporate greed.

If it’s a societal illness, it’s not confined to Starbucks customers. The engine of a service economy is the manufacture of desire. Tell the customer what he wants, then fall all over yourself to give it to him. Fold and refold those ever-receding objects of desire. Cash in and repeat.

Filed under: authors, books, reading Tagged: | Alex Frankel, Apple Store, Enterprise, Gap, Punching In, service economy, Starbucks, UPS, work