Barbara Ehrenreich Quote

In fact the mask theme has come up several times in my background reading. Richard Sennett, for example, in The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, and Robert Jackall, in Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate managers, refer repeatedly to the masks that corporate functionaries are required to wear, like actors in an ancient Greek drama. According to Jackall, corporate managers stress the need to exercise iron self-control and to mask all emotion and intention behind bland, smiling, and agreeable public faces. Kimberly seems to have perfected the requisite phoniness and even as I dislike her, my whole aim is to be welcomed into the same corporate culture that she seems to have mastered, meaning that I need to get in the face of my revulsion and overcome it. But until I reach that transcendent point, I seem to be stuck in an emotional space left over from my midteen years: I hate you; please love me.

Barbara Ehrenreich

In fact the mask theme has come up several times in my background reading. Richard Sennett, for example, in The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, and Robert Jackall, in Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate managers, refer repeatedly to the masks that corporate functionaries are required to wear, like actors in an ancient Greek drama. According to Jackall, corporate managers stress the need to exercise iron self-control and to mask all emotion and intention behind bland, smiling, and agreeable public faces. Kimberly seems to have perfected the requisite phoniness and even as I dislike her, my whole aim is to be welcomed into the same corporate culture that she seems to have mastered, meaning that I need to get in the face of my revulsion and overcome it. But until I reach that transcendent point, I seem to be stuck in an emotional space left over from my midteen years: I hate you; please love me.

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About Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich (, AIR-ən-rike; née Alexander; August 26, 1941 – September 1, 2022) was an American author and political activist. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist and the author of 21 books. Ehrenreich was best known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, a memoir of her three-month experiment surviving on a series of minimum-wage jobs. She was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award and the Erasmus Prize.