White-Collar Blues

"Suppose everything went well, and we found ourselves among the lucky few. We behaved ourselves, were good sons and daughters, studied hard and aced one high-stakes test after another, survived demanding schooling and extracurriculars, graduated from top colleges, immediately secured the best corporate jobs in the labor market, and then climbed career ladders and attained higher status positions with higher pay that would allow us to consume more and better. Then what? There is a meritocratic idea of the American Dream - that hard work an achievement will be rewarded with financial success and personal fulfillment - that has taken hold beyond the shores of the United States. Turkey is one such place. The American Dream, Mustafa argues in White-Collar Blues, which has spread far beyond the US and gone global since the 1980s, conflates the pursuit of happiness with striving for financial success and upward social mobility. He examines how this achievement ideology beckons transnationally in the Turkish context, where "making it" has entailed seeking white collar employment at transnational corporations that hail from the Global North. While soaring economic anxiety alongside the globalization of career opportunities in the South popularized this equation of a good life with high-salary corporate jobs, White-Collar Blues reveals the flip side: how fast-track careers can bring about an impoverished life even in so-called "good jobs". Examining how overwork and a lack of fulfillment taint the quality of working life in professional-managerial employment, White-Collar Blues demonstrates how vital it is to have autonomy, derive intrinsic satisfaction, and find meaning in work for a life lived well. Uncovering the hidden costs of sacrificing these essentials for higher pay and status encourages us to revisit our relationships to work-what many of us do with most of our waking hours"-- Provided by publisher.