Job Hopper: The Checkered Career of a Down-Market Dilettante

by Ayun Halliday

Book Overview

If it's true that the average worker will hold an average of seven jobs over the course of a lifetime, Ayun Halliday is anything but average. In her brief thirty-something years, Halliday has managed... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1580051308
• ISBN13: 9781580051309
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Seal Press (CA)
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Close one

This book hits ever so close to home and the "what if" thoughts that flash through my mind once in a while when I fall into crazy reveries while slogging through the slower parts of my, albeit awesome, job. I too was a theatre nerd (but, you know, the cool kind) and spent a short period after college exploring the same path as Ayun: half-heartedly working crap jobs by day, and doing experimental theatre [......] Fortunately, my low tolerance for audition rejections and the sickening appeal of paid vacations, forced me to bail on "the life" a mere 18 months later and I became a willing tool of the Man for nine surprisingly swift years (now I'm a used car salesman in Little Rock, jealous?). Seriously, I loved (and deeply commiserated with) this book. You just can't make this stuff up. Believe me, I tried. Even if you didn't come a whisker away from this lifestyle like I did, the stories will draw you in, make you shake your head and wonder how some people get through the day without being arrested or accidentally killing themselves. These are sociological findings that college professors pay good money for, not to mention being hilarious. Ayun is a wizard at taking all forms of misery, and the jackholes that play supporting roles, and making it funny. This is something I'm put in the position of doing all too often, so I know it ain't easy. Good one Ayun.

fun stuff

What a fun idea for a book! I love the comedic tour through various jobs, some of which I have held (and in the same area, since I graduated from the same University, albeit a decade or so later.) Classic Ayun Halliday style is applied to her adventures through the world of the classic jobs of youth. Humor, honesty, candor, fun, rollicking storytelling; all that you'd expect from this author.

Hilarious, As Usual

Ayun Halliday is one of my favorite writers. I've been a fan ever since reading her East Village Inky zine years ago, which she continues to publish. I've also gotten to see her read live, and she is one of the most lively readers I have ever seen. Anyway, this excellent collection of stories about her various jobs is charming, honest, eye-opening, touching (especially the story of her job at Dave's Italian Kitchen), and most importantly, hilarious. The picture of Ayun at the end of her introduction is a perfect represenation of how great this book is: It's nostalgic, a bit-crazed, and funny. My favorite story is the last one, about Ayun's experiences as a massage therapist. Very revealing about the nature of the job, about customers, and about one particualar boss... Quite a character. I highly recommend this book.

Remembering the not so good old days

Ayun Halliday scores again with this funny and thought provoking book about her 20's (+ some 30's!) which seem to ominously echo my own (artist not actor although the money scrambling looks a little too familiar). I was introduced to her writing by The Big Rumpus which is a must have for any formerly "cool" person who looks in the mirror one day to discover that they are indeed the Mommy, and "cool" is a distant memory. There have been so many bad jobs in my past and Job Hopper was at times so realistic I could almost smell the bad sour bar smell when I was the opening bartender and remember how the shift stretched before me and seemed unikely ever to end. Everyone has had a temp/restaurant/other (the scariest)job that we have tried to forget but the best thing about this book is that she is able to remind you, in her trademark hilarious way, that those days that we remember as being carefree and easy were sometimes just awful! But it is so funny to remember! I laughed and I cringed and most of all I enjoyed my trip down my own memory lane and remembered all the things I may have never recalled but for reading this book.It made me really appreciate not only the good old days but the current "much easier even with three kids" ones-sans crazy kitchen help and rent worries. Life is crazy and so are its phases but Ayun sure can help us see the humor in it!

Ayun's World

Ayun Halliday's newest book is about her Ms. adventures in the semi-unskilled job market while in her twenties. Funny, frenetic and sometimes fastidious, she gives the details of roughly fifteen work situations: the highs and lows - mostly lows. Workers are indifferent, bosses are incapable and customers are incorrigible. In all fairness, I should state that I am in this book as one of Ayun's former employers, which is like appearing as a rabbi in a book about the Spanish Inquisition written by Torquemada. I'm not quite sure that everything Ayun says about me is the truth but more importantly, I'm not quite sure if everything she says about herself is exactly true. Mostly, she implies that she is incompetent, lazy and goofy. She is just the opposite. I worked with her over fifteen years ago and even back then when she was in and then just out of college, she appeared to be the perfect everywoman. A good and conscientious waitress, she was alive and fascinated with everything. She seemed like the perfect student/ actress/ literature nut/ politically sensitive party girl. Perhaps it was this perfection which sent her cascading from job to job in search of the ideal situation. When she finally does find a position that gives her happiness, she finds it in her heart to lambaste the employer who saved her and several of her clients. Well, maybe she's not so perfect after all but she is wonderful and has written a book that's fun to read which concludes on a positive if coprophagous note.