something about “Working,” a book by Studs Terkel

Studs Terkel (1912–2008) was an American historian, broadcaster, and writer; in 1974, he published Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, a nonfiction book that—true to its title—catalogs many, many people of various walks of life talking about their work. During his lifetime, Terkel produced a few works based on his wonderings about the lives of the strangers you pass every day.

This is probably an okay or even fine book, but I grew annoyed by the too-on-the-nose “regular guy” voices. It was like, “I’m what you call a [job title]. Our system isn’t perfect. But we make do. The other day, we were cranking the [name of something]. I’m thinking, ‘I can’t believe this. What are we doing over here?’ Then I get $50, which made me feel great! So that’s the deal.” Five hundred pages of this.

Note: For reasons I do not understand and have not bothered to look into, I associate Terkel with Chicago baseball.