A college-educated young professional details the grueling realities of hourly labor for the fastest-growing segment of the American workforce while outlining strategies for more humane employment practices.

When Guendelsberger took a pre-Christmas job at an Amazon fulfillment center outside Louisville, Kentucky, the vending machines were stocked with painkillers, and the staff turnover was dizzying. In the new year she traveled to North Carolina to work at a call center, a place where even bathroom breaks were timed to the second. Then she was hired at a San Francisco McDonald's, narrowly escaping revenge-seeking customers who pelted her with condiments. Here she takes us behind the scenes of the fastest-growing segment of the American workforce to understand how workers went from being the most expensive element of production to the cheapest-- and how low wage jobs have been remade to serve the ideals of efficiency, at the cost of humanity. -- adapted from jacket