Alexander 1

Brittany Alexander
Professor Phillips
Intro to Writing
9-11-2014
Final Draft Summary
In Barbara Enrenreichs article titled The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream she
speaks about the hardships of white-collar individuals in corporate society. When Barbara started
this project in late 2003 she found that the unemployment numbers were high and a good
percentage were the white collar professionals, the ones who did everything right. (page261).
While studying she found that the corporate executives were suffering the same demands as the
lower paid individuals. For example: working ten to twelve hour days followed immediately by
working on their laptop at home, as well as answering work related phone calls during vacations
and holidays.
She became determined to get a job in the white-collar world and to investigate and learn
about the problems first-hand. She created herself a different identity, so to speak, she legally
changed her name to Barbara Alexander, her maiden name, and created herself a resume. She
stated it took days to come up with her resume. She wanted to stick to as much truth as she could
when it came to which job titles shes had before. She also had to find people who would be
willing to lie for her just in case a potential employer called wanting to know what kind of
employee she is.
She invested a lot of time and money into this project, about $5,000 and 10 months,
which shows how dedicated she was to this project. She figured 4 to 6 months to seek for the
right job and another 3 to 4 months of employment to get the answers she was looking for.
Barbara finishes her article by stating that in the beginning the project seemed less
challenging than she might have liked. She also thought that it would be easier for her
emotionally, physically, and financially than the real white-collar job seekers because the
situation was not real for her, but she than admits that I was wrong on all counts. (page270)

Works Cited
Enrenreich, Barbara. The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. The Say / I Say: The Moves
That Matter in Academic Writing. Ed. Gerald Graff, and Cathy Birkenstein. New
York:W.W. Norton, 2014. 260-270. Print.