I should probably start this with an unfortunate acknowledgement: the copy I received of this zine is missing a few pages, by which I mean the book jumped from page 10 to page 15, missing no small amount of content in between.
That out of the way, Faith G. Harper’s Unfuck Your Work: Makin’ Paper Without Losing Your Mind or Selling Your Soul, is a great concept, and Dr. Harper is an engaging writer, and one I’d likely read again. I mean, anyone in this workforce would probably be drawn in by some of her first sentences: “Maybe your job is OK. You know, it’s fine. It is what it is. But it isn’t what you want to be doing.” Who the fuck hasn’t been there, amirite? Not to mention that we’re so goddamn burned out that we’ve burned out before we even hit the official job market. Books like this zine published by Microcosm are going to be ever more important.
So, the concept is great. Essential, even. But I’m not so sure that the zine itself is quite there yet. It might be, as is mentioned in crnihibiskus’ review over on the StoryGraph, that we’re dealing with something that is just too short. It might also be the concept itself: in many ways, it feels as though Harper is writing this for folks at the very beginning of their joblife (a very good place to start, etc cetera), and, well, that’s no longer me.
So, for whom do I think this little zone is written? Well, college students, probably. Maybe grad students as well, although I think it’d be most beneficial to them closer to the start of their graduate careers. (It’s basically a career in itself, if you’ve never been – and it tends towards the abusive, because that’s the way it’s always been.) I think this could be very helpful – and, even if you’re not at the very beginning, is worth a glance.
But for me? And for so many other millennials (and Gen Xers, too, I’d wager)? I want something more.
Essentially a Nerd 