We need more writing about "work"
On the memoir "Private Equity"
Mid-week essay coming out on Friday (oops!). You’ll hear from me tomorrow, too!
I ended up buying and then finishing this book, Private Equity by Carrie Sun all within a few days.
It’s a memoir of an executive assistant working for a billionaire, who started a hedge-but-not-a-hedge-fund.
She was by all accounts an executive assistant, but one who was worked to the bone, so much so a therapist said her job was killing her, yet she kept going.
Days starting before 7 am and ending after 8pm.
More and more chips pushed in on her all with disclaimers like “let me know if you can’t handle it,” which instead of an honest offer became a challenge.
And that’s the crux of it, though it’s told more in a literary way than most tell-alls.
Written by Carrie Sun, she has an MFA in creative writing which she received after working for this hedge fund1, and also an analyst or something for Fidelity.
There aren’t enough books about work, esp considering the number of books in the world…
I like reading books about the workplace. It’s under-served IMO because of the MFA industrial complex.
Work has also taken on a new prominence in American life in the last ~60 years, obviously because more women have entered the workforce and we’re now just starting to see more nuanced stories about that.
So last year I read The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe, about (mostly female) executive assistants in the 40s/50s working at a publishing house.
That book was a little bit more “standard” in its literary depictions, because it was setting the standard for books like Private Equity.
This book is more about the interiority of the question “am I doing a good job? for real?” and how seemingly small ticky-tack things can add up to immense pressure in the workplace.
“Just one more small thing…” may only take 20 minutes, but then disrupts you from the other small thing that should have only taken 20 minutes.
The female experience in the workplace still has so much to explore…
I’m not necessarily an expert on this, but Sun’s book does such a great job of illustrating the ambition of both a female and 1st-generation Chinese American (not sure if I’m using that correctly—Sun moved to the US when she was 8 after being born in China)—and the existing pressures that come with that.
Beyond that, she was very smart and accomplished, something that was brought up routinely when she was applying for this executive assistant job — shouldn’t she be doing something else?
Two things on that — Sun’s job paid very well comparatively to what most people in most parts of America would consider for an “assistant” — in the mid six figures.
She purposely said she wanted a less demanding job than her previous one as a financial analyst, but the level of work just ended up being different.
It’s also worth noting that towards the end of the book, she notes that all of the assistants are female, which is not too far off the pace of Jaffe’s book and times, even though they are probably all paid much more handsomely than any assistant in Jaffe’s book.
But this collision of smarts, ambition, and then a “traditionally female” job has a lot to unpack.
It’s well worth the read just to consider those elements.
Similarly, it reminded me of…
Anna Weiner’s great memoir of working in Silicon Valley from a few years ago, The Uncanny Valley.
Weiner’s roles are a bit different, but she has a very observant, one-foot-in, one-foot-out distance, much like Sun does with this one.
Pairing the two together makes total sense, which is why Weiner wrote this article for The New Yorker a few weeks ago on Sun’s book.
Interestingly enough, Weiner now is a writer for The New Yorker and Sun pursued an MFA after her experience at this hedge fund.
They’re both out of those office jobs.
Think I’ll do a list of books about work soon.…
But should you write about where you work?
I mean, this is a weird q in today’s times, where Glassdoor essentially begs you to write about where you work and people get fired for recording their annual reviews on TikTok and LinkedIn is like a thing (yes I participate in the LinkedIn banter).
Sun and Weiner for that matter both wrote their memoirs after they left, and participated in fields with high energy and big money, both subjects for intrigue.
This is a good thing. Similarly, The Office became so relatable because it was so mundane, but also normalized a lot of what people feel.
The workplace actually changes more often than it looks, especially with technology affecting everything from manufacturing to “knowledge workers” to hospitality/restaurants and the relationships all in between.
But the people with the best stories are often those least equipped to write it—they aren’t interested in spilling secrets or are poor writers; what emerges is more of a “business book” with anecdotes and self-help mantras rather than anything that is a story.
That may be too harsh, but the access of Sun and Weiner and Jaffe makes those books stand out in addition to them being well-written, from a literary perspective.
Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this, plus your favorite books about work.
Keep going-
Josh Spilker
The fund is anonymized as is the billionaire, but quick Google searches will tell you everything you need to know
Thanks for this. I tend to read memoirs/nonfiction set in the finance world, simply because I wrote two murder mysteries set in that milieu and would love to write a follow-up. But I’m drowning in books right now and after looking at this book, moved on. You make it clear I should zip through it.
I agree with you. The number of books that accurately represent the workforce are quite sparse. There's something fascinating about how work consumes a large chunk of our lives yet so many writers seem to almost "edit out" that aspect. I would be interested in checking out books about work, as there's something ultimately tragic about how much of ourselves we pour into employment versus literally any other thing we could be doing.