About this item
With the exception of sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than any other activity. It is central to our economy, society, and the family. It underpins our finances and our sense of meaning in life. Given the overriding importance of work, we need to recognize a profound transformation in the nature of work that is significantly altering lives: the incoming tidal wave of shadow work.Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations. It has slipped into our routines stealthily; most of us do not realize how much of it we are already doing, even as we pump our own gas, scan and bag our own groceries, execute our own stock trades, and build our own unassembled furniture. But its presence is unmistakable, and its effects far-reaching.
About the Author
Craig Lambert, Ph.D. is the author of Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day (Counterpoint Press, 2015) . He was a staff writer and editor at Harvard Magazine for more than two decades. Lambert's work has appeared in publications ranging from Sports Illustrated to Town & Country to The New England Journal of Medicine. He is also the author of Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing (Houghton Mifflin, 1998) . He graduated from Harvard College and received his doctorate, also from Harvard, in sociology.
