My Job

MY JOB: Real People at Work Around the World, is a collection of vivid first-person accounts of real people in unique jobs, in the U.S. and the world. Never before has such a collection of stories been gathered. Building upon the legacy of Studs Terkel’s 1970s bestseller Working, MY JOB goes global and updated, reflecting the daily struggles and successes of working storytellers in their own distinctive voices.

MY JOB explores the dignity, identity, economic viability, and inherent challenges of each occupation. How has the definition and notion of a job shifted in recent years? How does one land in a particular job, and what causes one to flourish or flounder in it? How does our job shape our sense of identity? And how does an identity built around work impact other facets of our lives?

As communications and social media transform our world into a global village, readers are exposed to life and work in other places. Our awareness of countries and cultures far beyond home leads to a natural interest in them. This is a pivotal moment in which geography still greatly impacts employment; yet the experiences of others, even in distant countries, are more accessible today than ever before.

Suzanne Skees works in international development as director of the Skees Family Foundation. She holds masters’ degrees in English literature from Boston College and world religions from Harvard Divinity School. Suzanne Skees has authored a book published by Hyperion and has worked in publishing as a book editor for Houghton Mifflin.

The Skees Family Foundation (SFF) is  a small nonprofit comprised of thirty family members across three generations. SFF provides seed-funding, advisory, and storytelling support for innovative programs for self-help out of poverty via education and enterprise in the U.S. and developing economies around the world. SFF, launched in 2004, has become known for its networks of social entrepreneurs and intuitive seed-funding of pragmatic poverty-alleviation programs.