The twenty-first century workplace compels Americans to be more flexible. To embrace change, work with unpredictable schedules, be available 24/7, and take charge of one's own career. What are the wider implications of these pressures for workers' lives? How do they conceive of good work and a good life amid such incessant change? In The Disrupted Workplace, Benjamin Snyder examines how three groups of American workers-financial professionals, truck drivers, and unemployed job seekers-construct moral order in a capitalist system that demands flexibility. Based on seventy in-depth interviews and three years of participant observation, he argues that the flexible economy transforms how workers experience time. New scheduling techniques, employment strategies, and technologies disrupt the flow and trajectory of working life, which makes the workplace a site of perplexing moral dilemmas. Work can feel both liberating and terrorizing, engrossing in the short term but unsustainable in the long term. Through a vivid portrait of real workers' struggles to adapt their lives to constant disruption, Benjamin Snyder mounts a compelling critique of the costs of the flexible economy.

As you will discover in these pages that I begin testing the idea of waking up at 4:00 A.M. out of desperation and frustration, I never expect to find two full hours of focus and concentration. In my experience (guess what I used to do too) this is what people do: Wake up Running, Run to Work, Run at Work, Run to Home, Deal with Family Routines, Hope Family goes to bed, Work on your most important stuff." We have done it for generations, and it is wrong. We should: "Work on your most important stuff so we don't need to run to work, at work, to home and instead of dealing with family, enjoying family" When you think about it makes sense to do your most important stuff first, but for some reason we do it last. To accomplish that, you need to switch your pattern, I did it, and the experience was fantastic. Think about the following: When was the last time you got two hours of Focus Work? (My answer is this morning, at 4:00 A.M.)