# Books about difficult white collar jobs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 3, 2013, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506 "2013-07-03T03:41:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/1 "2013-07-03T03:41:42Z")
Does anyone know any books about characters who struggle at white collar jobs? Usually when I see books or movies about lawyers, they show the main characters going through their work without a scratch. They make it look like if you’re smart enough then the profession will be a breeze. However, the reality is that being an attorney, a doctor, or politician is brutal work. I don’t often see a story about an attorney who gets brutalized by his profession and struggles to find a way to keep his sanity. A good example of what I’m looking for is [All the King’s Men](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_King%E2%80%99s_Men), which is about politics. Know any others? ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/2 "2013-07-03T04:11:01Z")
Fight Club. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/3 "2013-07-03T09:07:47Z")
There are hardly any novels about people just doing their jobs, unless their job is doctor or homicide detective. (Well, Arthur Hailey’s novels from the sixties and seventies, but those are getting pretty old.) If the protagonist’s day job is anything else, there has to be a murder thrown in to “add drama”. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/4 "2013-07-03T14:11:02Z")
> [@Neidhart](#): > > There are hardly any novels about people just doing their jobs, unless their job is doctor or homicide detective. (Well, Arthur Hailey’s novels from the sixties and seventies, but those are getting pretty old.) > > If the protagonist’s day job is anything else, there has to be a murder thrown in to “add drama”. There has to be a few good ones right? I’m watching **House of Cards** right now and the entire show is mostly about the majority whip doing his job in Congress. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/5 "2013-07-03T14:40:51Z")
**A Civil Action** , a 1996 non-fiction book that became a movie in 1998. The story follows attorney Jan Schlichtmann as he pursues a case against two large companies (Beatrice and W.R. Grace) for illegal dumping, which ended up tainting groundwater, which caused an unusually-large number of local children to develop leukemia. The book details Schlichtmann’s struggles as he spends more and more investigating and litigating the case, eventually having to sell his condo and car, living in the office, and filing bankruptcy. As I recall from the book, Schlichtmann’s earnings from the case eventually came to about $30,000 per year. ---
**Author:** ![diggerwam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/6 "2013-07-03T14:56:14Z")
The Pale King, David Foster Wallace. One of the main themes is how hard it is to do really boring work, in this case, processing tax forms. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/7 "2013-07-03T16:45:14Z")
I don’t know if it fits the O.P.s criteria for struggling, but Paul Erdmann wrote some excellent novels about bank manipulation etc, called The Silver Bears, The Billion Dollar Killing, and the Crash of '79. Though dated now they were bloody good reads, and based on his own experience, having started a Swiss Bank himself and being jailed for fraud. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/8 "2013-07-03T16:56:26Z")
Two of my favorite books of all time are what I call “white collar true crime”: _The Informant_ and _Conspiracy of Fools_ both by Kurt Eichenwald. The former was made into a passable movie, but the book is much better. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/9 "2013-07-03T17:26:41Z")
There are lots of medical memoirs like [The House of God](http://www.amazon.com/The-House-of-God-ebook/dp/B00400NHRO/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3#_) about the struggle to be a doctor. One of my favorite books, [dot.bomb](http://www.amazon.com/Dot-Bomb-Days-Nights-Internet-Goliath/dp/0316600059/ref=sr_1_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372871837&sr=1-21&keywords=David+Kuo) is about a communications manager (which just happens to be my job) at an internet startup. Lots of detail about the daily struggles. If you want books about people struggling to commit white collar crime, I have read hundreds and could give you a complete list of my favorites (including _Conspiracy of Fools_). ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/10 "2013-07-03T18:05:39Z")
[Barbarians At The Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate) was a fantastic book and a fantastic made-for-TV movie. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/11 "2013-07-03T18:19:09Z")
Aren’t many of the John Grisham books about how hard it is to be a lawyer? I haven’t read most of them but I did read The Firm and that was a major theme. ---
**Author:** ![Anna\_Nimity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Anna\_Nimity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anna_Nimity)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/12 "2013-07-03T19:37:21Z")
Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothomb. A Belgian woman working at a Japanese Corporation. I’m reading it now, good so far. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotGrrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/13 "2013-07-03T19:53:40Z")
[The Soul of a New Machine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine) by Tracy Kidder, is about engineers designing a new computer. It was written in 1981 so the details are history now, but the story of engineering compromises and corporate in-fighting should still be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/14 "2013-07-03T20:18:41Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Aren’t many of the John Grisham books about how hard it is to be a lawyer? I haven’t read most of them but I did read The Firm and that was a major theme. Well…sort of. Grisham’s books are about how hard it is to be a fictional lawyer created by an author that can’t write a decent ending. The truth is that real life lawyers aren’t nearly as exciting as fictional ones. I’ve practiced for 18 years now and I’ve never been in a high speed chase, or had contract killers chasing me, or had hot women seducing me with cocaine. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/15 "2013-07-03T20:22:03Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Well…sort of. Grisham’s books are about how hard it is to be a fictional lawyer created by an author that can’t write a decent ending. The truth is that real life lawyers aren’t nearly as exciting as fictional ones. I’ve practiced for 18 years now and I’ve never been in a high speed chase, or had contract killers chasing me, or had hot women seducing me with cocaine. Maybe you aren’t doing it right. To the OP: would _1984_ count? ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/16 "2013-07-03T20:36:05Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > Maybe you aren’t doing it right. > To the OP: would _1984_ count? No for the same reason that John Grisham doesn’t count. The struggles in the story should be something that real white collar workers can relate to. Doing your job while running away from an oppressive government isn’t something a normal government official struggles with (at least not yet). ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/17 "2013-07-04T05:39:10Z")
Two films by Mike Judge come to mind; Office Space and Extract. In the former, IT workers are finding it difficult to deal with their managers In the later, managers are finding it difficult to deal with labour. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/18 "2013-07-04T20:29:01Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > There are lots of medical memoirs like [The House of God](http://www.amazon.com/The-House-of-God-ebook/dp/B00400NHRO/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3#_) about the struggle to be a doctor. > > One of my favorite books, [dot.bomb](http://www.amazon.com/Dot-Bomb-Days-Nights-Internet-Goliath/dp/0316600059/ref=sr_1_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372871837&sr=1-21&keywords=David+Kuo) is about a communications manager (which just happens to be my job) at an internet startup. Lots of detail about the daily struggles. > > If you want books about people struggling to commit white collar crime, I have read hundreds and could give you a complete list of my favorites (including _Conspiracy of Fools_). **Dot Bomb** is a fascinating look at the account of one [dot.com](http://dot.com)’s ‘rise’ and fall during the late nineties. I think the concept of the company was actually pretty good, but failed due to miserable execution and being blindsided by developments. Kuo had an impossible task though. > [@PatriotGrrrl](#): > > [The Soul of a New Machine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine) by Tracy Kidder, is about engineers designing a new computer. It was written in 1981 so the details are history now, but the story of engineering compromises and corporate in-fighting should still be interesting. I rank this as one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. Kidder does an awesome job of detailing the personalities of the people involved and follows the whole project through from beginning to end. I highly recommend this one. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-about-difficult-white-collar-jobs/662506/19 "2013-07-04T23:59:20Z")
Michael Frayn is now better known as a playwright (for \*Noises Off \*and _Copenhagen_, among others), but he also wrote some novels centering on white-collar work. Two I’ve read and liked: _Toward the End of the Morning_ (about journalists) and _The Tin Men_ (about researchers).