Selling Ben Cheever: Back to Square One in a Service Economy
By Ben Cheever. Bloomsbury, 310 pages, $25.95.

At first blush, it would be easy to dismiss as superfluous, even insulting, Ben Cheever’s personal foray into the grueling and often thankless world of the service industry. He is: the affluent son of a literary icon; himself a novelist; married to a prominent critic; a former senior editor at Reader’s Digest; and a seeming johnny-come-lately in the face of Barbara Ehrenreich’s first-hand account of life on entry-level pay. Tough obstacles to overcome, no doubt — lesser writers would be face down in the gravel in a matter of pages. Fortunately, Cheever is sensitive and honest enough to clear these fences, sometimes with ease, sometimes holding his breath, but always with humor and empathy. " No, I’m not out of money, " he writes, " but I do know shame. People without jobs are people without status. "

With the country officially in a recession, and the far-reaching impact of September 11 still ringing loudly in the ears, masses of laid-off workers are now hunched over the classifieds, markers in hand. The airline industry alone released more than 100,000 workers in the wake of the terrorist attacks. IBM and GM have started down that path. Enron has become a household name. The drill is familiar. Less than 10 years ago, similar attrition took place. As the axes fell in the mid ’90s, Cheever too found himself adrift. Having earlier left his editorial post to push his writing, he had the rug pulled out from under him: his editor was fired, his publishing house folded, his literary world was suddenly a cold place. Jobless, the pushing-50 Cheever decided to join the ranks marching through the greasy gates of the service industry. He typed up a book proposal. He would " play out everyone’s worst nightmare. "

With his wife, New York Times critic Janet Maslin, now the family’s primary breadwinner, he explored, often with self-depreciating wit, the connection between work and identity. Over five years, he took work as a sidewalk Santa, a Halloween spook, a security guard, a computer salesman, a telemarketer, a sandwich maker, a bookstore employee, and a car salesman. He applied for numerous other spots: broker at Dean Witter, male model, Brooks Brothers salesman. Although he did not need the work as desperately as some, he felt compelled to climb over the counter and give voice to this often bleak world — " I believe in the victory of empathy, " he explains.

He did not disclose his mission to prospective employers, though in most cases he revealed his credentials. Overqualification was not an issue. " Mostly they asked if I could work nights and weekends. And for a urine sample. "

At the outset, Cheever dwells at length — perhaps too great length — on media quotes and economic statistics. No doubt there are some significant numbers: 43 million people laid off between 1979 and 1995; some 425,000 Americans rendered jobless in 1995 alone; more than 28 million Americans earning less than $8 an hour. But it’s in his first interview, his first training session, his first shift, that he hits those high notes, and his song rarely flags as he struggles to keep his new responsibilities in order and his uniform straight. Like countless others, he provides his bosses with bodily fluids, takes demeaning honesty quizzes, and squirms in ill-fitting store attire: a used work cap lined with paper towels, an oversized smock vest missing buttons. Throughout, he dissects with an earnest scalpel management style, customer-employee relationships, training sessions, worker rivalries, and company creation myths.

As for the work itself, he took a shine to selling, from computers at CompUSA to cars at Wegman Auto. It is here the theme of identity comes into greatest relief, where selling yourself to the customer is as important as the virtues of the product. As he points out, " I don’t know why exactly, but when you’re trying to sell something, it’s always good to bring up your mother. "

His floundering charm is sometimes lost in overlong digressions, and his frustrations occasionally ring hollow, since we know where he’ll go home at night. Some co-workers’ lives could be fleshed out more too. But these are mostly minor complaints — what he’s offering the consumer here is a pretty good deal. " I’m selling Ben Cheever. Not because he’s the best product. I’m selling Ben Cheever because he’s all I got. "

Issue Date: December 20-27, 2001

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