Help Wanted - Adelle Waldman

Fiction

Rating: 7.5/10

Every day at 3:55 am on the dot, members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big box store Town Square. Under the watchful eye of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the days truck of merchandise and stock the shelves.

When the store manager announces he is leaving, the staff start to dream of new and better opportunities. But those are only going to be realized if they play their cards right. Problem is, they are all playing a very different game.

Each of them becomes preoccupied by their lofty, and hilariously intricate, aspirations, but a retail job can only provide so much grandeur. Which is pretty much none.

Having spent many years in retail, and loved it, I was able to recognize many of the absurdities the hard-working employees endured. And the boss, well we’ve all had one like this.

I loved getting to know Waldman’s characters as she immerses us in their day-to-day world, each coming alive in my mind. Made up of daydreamers and cynics, they are by turns ingenious, petty, yearning and incapable of not thwarting their own ambitions. A workplace saga worth every minute of reading time.

Footnote: loved this description of one of the employees’ photo ID…” his neck had disappeared into his shoulders and his smile was empty, as if he were a hostage in a proof of life photo.”

Book Pairing(s): Black Buck by Mateo Askariour, The Warehouse by Rob Hart, Company by Max Barry