After I left UPS and decided to take the project further by working undercover at other companies, I feared I might not have chosen the best time to launch the project. As I waited and waited for managers from Starbucks and a few other companies to invite me in for interviews, I read the Wall Street Journal with a new level of interest. My experience was loosely matching that of other job applicants: Labor was down. The Journal reported that “non-farm payrolls added just 78,000 jobs in May,” which was cited as the worst performance in two years. “Job growth has been on a bouncy ride in the past year,” one article noted, “beating economists’ forecasts one month and falling short the next. Hiring was anemic across an ...

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