Craig Lambert is the author of Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing. He is a former staff writer and editor at Harvard Magazine and has also written for Sports Illustrated and Town & Country. He graduated from Harvard College and received his Ph.D. in sociology, also from Harvard, in 1978. His latest book Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day (Counterpoint) examines a profound transformation in the nature of work that is significantly altering lives: the incoming tidal wave of shadow work. Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations. It has slipped into our routines stealthily; most of us do not realize how much of it we are already doing, even as we pump our own gas, scan and bag our own groceries, execute our own stock trades, and build our own unassembled furniture. But its presence is unmistakable, and its effects far-reaching. Shadow Work offers a field guide to this new phenomenon. It shines a light on these trends now so prevalent in our daily lives and, more importantly, offers valuable insight into how to counter their effects.
