Trust Fall - by Sarah Mosseri

Book Synopsis

How do millions of Americans navigate today's demanding and unpredictable work terrain without the protection of strong labor laws, unions, or a reliable social safety net? They turn to trusted colleagues and supervisors to help find a way through the chaos. But is interpersonal trust truly a solution, or just another source of vulnerability?

In Trust Fall, Sarah Mosseri delves into the intricate web of workplace trust. Drawing on years of immersive research across diverse industries--from bustling restaurants and tech startups to marketing agencies and ride-hail circuits--she uncovers how the very bonds workers rely on to manage instability and insecurity often deepen their exposure to risk and exploitation.

Blending vivid storytelling with sharp sociological insight, Trust Fall reveals the seduction and costs of workplace trust. It gives readers the language to recognize and challenge the unspoken bargains workers make to belong, thrive, and survive in today's precarious labor landscape.

From the Back Cover

"A timely must-read on trust in the modern workplace. Trust Fall reveals how trust weaves the social fabric of work organizations from restaurants to ride-hail platforms and marketing firms to technology startups. Sarah Mosseri's sweeping ethnographic research offers important insights on what is at stake--and for whom--when workplaces are insecure and trust becomes paramount."--Megan Tobias Neely, author of Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street

"Mosseri's immersion in four American workplaces shows us how trust at work creates flash intimacy. This intimacy makes difficult working conditions meaningful yet redirects workers away from collectively challenging oppressive work arrangements. Trust Fall gives us a powerful vocabulary for critiquing inequality in modern workplaces."--Jaclyn S. Wong, author of Equal Partners? How Dual-Professional Couples Make Career, Relationship, and Family Decisions

"Where does trust get us at work? Yes, human connection makes the workday more bearable, but in an era of precarious work, Mosseri shows that these intimacies are a double-edged sword. With top-notch research, Trust Fall offers brilliant new language to name the harms wrought by our unequal system of work. For a renewed labor movement, Trust Fall stands tall."--Caitlyn Collins, author of Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving

"Why do Americans pour so much of their trust into work, despite prevalent job insecurity, onerous task burdens, and demanding schedules? While surveys repeatedly find that levels of trust in experts, government, and police are declining, they continue to report high levels of trust at work. An enduring mystery for contemporary work scholars is why Americans feel they owe so much to their employers, who apparently owe so little to them. An intrepid ethnographer, Sarah Mosseri takes us with her to solve that mystery, as she immerses herself for months in different workplaces to crack the code on the enigma of enduring trust among American workers. Aided by a comparison case of ride-hail workers, Mosseri uses her compelling cases to document how trust is not one thing but many, and how workers adjust its meaning to suit their needs as they navigate the tricky interpersonal dynamics of high-pressure, precarious workplaces. Replete with surprising stories of trust that reveal its local meanings--from 'Sunday brunch level' solidarity to compulsory post-work karaoke--Trust Fall deftly chronicles how firms enlist workers' hearts. Readers are treated to an abundance of unique and powerful concepts that Mosseri offers to capture the nuance of trust at work--among these, the humanity bubbles that create zones of trust amidst a context of business rationality, the morality of the fallen that celebrates the dysfunction that ties people together, and the maverick managers, whose privilege buys them forgiveness for harsh words or ineptitude. With a sympathetic but unerring eye, Mosseri reveals the compromises that workers make as they negotiate complex and demanding settings, and the steep price they pay for their cruel optimism. Mosseri shows how trust--for many a wholly benevolent idea--can actually serve to blind workers to their own interests, acting as an invisible lubricant for the ruthless American economic engine. Armed with the clarifying insights from Trust Fall, including a comprehensive concluding chapter with many specific proposals for managers, policymakers, and the wider public, readers are better prepared to take on the tasks of addressing systemic inequalities in the workplace and forging collective solutions to ground trust in equitable relations and a robust social infrastructure. Mosseri has delivered a revelatory guide--sometimes humorous, always trenchant--to the subtle, contradictory, and potent force that is trust in the workplace."--Allison Pugh, Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University

"A refreshing, novel take on the hidden dynamics that make contemporary work so difficult to endure. Trust Fall ranks among the best ethnographic accounts of how employers of all kinds manipulate intimacy on the job."--Melissa Gregg, Professor of Digital Futures, Bristol Digital Futures Institute and University of Bristol Business School

"A remarkable achievement, and unlike any other workplace book I've encountered, Trust Fall made me understand why I've always loathed the idea of a workplace family, and how workplace relationships have become such a commonplace (and utterly unreliable) replacement for job protections and our tattered social safety net. If you've felt manipulated, let down, or gross about ideas of loyalty or family in the workplace but could never quite explain why, this book will both give you language for that discomfort and connect the dots to our larger feelings of precarity and burnout. A decoder ring of a book."--Anne Helen Petersen, author of the Culture Study newsletter

About the Author

Sarah Mosseri is a sociologist and writer whose insights are shaped by years spent working on both sides of the labor divide--from the service counter to the strategy room.