"Unlike any other workplace book I've encountered."
-Anne Helen Petersen
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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 navigate the chaos. But is interpersonal trust truly a solution, or just another source of vulnerability?
In Trust Fall, sociologist 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 reveals 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.
Reviews
"From 'Sunday brunch level' solidarity to compulsory post-work karaoke, Trust Fall deftly chronicles how firms enlist workers’ hearts...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...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
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"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
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"A timely must-read on trust in the modern workplace....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
"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
"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
"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