Work woes: Author reveals employees' gloom despite boom.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

"White-Collar Sweatshop: The Deterioration of Work and Its Rewards in Corporate America," by Jill Andresky Fraser (W.W. Norton & Co., 278 pages, $26.95).

Welcome to the dark side of the American economic boom.

With "White-Collar Sweatshop," business and financial writer Jill Andresky Fraser has delivered a disturbing view of the work environment of administrative and professional employees in America's large corporations during the 1980s and `90s.

Although the term "sweatshop" may appear counterintuitive, given the class of employees involved and the general view that America is hip-deep in unprecedented prosperity, Fraser's research justifies that metaphor.

She spent five years researching the book, exploring the human resource policies and practices of major companies and talking with hundreds of white-collar workers. What emerged was a grim picture of stressed-out people caught up in situations bearing a strong resemblance to that of the mythical Sisyphus, who was condemned to Hades and given the frustrating task of perpetually rolling a heavy stone uphill only to see it roll back down again and again.

Fraser identifies the primary frustrations of white-collar workers today: continually expanding workdays, fear of layoffs, the increasing use of temporary workers and a steady dilution of employee benefits.

For most white-collar workers, she maintains, the 40-hour work week has become a fiction. Because of advanced communications technology, workers are never free of the office, even when they leave at their scheduled times. They make and receive business calls or perform work on their computers while commuting.