Dan Pink saw all of this coming back in 2001, in the depths of the dot-com recession and the seeming failure of the New Economy. Free Agent Nation still stands as a landmark work, a description of the ever-individualizing economy that even now has just begun to transform the world.
Much of what you learn in college will be obsolete by the time you graduate. Job-hopping every two years is now the norm, and companies themselves may last five years before they cave in or get bought out.
Even if you work for someone else, adopting the mentality of a free agent can improve your job security. Taking the time to educate yourself and solve problems without being prodded by your boss will increase your employability should you need to change jobs someday (or in a couple of years).
The Internet has created an army of free agents who are permanently employable because they work for a constant stream of new clients. I hope someday you'll join us and the world will work as one.
Pink, Daniel H. Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself. Business Plus, 2002.
SAT Vocabulary Words in Free Agent Nation
Kaput: broken and useless; no longer working or effective."As a climatological sauna baked the nation's capital, here in our own mini-seat of power, the air-conditioning had gone kaput." (page 1)
Hypoxia: deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues.
"But before long, the hypoxia of having reached the heights of my profession gave way to a dull sadness." (page 3)
Pundit: an expert in a particular subject or field who is frequently called on to give opinions about it to the public.
"At the same time, many commentators and pundits took aim at free agency." (p. 3)
Ecru: the light beige color of unbleached linen.
"He wore an ecru shirt, a brown tie with a dizzying pattern, and a constant but sincere smile." (p. 5)
Marshal: (in some armies and air forces) an officer of the highest rank.
"My census would be much like the 1790 census, the first census of the United States. Back then, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson handled the job with the aid of only seventeen federal marshals." (p. 6)
Scope: assess or investigate (something). look at carefully; scan.
"At 7:45 on April morning, I find myself doing something I've never done before and likely will never do again... scoping for a sixty-eight year old woman." (p. 9)
Dilly: an excellent example of a particular type of person or thing.
"Her 'Humor Center' includes dillies like, 'Old accountants never die. They just lose their balance.' " (p. 10)
Fealty: a feudal tenant's or vassal's sworn loyalty to a lord.
"You pledged fealty to a large institution and accepted the demands of its theology, not merely because it was a shrewd way to achieve financial stability - but because it was a proper and honorable way to live." (p. 12)
Winnow: blow a current of air through (grain) in order to remove the chaff.
"Between 1984 and 1994, Ma Bell winnowed its workforce by 120,000 people." (p. 14)
Footloose: able to travel freely and do as one pleases due to a lack of responsibilities or commitments.
"Today, in the shadow of another economic boom, America's new economic emblem is the footloose, independent worker - the tech-savvy, self-reliant, path-charting micropreneur." (p. 14)
Flunky: a liveried manservant or footman. a person who performs relatively menial tasks for someone else, especially obsequiously.
"This Organization Daughter rose quickly - from someone else's flunky to someone with flunkies of her own." (p. 16)
Ply: work with (a tool, especially one requiring steady, rhythmic movements). (of a vessel or vehicle) travel regularly over a route, typically for commercial purposes.
"He did well - so well they offered him a full-time job. But Walt declined. This Organization Man decided to stay a free agent, a craftsman plying his trade." (p, 16)
Credo: a statement of the beliefs or aims that guide someone's actions.
"Even though he bristled against it, Walt Fitzgerald mostly adapted himself to the One Size Fits All Ethic. His daughter's credo is My Size Fits Me." (p. 19)
Rote: mechanical or habitual repetition of something to be learned.
"Management theory preached repetition, rote routines, standardization, and 'One Best Way.' " (p. 19)
Baron: a member of the lowest order of the British nobility. The term “Baron” is not used as a form of address in Britain, barons usually being referred to as “Lord.”.
"Yet the fiercest resistance to the rise of free agency comes not from independent workers themselves, but from those whose current position derives in part from deftly playing by the old rules. 'No matter how much we dream about it, most of us prefer the security of a job and paycheck,' grumbled Fortune, the old economy journalistic baron." (p. 19)
Delegation: a body of delegates or representatives; a deputation.
"For this delegation of doomsayers, free agency is a threat - both to their status and, perhaps more importantly, to their cherished notions about how people should behave." (p. 20)
Excoriate: censure or criticize severely.
"Like it or not, celebrate it or excoriate it, Free Agent Nation isn't going away." (p. 20)
Manse: a person's house or home.
"What you've really got is a solar-powered, mobile home with an indoor arena. And that will affect both the possibilities and limits of the family manse." (p. 20)
Heady: having a strong or exhilarating effect. "
It was a heady moment. During those glorious three hundred seconds, I knew something that Bill Gates, George W. Bush, even Oprah Winfrey could not know: the U.S. unemployment rate." (p. 28)
Purport: appear or claim to be or do something, especially falsely; profess.
"The other survey the Feds use - which purports to measure employment growth - surveys only 'business establishments' and therefore ignores the unincorporated self-employed." (p. 30)
Koan: a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment.
"Free agents are neither employers nor employees; free agents are both employers and employees. That may sound like a Zen koan, but it's a key feature of this new economy." (p. 30)
Connote: (of a word) imply or suggest (an idea or feeling) in addition to the literal or primary meaning.
"While 'freelance' often connoted merely alternative employment, the term has frequently carried the faint whiff of dishonor." (p. 33)
Pudge: fat on a person's body.
"Lindsay Frucci operates a one-person New Hampshire-based company called No Pudge! Foods, Inc., which makes a no-fat brownie mix." (p. 39)
Astute: having or showing an ability to accurately assess situations or people and turn this to one's advantage.
"Official government statistics don't come close to capturing the surging significance of small and midsize businesses," writes former Wall Street Journal columnist Tom Petzinger, one of the new economy's most astute observers. (p. 40)
Dilettante: a person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge.
"These Americans remembered destitution - and they feared its return. That's one reason why the Depression-era parents of baby boomers recoiled when their children tried to 'find themselves,' or disdained them as dilettantes when they sought work that was 'meaningful.' " (p. 52)
Stultify: cause to lose enthusiasm and initiative, especially as a result of a tedious or restrictive routine.
"With many corporate environments still so stultifying, free agency is the answer for more and more workers - and prosperity allows it now more than at any other time in our history." (p. 53)
Impresario: a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas.
"This chapter is about two movie characters, a famous psychologist, two seventeenth-century theologians, a hip-hop impresario, and a folk rocker: Connect the dots, and you've sketched an outline of the American work ethic, newly redefined by free agents." (p. 59)
Bunk: nonsense.
"Before long, Tom Rath is a man with a job at UBC. He calculates, correctly it turns out, that in the realm of work, introspection and self-expression are bunk. As he later tells his wife, 'I never wanted to get into this rat race, but now that I'm in it, I think I'd be an idiot not to play it the way everybody else plays it." (p. 61)
Manifesto: a public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate.
Opus: any artistic work, especially one on a large scale.
"He finishes his manifesto.... He titles his opus 'The Things We Think and Do Not Say: The Future of Our Business,' and compares its cover to the cover of The Catcher in the Rye. (p. 62)
Divine: discover (something) by guesswork or intuition.
"Before advancing to a higher level, humans had to satisfy the lower needs. (Someone who's homeless or hungry doesn't quite have the luxury of divining and fulfilling his aesthetic desires.)" (p. 63)
Frivolity: lack of seriousness; lightheartedness.
"[Calvinism] became the foundation for the Protestant work ethic, which discouraged fun and frivolity and prized frugality and self-sacrifice." (p. 65)
Concierge: a hotel employee whose job is to assist guests by arranging tours, making theater and restaurant reservations, etc.
"These corporations have established on-site gyms, on-site showers, on-site child care, and on-site concierge services - so nobody ever has to go 'off-site' (a place also known as 'home')." (p. 68)
Condone: accept and allow (behavior that is considered morally wrong or offensive) to continue.
"In the traditional workplace, authenticity is neither condoned nor rewarded." (p. 70)
Withering: intended to make someone feel mortified or humiliated. Cease to flourish; fall into decay or decline.
"For some people, such pressure can be withering. So they're willing to push some of the accountability to the organization - and thereby sacrifice freedom and authenticity. This is one reason perhaps that several free agents I met referred to traditional jobs as a kind of 'corporate welfare.' The people in them, they said, felt entitled to the job but not inspired to do it well. They were wards of the state, not independent, accountable citizens." (p. 73)
Miff: annoy.
"[Free agents] are accountable directly to the market. They occupy the same fast-feedback world that allows us to learn the price of a stock with a few taps on a keypad. By contrast, most companies still evaluate employees with six-month performance reviews. Six months? Imagine if you owned some stock, but could learn its price only twice a year. You'd be miffed. Free agents know where they stand. A client asks for a project. The free agent bids $10,000. The client says the job is only worth $7,000. That's feedback." (p. 75)
Welter: a large number of items in no order; a confused mass.
"As prosperity widens, and as the expectation of comfort becomes the default assumption for ever more Americans, money matters less in determining individual satisfaction and personal notions of success. Indeed, a welter of psychological studies has concluded that 'satisfaction is simply not for sale.' " (p. 76)
Soul: a person's moral or emotional nature or sense of identity.
" 'I realized it's not the money that would make me happy, because I didn't like the job.' Two weeks later, her bank account flush but her soul depleted, Tobiason became a free agent." (p. 76)
Frivolity: lack of seriousness; lightheartedness.
"The essence of free agency may be that it's hard to distinguish between work and play. The result is not pure frivolity - but something more akin to 'hard fun,' 'serious play,' or 'deep play.' " (p. 82)
Quasi: seemingly; apparently but not really.
"These college seniors entered a workforce warmed by the sun of the benevolent corporation - a quasi-welfare state that offered all the security they could need in return for all the submissiveness they could offer." (p. 87)
Kabuki: a form of traditional Japanese drama with highly stylized song, mime, and dance, now performed only by male actors, using exaggerated gestures and body movements to express emotions, and including historical plays, domestic dramas, and dance pieces.
"The job interview was often the place where the kabuki theater of this arrangement first unfolded. The classic interview question was 'Where do you see yourself in five or ten years?' And the classic answer - the right answer - was that you saw yourself at the same company in an incrementally higher position than you were now seeking, climbing upward to still another incrementally better internal job." (p. 87)
Esoteric: intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.
"Curiously, economists and investors didn't fully understand the power of diversifying investments over a broad stock portfolio until 1952, when a twenty-five-year-old University of Chicago graduate student named Harry Markowitz wrote a short article in an esoteric finance journal making this point." (p. 89)
Hedge: protect oneself against loss on (a bet or investment) by making balancing or compensating transactions.
Afoot: in preparation or progress; happening or beginning to happen.
Moonlighting: have a second job in addition to one's regular employment.
"Diversification - that is, an independent worker spreading her risk across a portfolio of projects, clients, skills, and customers - is the best hedging strategy. But there are other hedging techniques afoot. Take the resurgence of moonlighting." (p. 93)
Downshift: change a financially rewarding but stressful career or lifestyle for a less pressured and less highly paid but more fulfilling one.
"Downshifting and simplifying can also be a hedging strategy. If you can't reduce the risks of free agency itself, you can at least cushion the impact that volatility has on your family's life." (p. 93)
Reckon: establish by counting or calculation; calculate.
"As free agents like Deb Risi and Bob Milbourn reckon wisely with risk, they are teaching the rest of the workforce a crucial lesson about work in the twenty-first century: freedom and security are not necessarily trade-offs. Not only is it more interesting to maintain a portfolio of clients and projects than it is to answer to a boss, it may be safer. The more clients you can assemble, the more projects you can land, the more nodes you can add to your personal network, the more secure you will be." (p. 94)
Pernicious: having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way.
"Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who himself has hopscotched from university to university in search of better positions, has even lamented 'The End of Loyalty,' citing free agency as one of the more pernicious expressions of this dangerous trend." (p. 95)
Unstinting: given or giving without restraint; unsparing.
"Unstinting loyalty to a single organization can become a liability for individuals. Too many years with one employer can dull skills and limit exposure to a fast-changing world, degrading loyalty into dependence." (p. 96)
Exact: demand and obtain (something, especially a payment) from someone.
Repression: the action of subduing someone or something by force.
Freewheeling: characterized by a disregard for rules or conventions; unconstrained or uninhibited.
Idle: without purpose or effect; pointless.
"'Loyalty' sounds good in the abstract, but it exacts a terrible cost in economic stagnation and personal repression.' William Whyte made much the same point in his chapter on the organization's role in suffocating freewheeling scientific discovery, exploration, and genius. The idle curiosity that often sparks innovation has no place in organization life, he wrote." (p. 96)
Wake: hold a vigil beside (someone who has died).
"Alas, no one need plan loyalty's wake just yet. In Free Agent Nation, loyalty isn't dead. It's different." (p. 96)
Lateral: of, at, toward, or from the side or sides.
"'I'm loyal to individuals, but I can't think of any institutions....' What you'll find is not vertical loyalty, but horizontal loyalty, loyalty that flows laterally." (p. 96)
Social contract: an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits, for example by sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection. Theories of a social contract became popular in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries among theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as a means of explaining the origin of government and the obligations of subjects.
"What has taken place of the old social contract is me being responsible for my livelihood versus someone else (a company) being responsible for me." (p. 99)
Rarefied: (of air, especially that at high altitudes) of lower pressure than usual; thin.
"In the rarefied realm of university sociology and economics departments, time is a roaring controversy." (p. 104)
Put upon: take advantage of (someone) by exploiting their good nature.
"That was me - a dog in a high-prestige job. And it turns out that I wasn't the only put-upon pooch in the American workforce." (p. 105)
Undercut: cut or wear away the part below or under (something, especially a cliff).
"A variety of pressures, particularly time pressures, were undercutting job satisfaction." (p. 107)
Regime: a system or planned way of doing things, especially one imposed from above.
"For many workers, the regime [the nine-to-five workday] was easy to measure, monitor, and enforce." (p. 108)
Chagrin: distress or embarrassment at having failed or been humiliated.
Article: a particular item or object, typically one of a specified type.
"Such time-tailoring is powerfully attractive, something companies are discovering, often to their chagrin. Allowing an employee to reconfigure her day can often lead to free agency. First, she takes work home and leaves early on certain afternoons. Then she arranges to telecommute three days per week. Then, while she's telecommuting, she begins moonlighting - or 'sunlighting,' if she's working on side gigs during the day. Finally, she becomes the genuine article, a free agent. Those few sweet drops of time liberty become intoxicating." (p. 111)
Officious: assertive of authority in an annoyingly domineering way, especially with regard to petty or trivial matters. Intrusively enthusiastic in offering help or advice; interfering.
"10:00-10:30 A.M.... Firmly respond to officious and condescending e-mail from client" (p. 118)
Ad hoc: formed, arranged, or done for a particular purpose only.
"Because [small groups are] decentralized, ad hoc, and self-organized, they have eluded much notice." (p. 125)
Tote: carry, wield, or convey (something heavy or substantial).
Behest: a person's orders or command.
"About fifty people, representing fifteen nationalities and toting six kids, have come here at the behest of Jeremy Solomons." (p. 126)
Land: succeed in obtaining or achieving (something desirable), especially in the face of strong competition.
"...businesses they've landed, clients they've lost..." (p. 126)
Ziti: pasta in the form of tubes resembling large macaroni.
Rousing: exciting; stirring.
"Tonight, they're having baked ziti - tomorrow, a Pakistani feast. Later they'll play a rousing game of 'Intercultural Bingo.' " (p. 126)
Powwow: a North American Indian ceremony involving feasting, singing, and dancing.
"Fifty-five people attended. They powwowed, cooked meals together, swapped ideas and business cards, and then returned to their free agent lives." (p. 127)
Spawn: produce or generate, especially in large numbers.
Confederation: an organization that consists of a number of parties or groups united in an alliance or league.
"F.A.N. Clubs are the most prevalent ad hoc work group, but they're not the only new communities of independent workers the free agent economy has spawned. Confederations are akin to the partnerships formed by lawyers and accountants, but they're more laid-back and usually fixed by informal agreements rather than written contracts." (p. 132)
Hard charger: someone with an aggressive, domineering personality.
"For fifteen years, Brooklyn-born Gruber was a hard-charging cable TV marketing executive." (p. 133)
Psychopath: (informal) an unstable and aggressive person.
"I'm doing things I don't necessarily want to do, sometimes working for psychos under intense stress." (p. 133)
Perky: cheerful and lively.
"Gruber says this approach allowed him to do better work for a lower price than traditional ad agencies or marketing firms. 'No mahogany conference rooms, no perky personal assistants, no fees for layers of bureaucracy,' boasts the Principals.com Web site." (p. 134)
Phalanx: a body of troops or police officers, standing or moving in close formation.
"The CEO is at the top. Behind him is a phalanx of vice presidents, who have different functions but occupy identical hierarchical positions." (p. 144)
Honcho: a leader or manager; the person in charge.
Dope: a stupid person.
"Suppose Sue the HR person is a dope. In that case, the only way to hire a new account executive is to go around her." (p. 144)
Titular: holding or constituting a purely formal position or title without any real authority.
Linchpin: a person or thing vital to an enterprise or organization. A pin passed through the end of an axle to keep a wheel in position.
"Inside of every organization where I've worked, there's always been some top person who was absolutely clueless - and someone else with significantly less titular authority who seemed to be the linchpin of the operation." (p. 145)
Sociologist: an expert in or student of the development, structure, and functioning of human society.
Unilateral: (of an action or decision) performed by or affecting only one person, group, or country involved in a particular situation, without the agreement of another or the others.
" 'Societies which rely heavily on the use of force,' writes Oxford University sociologist and scholar of trust Diego Gambetta, 'are likely to be less efficient, more costly, and more unpleasant than those where trust is maintained by other means.' The trust I'm talking about here, however, is not the naive belief that everyone will unilaterally do what they say they'll do." (p. 155-6)
Trappings: the outward signs, features, or objects associated with a particular situation, role, or thing.
"[Executive suites] rent micropreneurs and other free agents private offices with a shared reception area and receptionist. Many also provide meeting rooms, videoconferencing, mail and commercial package delivery, photocopying and secretarial services, and sometimes even child care and fitness centers. They offer free agents the trappings of corporate life without the hassles." (p. 165)
Pilfer: steal (typically things of relatively little value).
"Office Depot, Staples, and Office Max are the supply closets of Free Agent Nation. These three national chains allow soloists and micropreneurs to get their office supplies almost as easily as when they just had to walk down the hall to pilfer Post-Its." (p. 167)
Sherpa: a member of a Himalayan people living on the borders of Nepal and Tibet, renowned for their skill in mountaineering.
"Work has increasingly become a source of meaning. And that has made careers resemble mountain climbing - full of great heights and potential peril, a self-directed quest rather than a passive ride. That's why more American workers are turning to self-styled career sherpas to help them trek across work's new emotional terrain." (p. 172)
Venture: a business enterprise involving considerable risk.
Bill: describe someone or something in a particular, usually promotional, way, especially as a means of advertisement.
Spot market (cash market): A public financial market in which financial instruments or commodities are traded for immediate delivery, in contrast to the futures market, in which delivery is due at a later date.
Yenta: a woman who is a gossip or busybody.
"The free agent economy... is a market. On one side are buyers - those seeking talent. On the other side are sellers - independent workers with products or services for sale. And in between are companies like M-Squared, a $10 million venture headquartered in San Francisco's financial district.... The company bills itself as 'the premier broker of independent consultants to companies in need of 'spot-market' expertise and just-in-time management staffing.... 'We're sort of a corporate yenta.' " (p. 173)
Shtetl: a small Jewish town or village in eastern Europe. "Maybe the new economy is an old-fashioned Ukrainian village - a shtetl, like the one in Fiddler on the Roof." (p. 173)
Mustachioed: having a mustache, typically a long or elaborate one.
Whimsy: playfully quaint or fanciful behavior or humor.
"Bob Weis - a mustachioed six-foot-ten former Portland State University baseball player, who looks enough like Phil Jackson to play the coach in a TV movie - was once such a portable executive.... Weis called his fledgling company Strategic Financial Services. That, he said, 'was a stupid name.' But in a burst of whimsy, Weis had fitted his car with a vanity license plate that read, "CFOS2GO.' That, he realized, was a great name." (p. 174)
Straddle: sit or stand with one leg on either side of.
Contend: struggle to surmount (a difficulty or danger).
Vicissitude: a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.
Balm: a fragrant ointment or preparation used to heal or soothe the skin.
Ego: a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance.
"Talent agents straddle the economic and emotional realms. They help the talent market run more fairly - by boosting the bargaining power of independent workers. But they also serve a kinder, gentler function - helping these independents contend with career vicissitudes, and occasionally balming bruised free agent egos." (p. 178)
Shingle: a small signboard, especially one found outside a doctor's or lawyer's office.
"The shingle outside his office in a small retail park identifies him as a 'business and executive coach.' " (p. 180)
Inimitable: so good or unusual as to be impossible to copy; unique.
"Only after the Industrial Revolution did most Americans begin living in one place and earning a living in another. And this, says the inimitable Peter Drucker, had a great impact on the family. The nuclear family had long been the unit of production. On the farm and in the artisan's workshop, husband, wife, and children worked together. The factory, almost for the first time in history, took worker and work out of the home and moved them into the workplace, leaving family members behind." (p. 185)
Veritable: used as an intensifier, often to qualify a metaphor. "Carole and Geoffery Howard are veritable veterans. Geoffery has been a free agent training consultant for twenty-four years, Carole for eighteen.... 'We've collaborated on on free agency for twenty years and on our marriage for thirty.' " (p. 187)
Obstetrical: relating to childbirth and the processes associated with it.
Irony: a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.
"I'm sure we're not the first parents to plan a family around our health insurance coverage. And I suspect Eliza is not the only COBRA baby toddling around the playground. But what makes this obstetrical tale rich with irony is that, while our daughter was planned, the health insurance system behind that planning was an accident." (p. 202)
Glib: (of words or the person speaking them) fluent and voluble but insincere and shallow.
Autodidact: a self-taught person.
"A glib autodidact who says he reads two books a week and enters highlighted passages in a computer database that now has more than ten thousand entries, Hansen says his goal was to 'set a new order of things based on the postindustrial age.' " (p. 208)
Bane: a cause of great distress or annoyance.
Brute: unreasoning and animallike.
"Not everybody in the independent workforce enjoys the freedom, authenticity, accountability, and self-defined success of the free agent work ethic. For those left out, free agency is a bane and Free Agent Nation is a nasty, brutish land." (p. 214)
Harbor: keep (a thought or feeling, typically a negative one) in one's mind, especially secretly.
Animus: hostility or ill feeling.
Nominal: (of a role or status) existing in name only.
"Most temp slaves harbor intense animus toward their temp agencies, which are their nominal employers and which issue their checks." (p. 215)
Contretemps: a minor dispute or disagreement.
"Mike Blain and Marcus Courtney, two former Microsoft temps, launched WashTech in 1998 in response to the permatemps' contretemps." (p. 221)
Muckracking: the action of searching out and publicizing scandalous information about famous people in an underhanded way.
""It uses the new tools of e-mail, HTML, and wireless communication to electrify the old-fashioned techniques of muckracking and worker organizing." (p. 222)
Stint: a person's fixed or allotted period of work.
Stead: the place or role that someone or something should have or fill (used in referring to a substitute
"The only time she's been out of the labor movement was a short stint as a public defender - which, she says, 'stands you in good stead for just about anything because you get yelled at all the time.' " (p. 225)
Askance: with an attitude or look of suspicion or disapproval.
Infidelity: the action or state of being unfaithful to a spouse or other sexual partner.
"While Horowitz has not affiliated with the union establishment, and while the traditional labor movement has looked askance at what some consider her infidelity to the cause, she is actually trying to take labor back to its roots." (p. 226)
Snicker: give a smothered or half-suppressed laugh; snigger.
"She checks her v-mail from her handheld screen phone and absentmindedly hums one of the Beatles tunes that makes her grandchildren snicker." (p. 233)
Psychic: relating to the soul or mind.
"Too many years of working for a boss can take a psychic toll." (p, 235)
Consonant: in agreement or harmony with.
"Home schooling is almost perfectly consonant with the four values of the free agent work ethic I described in Chapter 4: having freedom, being authentic, putting yourself on the line, and defining your own success." (p. 249)
Gumption: shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness.
"As more families choose this option, they will make home schooling more socially acceptable - thereby instilling more families with the gumption to take this once unconventional route." (p. 251)
Numeracy: the ability to understand and work with numbers.
"Expect a surge of new kinds of 'home economics' courses that teach numeracy, accounting, and basic business." (p. 254)
Mandarin: an official in any of the nine top grades of the former imperial Chinese civil service.
"Adults who were unschooled youths will know how to learn and expect to continue the habit throughout their lives - and not only when someone from the HR department or the 'continuing education' mandarins of the profession tell them it's time for training." (p. 256)
Adroit: clever or skillful in using the hands or mind.
"The students who make it to elite colleges are generally those who've proved to most adroit at conventional (read: outdated) schooling." (p. 257)
Soul: an individual person.
"The conference industry, already hot, will continue to catch fire as more people seek gatherings of like-minded souls to make new connections and learn new things." (p. 258)
Demeaning: causing someone to lose their dignity and the respect of others.
"Waking up early and going to an office job is absolutely demeaning." (p. 263)
Apace: swiftly; quickly.
"Just-in-time officing - where free agents can rent an inexpensive office or conference room and pay by the hour - will continue apace." (p. 269)
Credenza: a sideboard or cupboard.
"You don't look like a business. You look like a guy - a guy with dirty hands. Hey! Don't touch my credenza!" (p. 272)
Stupefy: make (someone) unable to think or feel properly.
Arcane: understood by few; mysterious or secret.
"Corporate finance - a world filled with derivatives, hedges, and countless other complicated products - can be stupefyingly arcane." (p. 275)
Syndicate: a group of individuals or organizations combined to promote some common interest.
"About one in ten pro fighters have syndicated financial backers, whose investments yield these investors a percentage of the boxer's earnings over a specified time." (p. 282)
Cavalry: (in the past) soldiers who fought on horseback.
Icon: a painting of Jesus Christ or another holy figure, typically in a traditional style on wood, venerated and used as an aid to devotion in the Byzantine and other Eastern Churches.
"The free agent - or to make it official, the Free Agent - is about the enlist in this cavalry of election year icons." (p. 287)
Presume: be audacious enough to do something.
Audacious: showing an impudent lack of respect.
"An effective 'unemployment' insurance plan for free agents won't presume stability or regularity." (p. 295)
Manifesto: a public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate.
Screed: a long speech or piece of writing, typically one regarded as tedious.
""As the writers of the Cluetrain Manifesto, the brilliant Web screed that became an equally brilliant book, taught us..." (p. 307)
Gung-ho: unthinkingly enthusiastic and eager, especially about taking part in fighting or warfare.
Traipse: walk or move wearily or reluctantly.
"If you have any doubt that today's game is fixed in a different way, picture the three gung-ho male founders of iGrandparents - flush with venture capital, intent on building an empire - traipsing to Bayside, Queens, to spread cream cheese and sip Sanka in Betty's living room, desperately trying to acquire a one-woman enterprise hatched and nurtured by an out-of-work eighty-year-old." (p. 314)
