Help Wanted by Adele Waldman

 This is a quirky little book about a group of employees behind the scenes at a big-box Walmart-type store in a financially struggling town. Meredith is the boss of the group that moves the stock from the trucks to the floor of the store. She is up for a big promotion. She drives the people she supervises crazy so they decide to band together to work toward getting her the promotion, so she will be out of their hair and so that one of them will get promoted to her current job. This gives them a common purpose and brings them closer together. But there is another woman, Anita, who is probably better qualified for the job and she could spoil their plans.

In many ways, this book is very sad. The employees work hard but most of them have to have second jobs to keep theirs heads above water. And there's a lot of stress in their lives. Furthermore, the corporation really is more focused on the bottom line instead of on retaining good employees. They make sure people never have enough cumulative hours to qualify for health insurance. They make schedule changes without considering the impact on things like employee child care. And they're planning to bring in more automation (which would replace employees). So there's a lot going on that the employees have no control over. Still it is inspiring to see how they band together in hopes of making everyone's life better. And I did love the very last page.