Acknowledgments

Other people besides myself share in the responsibility for this work. Robin Karbowski was generous with her time and ideas during the data-gathering stage of the study. Carol Heimer and Dorothy Nelkin carefully criticized the entire manuscript. John Gagnon pushed me to be interesting, while Paul Attewell pushed me to be precise. Judith Tanur caused me to be more sociological than I otherwise would have been, straightened out my confused logic, cleaned up my grammar, and shored up my morale. Michael Schwartz helped me find ways to make clear the sociological importance of this work, and introduced me to my editor, Naomi Schneider. Charles Perrow's support of the study was above and beyond the call of his duty as mentor. This study would be much the poorer without his searching critiques, unflagging friendship, and generosity in letting me borrow his ideas. My greatest debt, both intellectual and personal, is to Patricia Roos, who critiqued the whole manuscript several times and who serves as my reminder of the private significance of scholarly work.

I would not have been able to conduct this research without funding from the Russell Sage Foundation. Some of the editing of the manuscript was carried out while I was a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA (MH 14583 "Services Research Training Program"). Homer and Dolly Hand, forever my friends (and indispensable source of moral fortitude), granted me several summers of unfettered writing.

Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to the people who allowed me to invade their personal and organizational lives to discover what they had done and why.

To all these people I extend heartfelt thanks.