The unstable, even precarious labor conditions of many frontline service jobs in the United States should render them undesirable to upwardly mobile young workers. Yet for many, these types of jobs complement, rather than infringe upon, their broader lifestyles. Drawing on six years of ethnographic research in upscale Los Angeles restaurants, I show how front-of-the-house service workers navigate portfolio lives—sustained though shifting arrangements of labor and leisure that blur the boundaries between the two. I describe how these workers, who are mostly young, white, and college educated, leverage both personal resources and workplace structures to weave their restaurant jobs into their larger webs of activities. I close by discussing how the concept of portfolio lives extends theories of boundaryless work careers to the urban service economy, though these dynamic assemblages remain subject to class and race inequalities.

中文翻译：

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管理投资组合生活：洛杉矶高档餐厅员工的灵活性和特权

美国许多前线服务工作的不稳定甚至不稳定的劳动条件应该使他们不适合向上流动的年轻工人。然而，对许多人来说，这些类型的工作补充而不是侵犯了他们更广泛的生活方式。我在洛杉矶高档餐厅进行了六年的民族志研究，展示了前台服务人员如何驾驭投资组合生活——尽管不断变化的劳动和休闲安排模糊了两者之间的界限，但仍能维持这种生活。我描述了这些大多是年轻、白人和受过大学教育的工人如何利用个人资源和工作场所结构将他们的餐厅工作编织成更大的活动网络。我最后讨论了投资组合生活的概念如何将无边界工作职业理论扩展到城市服务经济，