I’ve never read one of Barbara Ehrenreich’s books but I might have to check one of them out after reading Nickeled and Dimed. I admired the argument, actually enjoyed reading for a change, and also learned a lot from every page. When I finished the book, I looked at it as what I only can call loathing. Writing up for the rich the results of an upper class essayist’s anthropological mission to see how the other half live is worthwhile. It is part of the task of affiliating the comfortable, which needs to be carried out much more strongly if we are ever to have a better society. The point of Ehrenreich’s rapiers of intellect, art, and wit are ever more prevalent when she points out that even so-called “unskilled” work—is demanding and challenging: the memory skills required of a waitress, the physical labor of a house cleaner with a vacuum on her back, and the patience of a wal-mart “zoner” hanging up the same blouse for the ninth time can push human capacities close to their limits—and for the truly lousy pay.
I feel that the focus or purpose of her writings were to remind her readers that every job is worth doing well, and that people who do it well deserve respect: “…when I wake up
One thing I did mind about the book was that is was not totally focused on the experiences of the working poor, but often the experiences of someone trying to find a cheap place to live on short notice while she cleanses her system of various chemical substances. The working poor are poorly paid and their wages are stagnating not because bosses are mean or unfair. They are poorly paid because our technology has dropped demand for low-education labor at the same time that our educational system has failed to upgrade the formal education skills of our workforce. Other than this I thought that Mrs. Ehrenreich did an excellent job of covering the intended subject matter.
Mrs. Ehrenreich chose not to examine statistics from the comfort of her own home or by interviewing unskilled laborers. She chose instead to engage in what she describes as “old fashioned journalism;” she went out and lived the life she wanted to examine. This gave her a first person analysis of what she saw and experienced in her work place among unskilled laborers. This first person approach was the best possible way for a journalist to write a book. She had her own insight and opinion of everything that went on. This first person approach also limited her by not allowing her to see everything from the boss’s standpoint. For the most part poor attitudes and sometimes sub-par efforts toward their work, which in turn reflects the efforts of the people above them.
at 4 A.M. in my own cold sweat, I am thinking of the table where I screwed up the or
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