This section starts with the author job searching. Ehrenreich finally got two jobs after she moved to Maine. One job was as a maid and the other was as a dietary aide at a nursing home. As a maid, Ehrenreich makes $6.65 an hour. Although the author is doing the same work for the same pay, she feels sympathetic towards her fellow co-workers. An example of her worry for a co-maid is when she observes another maid frequently not eating a sufficient meal for lunch. As a dietary aide, she also is responsible for the serving and cleaning up of meals at the nursing home. One of the cooks at the nursing home invited Ehrenreich to a smoke date in the parking lot. He seems to be interested in her but she blows him off. In this section, the author ends up living in a motel week to week because she could not afford to live in a traditional apartment.
As a group we all agree that we wouldn’t want to work any of Ehrenreich’s jobs. They are physically demanding, often leaving the author in physical pain. In addition to the physical nature of her work, she is also poorly compensated. We can’t believe that people can manage to support families on so little. We were also surprised about the cramped quarters she kept at the Blue Haven. She writes that when she takes a shower there is not enough room for her and her clothes on the floor: “the bathroom being too small for both a person and her discarded clothes” (85).
The author describes how when she waited at Jerry’s her uniform was a conversation starter. When she was out in public in her maid uniform, she was continually looked down upon, especially when buying beer. We related to this situation because we too have judged people by their appearance. One of our group members can directly relate to this experience. When at work, this group member frequently would see workers from fast food restaurants and feel superior to them because they were middle aged and working a job typically held by a teenager.
After reading this section, we feel that we can use this information shared by Ehrenreich in real life. As a group, we too feel more sympathetic towards low-wage workers. We now realize the amount of effort they put into their jobs and realize that it requires a lot of physical and emotional effort. They do not get paid enough for the amount of work they put into their jobs. We all feel that we will now give these people more respect for their jobs because they may not have a choice for what they do. Ehrenreich’s comments made it seem that these minimum wage workers do not receive this kind of respect. She explains that when these workers get complimented for their efforts, they feel proud and it makes them very excited.
Ehrenreich made an interesting point in this section. She was describing her efforts to obtain government food aid. She makes the point that those people that are in the most need of this free food are the people who are already working multiple jobs trying to support themselves as much as they can. They do not have the available time because they use up all of their time working. On the other hand, those people that are able to obtain this free food are the ones who are not working as much. This opinion is especially expressed in her quote: “What is this assumption that the hungry are free all day to drive around visiting ‘community action centers’ and charitable agencies?” (102). We found this idea contradicting and surprising.
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