Summarizer. Section 7. Pages 169-199. Kallie Thoreson

In this section of the book, Ehrenreich is still searching for a new place to live.  She finds some possibilities but always ends up ruling them out because they are too expensive or too far away from her job.  While working at Wal-Mart, she comes to the conclusion that the majority of Wal-Mart associates are poor.  She can tell this by a few particular characteristics:  crooked yellow teeth, inadequate footwear, hairstyle, and a hopeless look.  When the author cannot find affordable housing, she makes reservations at the Comfort Inn for close to $50/night hoping it will only last a couple of nights.  Later in this section, Ehrenreich starts to seriously consider “why anyone puts up with the wages paid at Wal-Mart” (178).  She gets talking to several of the other Wal-Mart associates and brings up the idea of starting a union; however, this idea never gets put into motion because it isn’t long before the author is through with her experiment and through working at Wal-Mart.  Ehrenreich begins the evaluation by saying that during her experiment she was a person of “average ability”.  She said that she was capable of learning the jobs she worked and also capable of making mistakes.  Ehrenreich ends this section by saying that something is wrong “when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow.  You don’t need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents too high” (199).

Up until the point in this section where Ehrenreich starts brainstorming about a union, she writes with personality.  Most of the book has been written this way – a way that shows her motivation and excitement for this experiment.  When she starts tossing the idea of a union around, that is when the tone of the writing shifts.  It gradually becomes more dull and depressing up until the end of the Minnesota chapter.  Then, as the evaluation starts, the tone changes again.  Because she is now writing for a different purpose, the writing is more informative and less story-like.