Customer Reviews:
 Nice Book April 3, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Ehrenreich paints a decidedly unique picture of minimum wage living, and through such an angle, she really expresses this situation well. She didn't simply analyze existing statistics; Ehrenreich went out and actually experienced what it is like to be a waitress, maid, Wal-Mart employee, and "dietary aid," as the job is so affectionately known. However, she does this with the eye of a PhD and the political mindset of a decidedly non-mainstream person. As I read, I constantly found myself more interested in the life of the author than the one she was temporary living. That aside, once one reads this book, one will never think about minimum-wage work and the struggles that accompany it in the same light again. Ehrenreich shatters the common philosophy held between the more afluent that people on minimum-wage are lazy and are only poor because they lack work ethic. From what she says in her book, this could not be more incorrect. Often, it is the poor that are forced to work the longest hours, in the most unwanted, demeaning occupations. Furthermore, it is not work ethic that does them in, it is our society's need to serve the upper and middle classes that lowers wages and benefits and increases workload.
This inability to excell in a world ruled by the rich is a constant thorughout all of her jobs, regardless of place. In Key West, for example, Ehrenreich manages to live in a trailer, however her co-diner-employees are forced into long-term, crampt motel rooms, their own cars, and communative living. From this, she brings up another difficulty encountered by the poor: it is near impossible to save up enough money to provide for a deposit and first month's rent, so many are only able to barely afford "pay-as-you-go" housing. A similar idea also comes up when Ehrenreich goes to be a maid in Maine. When she learns that other maid services pay more, she asks her coworkers why they don't switch, and she finds that they cannot afford to switch jobs, because the work or so without pay is an impossibility on current salaries. Overall, this book can teach one a lot about how much we take for granted our comfortable jobs and live our lives as if it is all this easy.
 What a load of bull March 25, 2008
4 out of 10 found this review helpful
I can't believe I read through the entire book. the only consolation was that I filled the sidebars with angry comments. the whole tone of this book was bitter and angry. SHE was angry to be poor not her workmates. THEY were rather happy with life and full of hope looking towards a better future. Those of you who read it and bought into it, I advise you to read it again. pay attention to the tone of the book. Observe who the author is, and what her outlook in life is like. then, imagine youself in the situation of these people she writes about. than think to yourself if you would be as angry as she is. I am sure you wouldn't if you are well adjusted.
The whole book was a sream of ranting and raving: I just love the way she compares a husband to a dog at one point, and the way she talks about pubic hair in the shower. a real OPTIMIST I gotta say.
 Finally, a view from the invisible side March 12, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is fantastic! I was required to read it for a Sociology class and I am really happy that the Professor picked this one. I hope that more people will read this book so they can start looking closer at the invisible side of the service industry. I would love to have this be required reading in high schools so teenagers could learn about this before they go out into the world.
Nickel and Dimed March 9, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book opened my eyes to how people really try to live! I look at workers in so called low paying jobs, quite differently. I see them.
Needs to be read and understood March 2, 2008
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
First, for those reviewers who accuse Ehrenreich, the author, of being a commie, or a socialist, or any other familiar devil term, they either haven't read the book or have no understanding of the US and the principles for which we stand. Many stalwarts of the left have acknowledged that we are probably the freest country ever, to paraphrase one. And I have argued, to the chagrin of some, that we are far more "populist" than most any other country. In that populist tradition, Ehrenreich wrote this valuable volume.
For the one who commented on the author's admitted drug use, well, that's a non-issue.
And, as to those who accuse Ehrenreich of arrogance, you may be showing more of your own colors than hers. Have you been able to examine the plight of the working poor? Could you express it as eloquently as she did?
I listened to a recorded version of this classic. The jury's still out as to my view of that "new" medium. But it certainly gives me time to "read" something for which I might not otherwise have time.
Others have stated the book's premises: The author is a journalist with a Ph.D. in biology. She has a noted reputation among the educated. She talked with the editor of Harper's about investigating that plight to which I referred, and he suggested she "join them."
Ehrenreich starts with her explanation of her set of rules. She'd calculated how much she needed to live, and for what little she'd be willing to settle for in terms of wage.
She started as a waitress in some restaurants near where she lived. Among the first things that astonished her--something about with I' ve been expressing concern since it hit--was the cost of housing relative to what her fellow waitresses were making. Some lived in their cars, others were able to barely survive by sharing a place with a boyfriend or other family member.
Another issue she raised was hierarchy: what purpose do some of the "managers" serve except to harass the employees? (Where I used to work, a place I left in good terms which I still share with colleagues and managers, I wondered, "How many managers does it take to change a light bulb?") We somehow assume that such a hierarchy needs to exist to ensure that work is done. Ehrenreich concludes that that's not true.
She also worked at a nursing home. She had some heart warming stories about demented seniors and their dubious survival.
She proceeded to Maine where she worked for a maid's service--which charged customers $25 an hour while paying the maids $6.65 an hour. She was flabbergasted at how some of their customers had cameras available to them to ensure that the maids weren't stealing anything and that they were "doing their job" (for barely a quarter of what the maid service was charging the customer!) And in the case of one of the service's customers, a rather buxom woman who lived in a suburban Portland mansion barely fit under a desk to make sure that the maids got every single speck of dust!
Then Ehrenreich went to Minnesota, for reasons she wasn't able to discern, and "interviewed" for jobs at a hardware establishment and at Wal-Mart. She chose to work for the latter as the former's 11 hour shifts she wouldn't put up with. But, what with the extremely limited housing market in Minnesota, that gave her several other subjects to cover, including economic statistics, of dubious credibility, and housing availability and prices. Her descriptions of where she had to live were some of the wittiest portions of the text.
My appreciation for the author's eloquence is immense. Again, some accuse her of being arrogant. Well, she was in a position to investigate the conditions in which she reports. Should Nelly Bly not have reported on the asylums of yesteryear because she was demonstrably NOT insane? Ehrenreich had a great deal of sympathy with her co-workers, to few of whom she admitted her real role, that of an investigative author. And she asked, "Why did they put up with it?" She concluded that not only did other jobs in the area not really pay much, if any, more. But many of them had transportation problems: How do you get to work 40 minutes away if you don't have a car?
There were other issues in the employment process, especially drug tests and employment "tests." We are NOT unwilling to succumb to these foolish drug tests while there is no evidence that they do any good? (She refers to one in which the government spent literally $70,000 per testee!) And, something she doesn't even mention, they're hopelessly inaccurate. She does mention that heroin and cocaine leave your system in a few days while marijuana, the least threating of the substances, can remain in your system for weeks. And there's no test for alcohol. I took a personality test a number of years ago to which, I admitted to the manager (who hired me) that most of my honest answers would have been "that depends." And "Skeptical Inquirer" had an article a few years ago which described that these tests haven't even been created by social scientists. They're at best a means of "management" establishing itself as of a higher caste.
Oh, and she does cover the issue of health insurance: none of the jobs had that benefit. So many of her colleagues had to grin and bear it through a number of health threats. For that fact, we Americans should be collectively ashamed of ourselves.
It's hard for me to express greater appreciation for this book. It may bust some American mythology, particularly that if you work hard enough you can make it here. (Not if you're paying 3/4 of your income for a dump to live in!) She summarizes the book with fact that the many--MILLIONS!--of working poor are making enormous sacrifices so that the rest of us can be "comfortable." I repeat MILLIONS. This isn't a minor problem. And the economic statistics to which she refers are dated. They've become substantially worse. (Housing prices are only one!)
I've wanted to read this book for years and finally got around to it. There's so, so much more I could say about it, but read it yourself. I truly believe it should be required reading in every high school and every college. It's NOT an ideological issue, but a very real issue of which too many of are sadly unaware. Read it and weep.
|
