1 September 2004
Nickel and Dimed Journal
Page: 2
Response:
The author, Barbara Ehrenreich, feels too fortunate in having a writing job like hers compared to the older generations of her family where they toiled in the mines or for the Union Pacific. To have the luxury of being able to sit through work is �not only a privilege but a duty: something [she] owed to all those people� in her life who didn�t have the same luxury (2). I can connect on the same level as Barbara, because the older generations of my family, mainly my parents and grandparents, tell me how fortunate I am to be able to get an education in the United States. Although my parents are �well-off� for first generation immigrants, they still expect me to match and surpass their success with my benefit of having a higher education than they had. I often put myself in overdrive in school just because I feel like it is my duty, like Barbara�s, to exceed expectations and owe up for my family�s past experiences. My parents went through many hardships in order to get to where they are now, saving every penny along the way. However, many outsiders think that success came to my parents with ease and within a short amount of time. My mother usually stresses the points about her struggles and how lucky I am to begin where I began which is here in the U.S. getting an education, but I often get tired of her lectures. Yes, the stories do motivate me, but sometimes, it is to an extreme that when I fail to meet certain expectations, I feel as though I have failed to do my duty that is supposed to come easily to me since I have all of these advantages that my parents never had. The mindset has been drilled into my brain that it isn�t my parents who are relentless on me now� it�s me.
Page: 12
Response:
�Still it is a shock to realize that �trailer trash� has become, for me, a demographic category to aspire to.� Unfortunately, some people of the lower end of the social hierarchy cannot even experience the disdained �trailer trash� lifestyle. For that term to have a negative connotation is heartbreaking, since there are people who are in worse conditions and would give up anything to have a place to call home even if that means living in a trailer. I have no idea how humans, mainly the members of the younger generations, have enough nerve to attack the lifestyles of the less fortunate. They endure much more than the wealthy, and many of them are as, if not more, modest and decent than those of the middle and higher classes. For the ignorant people who joke about the hardworking, lower class, it is only another sign of weakness as the determined proletarians become stronger. One day, they will find justice and equality to equal their labor with an acceptable salary. I will wait for the day when we see the spoiled population switch roles to perform society�s dirty work in which these humble, mistreated people have done for so long.
Page: 18
Response:
��to my total surprise and despite the scientific detachment I am doing my best to maintain, I care.� Part of human nature forces us to feel no matter how much our minds want to control our hearts. Barbara was experiencing this degraded lifestyle for her research, in a very scientific and statistical sense of course. Almost like the lives in which doctors lead, she cannot get too emotionally attached to her study subjects. This risk of emotional attachment destroys the professionalism of a job. In the movie Patch Adams, however, getting to know the patients has become a brilliant idea preached by the most elite medical schools of the world today.
On a personal level, I usually try not to get too attached to friends, because I risk the chance of getting hurt. I�ve been abandoned in one way or another almost yearly by I guess what one would label as his or her �best friend.� Though I tell myself to just let everyone breeze by as they come and go, many of them get caught in my net without my mind�s consent. It is through my heart and soul that they become a part of me, and since I am restrained to a limited relationship with my parents where I cannot be that open in discussion, friends seem to be the only source of emotional depth that I have left to depend on. With such big shoes to fill, basically the shoes of a family member, I hold very high expectations for anyone who attempts to fill my void. In the past, I find myself being disappointed in having such high standards, because they merge to form qualifications found in perfection. As we all know though, �no one is perfect.�
I hadn�t really noticed my friend-losing trend until about three years ago when I became old enough to analyze my life and relationships. Amusing enough, I seem to gain a friend in conjunction with the loss of another. I don�t really want to call it replacing, but since my mind cannot find this word I�m searching for, I am obliged to use it. Nowadays, I hope for the best to work out and worry less about whether or not these friends fulfill my expectations. Life�s too short to question it all, but I still fall into the trap of overanalyzing a lot. Luckily, my best friend, or rather, my void-filling �sister�, Caitlin, has been very understanding. She has been there for me not only when the sun shines, but also when it begins to rain in my world. I hold back my deepest gratitude and appreciation for her, because like Barbara, I am trying my best to maintain my detachment from people. At times, when I know she deserves a word or two of appreciation from me, I hold back for my brain�s sake. However during those rare and few other times, I actually acknowledge that I care, sort of like how Barbara does. In a way, I think Caitlin finds my rare confessions more meaningful than if I praised her everyday for her efforts. Unlike my past best friends, Caitlin has hit that year mark in which I�ve anticipated. She is family that is accustomed to supporting me in what I do and being just plain supportive in general.
Page: 20
Response:
�So if you wonder why Americans are so obese, consider the fact that waitresses both express their humanity and earn their tips through the covert distribution of fats.� I found this to be a very clever explanation to America�s obesity problem. There is a bit of humor in some of Ehrenreich�s comments such as this one. I mean the last statement one would expect from an author researching a serious issue such as America�s dark side of economic prosperity would definitely not be a joke. Her insider on how waitresses express their humanity through feeding just reminds me of the Chinese culture that I experience. I would assume that many other Asian cultures like the Japanese and some Europeans such as the Italians also concern themselves over the pleasure of food. Almost every member of my family asks me as the first question of interrogation whether or not I ate yet. At relatives� or family friends� houses, they always prepare food to feed us and tell us to eat. Sometimes, even when I am not hungry, they bargain with me, saying that I can go home after I finish half the plate or bowl of food. I think it is rather amusing to know that there are people who are more concerned about food and health than life�s ongoing events and gossip.
Page: 35-36
Response:
�Customers are in fact the major obstacle to the smooth transformation of information into food and food into money�they are, in short, the enemy.� In my last entry, I forgot to add that Ehrenreich had claimed to share a connection with her customers during her waitress phase who are also hard-working people of the middle or lower classes. However, as money, a materialistic but necessary entity in life, comes into play, her peers only become obstacles in her race to make a living. I have anticipated but still am stunned to read the sudden change of attitude that can occur even when Barbara is not really facing poverty, but only experimenting with a poor lifestyle. It was also stated that the corporations leading and supporting low-wages who barely care about its workers were the enemy, because they were only interested in the profits. Heartlessly, they do not pay much attention or give much effort in improving the lives of the workers who help bring in this income. Eventually, as readers can see occurring to Mrs. Ehrenreich, even the workers begin to only care about the money and will sooner or later disregard their own health in seeking profit.
Page: 41
Response:
To continue from the last entry, these workers under stressful circumstances in just trying to manage living may resort to backstabbing someone even if that someone were to be a friend who is going through the same situation. They must be so drained in work that they are seeking for a final reward out of this, and friends do not compensate as a reward after a long term of work. Therefore, they are willing to lose friends in order to simply �make it.� I wonder why they just do not ally with each other instead of go against one another in a fight bigger than what they can imagine. Even though it sounds selfish for them to concentrate only on their own lives, I wonder to what degree of selfishness do multibillionaires or multimillionaires have, unwilling to increase working conditions and wages.
Page: 44
Response:
��They don�t care about us,� she tells me of the hotel guests; in fact, they don�t notice us at all unless something gets stolen from a room��then they�re all over you.�� I remember clearly the last two times I stayed at a hotel: one in Orlando for the musical arts programs of our school and the other recently at the Mohegan Sun Casino Resort. As teenagers, we make a mess in our rooms as it is but especially when we are in a room that is only temporarily serving as our living quarters. From the guests� perspective, the routine is we leave the room and come back to it as if we were entering it for the first time again. We never see the behind-the-scenes cleaning of our rooms, but every once in a while, we stop to observe them cleaning a room across from ours or beside ours. This rather underground method causes probably many guests to forget that they are actually there cleaning up after us. Wherever we may be, we�re having this great time and come back to this neat room as if it is the norm. After reading Ehrenreich�s experiences being a maid, I reevaluated my behavior at hotels, because I will be the first to admit that I have not been the most considerate hotel guest.
Page: 65
Response:
�Oh, he tried staying home, but you get stir-crazy, you know, you start feeling like an outcast.� Barbara was a little skeptical about this character Pete that she meets because supposedly he has money but is only maintaining this job as a source of human contact. She assumes that his story of his great success is a fib, but it touches her to know that �somehow, even more than the presumptive lie about his assets: that this place he has described as so morbidly dysfunctional could amount to a real and compelling human community� (65). I actually can believe that he needs to work just to stay in the loop of the outside world. My mother expresses the same needs. She tells me that she cannot stay at home for long periods of time, because it comes to a point where there is nothing left to do in the house. She then goes to work just for the sake of entering familiar premises of people she knows and communicates with everyday. There is just something about a second home that one gets to find in a workplace.
Page: 84-85
Response:
For someone to degrade another even more after seeing them doing endless amounts of tedious and tiring work disgusts me. Like most antagonists of films, these wealthier controllers of society just like to see their power in use and thus making the servants suffer. To have the inhumanity of asking ��Could you just scrub the floor in the entryway while you�re at it?�� (85) is merciless when these maids are already on their hands and knees for the house owners. Maids are not, however, paid enough to be ill-treated and defiled by these larger-than-life homeowners. By having the maids continue cleaning in an uncomfortable position especially on their hands and knees is demeaning, and commanding for its continuation is inhumane.
Page: 95
Response:
��If we�re cleaning their house, they�re wealthy.�� To the readers, this may be an overstatement. People of a median-income household hire maids every once in awhile, even if that income doesn�t pass $40,000. Most of the middle-class probably looks at that $40,000 after taxes as almost nothing that significant. To people of the lower end of the scale, $40,000 is luxury, because it would allow them to buy the essentials needed to survive. Those necessities off about a $6.00 per hour wage are nearly inexistent after having to pay rent and other bills if there are any. Basically, I felt a sort of connection to this statement that Holly made, because I see the wealthy as people who live in enormous, larger-than-life mansions with butlers and chefs; houses that have more bathrooms than there are people and an overly adorned pool on a 5 acre piece of property. These maids envision the wealthy even as just those who can get by and buy groceries with a place to call home. I realize that I need to open up my eyes to society since I am too small-minded.
Page: 110
Response:
Just how far will one of these low-wage workers go in order to make an income that is not even enough to buy daily essentials? They are so worried about their jobs that they disregard pain, whether it is emotional or physical. It is apparent that emotional agony stays with these laborers through the rollercoaster of ups and downs, though I must say that there are probably more downs than there are ups. I would never imagine for them to drop such a steep height that they would completely ignore an injury just to be able to continue working. Without the hours that they sell themselves for, there is no pay. The situation with Holly in Ehrenreich�s account of the chapter �Scrubbing in Maine� finally comes to a full circle when Ehrenreich understands how much Holly is willing to give up in order to keep the paychecks coming in �because she�s going to keep going until you pry the last cleaning rag from her cold, dead hands, she�s made that clear enough� (111).
Page: 132
Response:
I have concentrated on the lives of the coworkers that Barbara has encountered in the duration of her hands-on research, but up until this point, I really did not consider the children who have to suffer as well. Not only does one generation get to experience the torture first hand, but also the following generation gets a taste of it while they are young. Adults may have a hard time getting by, but imagine how these experiences will affect and taint the perceptions of children. I even think about how this could make up part of the less popular kid population of our school. They do not lead a normal, carefree childhood. I think they are the ones who mature much quicker and thus much earlier than their peers, because they have to learn to handle so much at such a young age. Like Caroline�s daughter, the �little girl had to pick up the baby at day care and watch him until Caroline got home at about 8:00 P.M., which means she didn�t get much change to go outside and play� (132).
Page: 157
Response:
Ehrenreich begins to realize that the recommendations and requirements that Wal-Mart preaches about rarely come into play by the time the real work sets in. I often find it amusing how one must have certain qualifications for a job, but never seem to use those special skills. In a way, the qualifications really do not narrow down job applicants, because when put to work, most of them will be perfectly capable of doing the job. Wouldn�t it make more sense just to flat-out check for characteristics of a person that you really need to have in one of your employees? For example, do we really need a person to be extremely friendly and sweet in order to work as a behind-the-scenes mechanic? If the company that is hiring wants to embellish their requirements just to make the position seem dignified, I don�t think it�s worth it in the end, because the employer could have passed up the best employee they�ve had yet in the midst of it all.
Page: 172
Response:
�The rich and the poor, who are generally thought to live in a state of harmonious interdependence�the one providing cheap labor, the other providing low-wage jobs�can no longer coexist.� It is true what I learned in my Civics class: the poor get poorer and the rich just keep getting richer. There is no middle in this, because once you fall onto either side of the scale, the scale will continue tipping in that direction. As the wealthy continue to take over the economy, the poor will continue to suffer from the high prices that of course the wealthy can afford but the poor cannot. At desperate attempts to be able to afford such essentials like housing and food, the rich employers will begin to hire people willing to work for the lowest wages. With lower wages, the poor will become even poorer, and the endless cycle continues. This is the point in history where we need a change fast, because before we know it, our economy will suffer another depression to balance out the ends.
Page: 191
Response:
�I still think we could have done something, she and I, if I could have afforded to work at Wal-Mart a little longer.� This leaves readers the impression that there is yet a glimpse of hope for these workers. The uprising with the hotel workers sparked a little hope, and maybe this inspires others in the slumps to rise to the occasion and help create a new era of change. Barbara witnessed how that may be possible with the Wal-Mart folks, but there could be so many other Barbaras out there witnessing the same gleaming eyes of those wanting a change after being desperate for so long. Each protest and strike will add on to the fire of these workers who deserve more than what they get paid for. If enough courage and initiative are put out there in public, then perhaps, for once, it will pave a new road for the working poor.
Page: 193
Response:
�The first thing I discovered is that no job, no matter how lowly, is truly �unskilled.�� I never really thought about that before, because Ehrenreich�s observation is true. What exactly is �unskilled�? Anything we do requires some sort of ability to do something which is indeed a skill. Am I right? In fact, according to Dictionary.com, skill is a synonym for ability. Walking, talking, and breathing are all abilities. Work is taking ability to a higher level so technically any type of work has to be skilled labor. I like Barbara�s way of thinking, because she provides great insight to the everyday thoughts and statements that we usually just brush off of our shoulders.
Page: 195
Response:
�Now, I am an unusually fit person, with years of weight lifting and aerobics behind me, but I learned something that no one ever mentioned in the gym: that a lot of what we experience as strength comes from knowing what to do with weakness.� Our minds are capable of manipulating situations so that your perspective comes from the other side of the fence. Even when it is a physical test that you must endure, many times we can pretend as if it is all in our heads. I can relate to this, because towards the end of the marching band season, it gets pretty cold. The members of the colorguard usually wear uniforms that are designed to grab people�s attention, not for our own efficiency of keeping warm in the winter. During championship time, mid-November or so, we had to wear these thin uniforms out onto the football field for competition. Frost had glazed over the Astroturf, and all of us were freezing. Then, we decided to imagine as if the chill was just all in our heads. We imagined that we were in places like Hawaii and the Bahamas. For a few minutes, believing that we were in paradise worked until we physically felt the cold again. The same with Barbara�s experiences: she can twist what exhaustion really is but in the end, it will physically damage the body.
Page: 204
Response:
I read over this page and it reminded me how the business world is not based on education and success but rather more on how well one plays the game of deceit and persuasion. Automatically, I relate this page with the lessons taught in marketing. In the book, it says that �many employers will offer almost anything�free meals, subsidized transportation, store discounts�rather than raise wages� (204). In my introduction to marketing class, Mrs. Schullery had taught us that corporations rarely want to give an employee a raise. Bonuses are much more common, because it does not give the lasting effect that a raise gives. For example, a man named Joe Schmoe working for company XYZ has done well in the human resources department this year. XYZ will add a $2,000 bonus to this last paycheck that he will receive for this year. Since he is just beginning with this company and likes the company environment, he expects to stay with the company for at least another two years. He is getting paid $12.50 by the hour and his annual salary comes out to $26,000 before taxes working 40-hour weeks, but if XYZ decides to raise that to $14.00 per hour, he will receive an annual salary of $29,120 working those same hours and before taxes are taken out of it as well. That is a difference of $3,120 and if he works for XYZ again for the next two years, it will add up to a $9,360 bonus instead of the one year�s bonus of $2,000. That is why large raises are rarely given to employees because it has a detrimental effect to the company�s finances.
Page: 211
Response:
Our country is all about democracy and giving opportunities. In the dark side of our society, this is not true. There is a system of dictatorship in the economic world where slaves must work for those who can afford to pay them in the little that they are given. The final word always lies in the hands of the dictator, never the slave. The slaves cannot argue about their wages, cannot have the right to know what they deserve, cannot compare their fortunes to others, or else the little that these slaves are allowed to have are taken back, or even worse, their source of survival is cut.
Page: 221
Response:
�To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.� I agree with this, because they have complied with the demands of having people do the dirty work of today�s variety of labor. There are much fewer complaints and uprisings than we would expect, because they have been so deprived of knowledge and their rights that they just do what is needed to be done for the sake of working. Even without proper reimbursement for their work, they continue to live on scraps of food and sometimes without shelter for the rest of society who can buy groceries at a relatively constant price. They sacrifice their homes, children, time, and their lives just so that others can live better basically. Change is only occurring gradually rather than dramatically like it should, and until then, the ��working poor,�� as Ehrenreich calls them, will continue to sacrifice their below-normal status so that we can improve even more on the statuses of those in the middle class and above.