Her biggest complaint was that no one seemed to care when she admitted to them that she was really a well-to-do writer working on a book and not a common peon like them.  She expected her co-workers to be shocked, amazed, even outraged, but most of the people she "came out" to couldn't care less.  If the tone of her book is any indication of her real-life attitudes, they probably were just glad she was leaving!  Contrary to her belief that she is the most interesting person in the world and her little experiment was the most fascinating thing ever done in the history of mankind, Ehrenreich discovered that most people were just trying to make ends meet and didn't care what she did or didn't do in her spare time.

The most whining came from her job with The Maids, a house-cleaning franchise.  (She deposited herself in Maine and whined that everyone was white and there weren't enough minorities.)  Here she worked in teams of four to clean houses.  Houses that were too big and cost too much money, according to her.  (Never mind that she admits her own mortgage interest tax break--er, "housing subsidy"--is $20,000.)  She whined that when the home owners were home, they either ignored her or checked up on her work.  She whined that they didn't seem to notice she existed unless she did something wrong, and she whined that they never offered her anything to eat or drink.  She whined that she sweated too much and couldn't replenish her fluids on the job, as eating and drinking in the homes was not permitted (perhaps why no one offered her anything).  She whined that she had to wear a backpack style vacuum cleaner.  She spent a whole page whining about excrement and pubic hairs.  How that got past the editors I'll never know.

She whined that people looked down their nose at her when she was in her garish maid uniform (bright yellow top with bright green pants).  She even went as far as saying that because of this, she had a tiny inkling of what it felt like to be black.  Yes, she really said that.

She complained that the home owners didn't see her as a human being and looked down on her, and yet she was equally judgmental of them.  She had fantasies of contaminating their kitchens with the bathroom rags.  She judged them by their reading materials ("most of it low-end like Rush Limbaugh and John Grisham").  For some inexplicable reason, she was outraged by one homeowner's collection of antique books because "he probably never even read them."  I think she was just jealous of these people because they were more successful than she was, and she couldn't bear the thought of that.  She said that she herself never used a maid because that was not the kind of relationship she wanted to have with another human being.  She failed to grasp the irony that only those people who looked at maids as lower-class citizens would find the relationship demeaning.

She spent many pages pondering why her fellow maids didn't get angry and lash out about the inequities they saw between them and their clients.  Maybe because they were just doing their job, do you think?  I'm sure they found it unfair, and wished they had more money, but they didn't obsess about it and plot out their revenge against capitalism.  The irony is that most of them would have been thrilled to have Ehrenreich's income, let alone that of their clients.  And yet she saw the clients as the bad guys and herself as one of the downtrodden.

Thankfully, her four weeks at that job were up and she could move on to her next project: Minnesota.  Here, too, there was a dearth of melanin, which offended her for some reason.  She ignored the fact that she had deliberately avoided places like California because minorities "grabbed up all of the crap jobs and low-cost housing."  Yes, she actually said that, too.  I assume she thought she was being clever, but she just sounded like an idiot.  Here in Minnesota, she faced her biggest foe: the mandatory drug test.  You see, she had had a "chemical indiscretion" a few weeks before, and was now whining that she might be denied a job because of it.  She whined for several pages about civil rights and rattled off drug statistics, but never seemed to grasp the fact that had she not broken the law in the first place, she wouldn't be in this predicament.  Luckily she passed the test and became a proud Wal*Mart employee.

She whined that she was never officially offered the job and therefore never given the opportunity to negotiate her hourly wage.  She whined that she had the interview and the drug test, and was called a few days later and told to report to Orientation on such-and-such a date.  I guess she never thought to ask what the pay was during the interview or the orientation call.  She whined that Orientation was boring.  She whined about her job (women's clothing).  She made fun of the fat clothes.  She whined that her supervisor rearranged the floor on a regular basis.

When her funds ran low, she decided to try to get some help at a Food Bank.  She whined that they were only open during her work hours.  She was finally able to secure a food voucher at a local grocery store.  She whined that they wouldn't just give her money because "God forbid I might spend it on alcohol."  I guess Ehrenreich thinks that the government should fund alcoholism and let the sober people go hungry.  She failed to appreciate the fact that she asked for food and was given, well, food.  Maybe not the haute cuisine she was used to eating, but enough to fill her tummy.

And what was the result of all of this whining?  What astounding conclusion did she come to after all of these weeks of being a peon?  That it's next to impossible to make ends meet on $7.00 an hour.  Wow.  Like she needed an experiment to tell her that?  She could have asked any low-wage employee, and she would have been told that.

My conclusion?  Leave this book alone.  Remember, you can never get back those few hours it takes to read it.  If you absolutely MUST read it for the train wreck value, then get it at the library.  Otherwise, you'll be kicking yourself for spending your own hard-earned cash on this piece of junk.

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