Presenting Ehrenreich as a low-wage worker proves to have sounded normal to all those who never knew she was an underground writer. Behind the scenes the writer holds a Ph.D. in biology and has been familiarized with an upper-middle-class life in the U. S. Being an essay writer as well as a cultural critic, she chose to analyze the effects of the welfare reform on the unskilled locals who had been absorbed into the labor market hence leading a ghost living in terms of survival ranging from $6 to $7 a single hour a case equal to living from hand to mouth.
For this case she picked on different places with different settings to stay and personally get involved in the low-wage work to justify the case of dire poverty among the low class in the states. At first she experiences life in Key West, Florida a city near her native home and she lands a waitress job but still kept her profile underground even withholding her name and instead was always referred to as ‘girl’ (Ehrenreich 51).
Surprisingly enough the dues paid were not enough to substances for the rent installments that were to be paid a month earlier for the trailer she had rented after spending some time of agony in search of a residential, so as a result she went for a second job as a housekeeper in an adjacent restaurant. This proved a culture within the employees that in case a single job could not measure up to meeting the life expectations; one was usually encouraged to take on second or even more duties so as to fetch more.
However, things get even thicker as she strains too much in bid of maintaining the two duties at the same time because they both proved physically challenging amidst the inconsiderate bosses and at the end of the day she was so exhausted that she could not do anything else. She therefore chose to quit the housekeeping position after a single day’s trial and upsetting situations that dominated the better part of the job. At one point it was hard to communicate with her co-worker who could not converse in English therefore, taking him all the trouble to sacrifice and teach him some basic communication in English. But later, the co-worker was fired by the management on allegations of theft because he could not defend himself due to communication barrier.
After a two-week spell of strain and stress, Ehrenreich had to call it quits to the waitperson job which she had planned to quit after four weeks to cater for the trailer rent. The next step proved a nightmare because she had no job, no money for rent and was to spend some time looking for a job to sustain her.
The next city in which she decides to stage her findings is in Maine, Portland, where she thought would be suitable due to the self-styled demographic category she had placed herself into as a low-wage earner, hence blending her salary with an affordable motel to stay. She goes for a job only to realize in time that she needed two jobs just as she had tried in Florida to try making the ends meet. Finally she fell for housekeeping and a nursing home assistant which she did alternating, as she performed housekeeping during the weekdays and the latter during the weekends.
The nursing assistance usually comprised of feeding the locals in the nursing home and a general clean-up exercise that she always did with a lot of enthusiasm. This saw to the entrustment she was granted to an extent of granting her the duties of caring and feeding the whole ward all by herself. At some point she felt like passing out because of the duty she had been granted although they had no knowledge of her professionalism as majority of the residents were ailing, were diabetic and needed special attention.
However she performed her stipulated duties, housekeeping proved so hard during the week because it entailed both the physical and psychological strain and her boss being a stern type especially when it came to cases of women employees, the tight schedule was to be adhered to, cases of having breaks or off-duty leaves remained a nightmare to the humbled employees. There was providence for food therefore meaning one was to entirely depend on the peanuts paid as a wage for getting food stuff hence bringing about a single meal for a day.
Despite the fact that Ehrenreich had shifted her working base as to Maine the working conditions were no better, she came into contact with other fellow employees who had different complications that were mostly brought about by the most strenuous jobs that had become their daily routine. First she is taught by one old woman named Marge how to go about medications incase of pain indications especially the back pain during the working process. Unfortunately the woman had arthritis that threatened her health state but the harsh reality is that she had to remain on job so that she can sort herself out financially (Ehrenreich 66).
On the other end she meets Holly a veteran in the company who had served loyally for age in the same company but luck had never come her way to go up the promotion stairs. During their continued existence in the company, Holly happens to become pregnant and she was not willing enough to share the experience with the others, who only discovered the condition through the physical and emotional changes.
The reason behind her behaving in this kind of manner is because she would have been relieved of her duties, thus meaning that no wages hence making life too unbearable and not worth living. It even happened that during one of the normal housekeeping duties, she got hurt and when instructed to check on the doctor, she declined and instead chose to go on performing her duties till the end of the duty to earn the day’s wage.
However much Ehrenreich tried to voice out the issues and initiated a mobilization campaign to foster for the workers’ welfare, nobody came to give a hand but instead kept off and concentrated on their duties in fear of losing their jobs once they turned against the management’s procedures.
After having gathered enough in Maine, Poland, She got to Minnesota where she experienced the worst of all because securing a house to stay in proved a big challenge, so she spent most of her time up and down the city in search of an apartment. She even realized that getting a hotel to board there was an idea never to be sought after.
It is only after some long time of worried hustle and bustle that she comes across a ramshackle downtown, with a dilapidated door and pane-less windows that usually would let the biting cold in. This clearly brought to her the position a low waged local in the society held and the gap between the high class and the low class. As a sense of humor, Ehrenreich points out the reverse of order in the case of demand and supply here because the need for shelter was very high. For this instance but the availability of residential houses proved to be a major setback.
She at last got a job at the Wal-Mart, a ladies clothing company where her duties were tied to tidying up the rooms by placing the dressings on the racks from the dressing room. The kind of treatment in this case was too weird in a sense that Ehrenreich was subjected to repressive surveillance, which undermined her gender as a female in the hands of men to an extent of making urine samples to test drug content.
However, the wages were never enough even to pay for the every day and night rocketing rent in contrary to the wages that remained constant without an increment. This made her constantly work upon soliciting a more comfortable room that could make her relaxed even after a long day’s work (Ehrenreich 113).
Foodstuffs were precious commodities in the whole neighborhood because there was not enough money for purchasing the stuff for cooking, but instead survival was based on fast foods also referred to as take-away items. Fed up with this kind of monotonous and weary jobs in the city for a few dollars as a wage, Ehrenreich clocks on an idea and resorts to bringing together the entire employee fraternity by forming unions that could spearhead for their welfare.
However, she faces stumbling blocks in her bid to implement the initiative from the seniors who paralyze her scheme only leaving for her, Melissa who worked right beside her in any initiative and even decides to leave also in fear of atrocities once Ehrenreich decides to leave.
The fact remains that, the work schemes initiated in this case is rhetoric because it does not meet the required living standards for the low-class level, which denotes ‘every job a good life’ but instead, depletes them of the few resources they could have gathered without going for the least paid wages. They also develop a black spot physically and mentally during the strain they get involved in, trying to make up fat salaries for the CEO and other top organs in such organizations and companies.
Being a positive thinker adds value to the kind of life one leads and for this case, a sample noted from ”Who rules America” indicates that the competition in capitalistic positions are pioneered by the elite and the well pronounced capitalistic population who are just a 20% of the whole 100% population.
The competition felt among the corporate classes, the unfriendly takeovers, the cohesion rooted from their return outcomes and the capitalistic class through key management decision making, policy planning and other key appointments to key positions is a clear indication of who is involved in taking control of the state or “rule America” as earlier on placed. In this kind of a setting the decisions made directly affect the bottom 80% of the entire population.
More so, one scary thing is that the power they uphold stems right back from the wealth they have accumulated from the profuse sweat of the bottom class through the management and running of the high income generating companies and corporations. Being the bosses, they reserve every right to hire or fire now the majority of low-class employees who depend entirely on the peanuts as salaries and wages for that matter. This therefore gives direct influence to the vast population and to some extent indirect influence over the state “Majority interests looking out for themselves” (National Vanguard Books 2).
Foremost, the issue about low skilled wage workers has deepened its roots in the whole world not necessarily United States and therefore a given notion developed that such duties do not need skill labor, forgetting the fact that on taking up such tasks one should be ready to face manual labor taxing, disillusionment and above all degrading. This calls for fast learning, critical thinking, stamina, prolonged perseverance and always a fresh memory which most often sums up to long-term injuries, unending pain as well as psychological trauma (National Vanguard Books 3).
Conclusively, the poor here have some survival strategies unknown to the middle class out of pressure and the hard felt psychological effects of working in such conditions with the empty promises by the welfare reform even in her best-case setting, with all the added advantages of basic and nonbasics like health, education, a vehicle, and some amount for a few month’s rent just like writer, one has to work effortlessly to avoid being caught up in such a life snarl. She brings out the invisible poor living in hiding and, as a result, the world they live in where civil rights are often overlooked and the strenuous hard work fails to reach its reputation as the ticket from poverty.
Works cited
Ehrenreich, B. Nickel and Dimed: On -(Not) Getting By in Americas’. Rockland, MA: Wheeler Publishing, 2003.
National Vaanguard Books. Who Rule Americans’? 2001. Web.
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