Work for Youth: “Nickel and Dimed” by Ehrenreich Essay

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In her book “Nickel and Dimed,” Barbara Ehrenreich describes research made by her in order to find out a bit more about the life of an American minimum wage worker. Her main goal was to find an average job and to live only on the money she would be getting for this job: “My aim is nothing so mistily subjective as to “experience poverty” or finds out how it “really feels” to be a long-term low-wage worker” (Barbara Ehrenreich, 11). She had to choose the most highly-paid average job and to live in the cheapest apartment in order to save more money for living. The main purpose of this project was to find out if it was possible to live in another city, to rent an apartment, even the cheapest one, and to exist somehow on money the employers will be paying to you. For this, Barbara moved to Florida and found a job first as a waitress. Then she was a hotel maid, a house cleaner and then she continued taking the jobs like these in order to find out which one was better. It is very difficult to be always surrounded by people you don’t know, and that’s what Barbara writes about it “From the first day on, I find that of all the things I have left behind, such as home and identity, what I miss the most is competence.” (Barbara Ehrenreich, 17) She laid emphasis on the fact that no matter where you may go and which of the numerous cities you would choose, there will always be places “where tourists and the wealthy compete for living space with the people who clean their toilets and fry their hash browns” (Barbara Ehrenreich, 12).

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At this, she lived in the cheapest apartments, and what was important for her was safety rather than the beauty of an apartment itself. Barbara wanted to find a job but being a server was not on her list. “Waitressing is similarly something I’d like to avoid because I remember it leaving me bone tired when I was eighteen, and I’m decades of varicosities and back pain beyond that now.” (Barbara Ehrenreich, 13) I can’t entirely agree with Barbara here, and I think that a server will be the best job for young people with no education, as well as for older people having no higher education when they come to another city in order to start their life there. I think being a server is a good start and, as this work is difficult, it should be noted that any job of this kind can be very hard and tiresome.

To begin with, the work of a server is one of the most being in demand. Each city, especially if it is a big city, has a lot of cafés and restaurants which very often suffer from the lack of service stuff and that’s where the personnel changes all the time: “there are no jobs now, but there should be one soon, since “nobody lasts more than a couple weeks.” That’s why it can be mentioned that it won’t be very difficult for you to find a job as a server if you come to another city. Nevertheless, while searching for a job, you should keep in mind that “the want ads are not a reliable measure of the actual jobs available at any particular time” (Barbara Ehrenreich, 15), and if you really want to find a job you should go around the city and knock on each door you’re coming across asking whether workers are wanted there.

What’s more, the job of a server will help you become not only a responsible and punctual person but endurable as well. Everything works very easily: once you are late, you will be fired as well as if you confuse or forget some of the orders, nobody will praise you for that. Being a server seems to be easy, but in fact, it demands a lot of responsibility and attention. “That’s the other powerful motivation I hadn’t expected – the customers, or “patients,” as I can’t help thinking of them on account of the mysterious vulnerability that seems to have left them temporarily unable to feed themselves” (Barbara Ehrenreich, 17). Moreover, being a server is not just bringing coffee and food, “about a third of a server’s job is “side work” that’s invisible to customers – sweeping, scrubbing, slicing, refilling, and restocking” (Barbara Ehrenreich, 17). So, if you want to prove to other people that you are strong and can cope with everything, the job of a server is for you.

And, in conclusion, it is worth reminding that a lot of famous people, numerous celebrities being among them, started namely from being servers because when you come to a foreign city in search of a better life, there should be no bad jobs for you and only starting from something insignificant you will be able to breakthrough.

Reference

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "Work for Youth: “Nickel and Dimed” by Ehrenreich." October 7, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/work-for-youth-nickel-and-dimed-by-ehrenreich/.

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