Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed

"I still think we could have done something, she and I, if I could have afforded to work at Wal-Mart a little longer" (191).

You know you want to read this!

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AngelaPalumbo/2008/03/id_pay_about_a_nickel_or_dime.html

"But the real question is not how well I did at work but how well I did at life in general, which includes eating and having a place to stay" (Ehrenreich 196).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JulianaCox/2008/03/surviving.html

"Drug testing is another routine indignity. Civil libertarians see it as a violation of our Fourth Amendment freedom from 'unreasonable search' (Ehrenreich 209).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EthanShepley/2008/03/fourth_amendment.html

“The working poor, as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.” (Ehrenreich 221)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AngelicaGuzzo/2008/03/the_working_poor.html

"Take away the career and the higher education, and maybe what you're left with is this original Barb, the one who might have ended up working at Wal-mart for real if her father hadn't managed to climb out of the mines." (Ehrenreich 169).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/KaitlinMonier/2008/03/background_does_not_determine.html

"But warnings about the heat and the allergies put me off, not to mention my worry that the Latinos might be hogging all the crap jobs and substandard housing for themselves, as they so often do" (Ehrenreich 121).

Because you know what's coming, you'd better go to this site:
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/LaurenMiller/2008/03/oh_no_she_didnt.html

“It’s the clothes that I relate to, though, not the customers. And now a funny thing happens to me here on my new shift: I start thinking they’re mine, not mine to take home and wear, because I have no such designs on them, just mine to organize and rule over.” (Nickel and Dimed, pg. 166)
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MadelynGillespie/2008/03/its_mine_ya_hear_its_all_mine.html

"Never mind. I'm off first thingin the morning to look for a job. No waitressing, nursing homes, or housecleaning this time; I'm psched for a change-retail, maybe, or factory work. I drive to the two nearest Wal-Marts, fill out applications, then head for a third one a forty-five minute drive away on the opposite edge of the city (Ehrenreich 123)."

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/StephanieWytovich/2008/03/oh-im-sorry-i-didnt-realize-th.html

“If it weren’t for the drug test, I might have stopped looking right then and there, but there has been a chemical indiscretion in recent weeks and I’m not at all sure I can pass…my indiscretion involved the only drug usually detected by testing, marijuana” (Ehrenreich 125).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/GretaCarroll/2008/03/a_chemical_indiscretion.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/TiffanyGilbert/2008/03/rags_to_richesgood_yet_with_se.html

"Just take away the career and the higher education, and maybe what you're left with is this original Barb, the one who might have ended up working at Wal-mart for real if her father had not managed to climb out of the mines."

Here the tales of a wage slave:
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JessieFarine/2008/03/adhere_to_the_system_earn_the.html

"She talks well past my legal break time and possibly hers-- about her daughter, how's she sick of working long hours and never getting enough time with her, and what does this lead to anyway, when you can't make enough to save?

I still think we could have done something, she and I, if I could have afforded to work at Wal-Mart a little longer." (Ehrenreich 191)

"My two fifteen-minute breaks, which seemed almost superfluous on the 10:00-6:00 shift, now become a matter of urgent calculation. Do I take both before dinner, which is usually 7:30, leaving an unbroken two-and-a-half-hour stretch when I'm weariest, between 8:30 and 11:00? Or do I try to go two and a half hours without a break in the afternoon, followed by a nearly three-hour marathon before I can get away for dinner? Then there's the question of how to make the best use of a fifteen-minute break when you have three or more urgent, simultaneous needs -- to pee, to drink something, to get outside the neon and into natural light, and most of all, to sit down" (Ehrenerich 163-164)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AllisonHall/2008/03/breaks_a_chainstore_workers_he.html

"This one is shorter than Wal Mart's and apparently aimed at a rougher crowd: Am I more or less likely than other people to get into fist fights? Are there situations in which dealing cocaine is not a crime?" (126).

Some of these questions just scream stereotype. I understand that there is reason behind asking these questions. The reason is probably that these incidents did occur. However, these questions make it so obvious that what the person is applying for is not professional. Whoever wrote these questions just assumes that everyone applying to a low-wage job is going to cause trouble and won't take the job seriously. I also think these questions insult one's intelligence because the "right" answer is quite obvious. There are people though who would seriously ponder these questions, which is sad and proves the point these questions are trying to make. That should not matter because it is not fair to the other people applying. I just think that these questions are a joke for a job application.

Not everyone can have it all...

"The first thing I discovered is that no job, no matter how lowly, is truly "unskilled."
-From Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EricaGearhart/2008/03/she_really_just_wanted_to_sell.html