Amitai Ehrenreich's The New Community

The world of work is not as glamorous as some may view it as. In Barbara Ehrenreich's essay, she highlights her experience of searching for job and her experience of working a low wage job serving in a restaurant. She highlights her experience she had while searching for different job positions and her time as working as a waitress in a restaurant. During her stint of being a waitress, she recognizes similar characteristics that is shared by the other employees in the restaurant. Through Ehrenreich’s essay, she hones her emotional and logical appeals by describing the occurrences that accompanies low wage jobs. In the essay “Serving in Florida,” Ehrenreich uses comparisons, antanagoge and parentheses to develop her focus on the struggles of

Engaging with my community is important because I been helping people volunteer around me since middle school and continuing in high school because of the help I received in elementary. I wanted to help the elementary children because of all the support and help that I received. Helping them makes me think of when I needed help and received through people. I mostly helps with volunteering around with little kids in different elementary schools at my school district. I want them to be safe and help them during their hard times. I wanted to help people because I wanted people to understand what they are learning and have a good education. When I’m volunteering I help keep the children safe and cheer them on when they are competing.

A community is a place where people around supposed to be able to live and thrive together. When one thinks of a community, the image that most likely is visualized is one of a place where each person lives harmoniously with all the other members of that community. While this may be the typical image of a community, it is not the realistic view. In reality communities can share both good and bad aspects. In Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf, and Todd Swanstrom make the argument that the place a person lives ultimately matters over all else; the place which a person lives effects the choices that that he/she makes and determines his/her ability to obtain a

“Serving in Florida”, is a narrative essay written by Barbara Ehrenreich.. In this essay, Ehrenreich describes what it is like to work and live in a low-class society in Florida, and live off of minimum wage. Throughout the essay she focused on describing her personal experiences as a waitress at the Hearthside restaurant. Ehrenreich used amazing imagery while describing the working and living conditions of low-class people. She went on to tell how the employees are forced to work in ridiculous conditions. They were often forced to work long hours, with no breaks, and were occasionally refused of food. Ehrenreich went on to describe how oftentimes, the managers of these establishments, would take advantage of the employee’s situations. The

Throughout the book we see several reoccurring patterns and themes. One of those is how workers continuously try to allocate income to food, lodging, and medical care. It is interesting to see how they, and Ehrenreich manage this feat. We also see the relationship between dead-end jobs and poverty traps, and the many obstacles Ehrenreichs’ characters faced. And, finally we see how applicable Ehrenreich’s experience, and that of low-wage workers are, by drawing comparisons to Madison, Wisconsin.

She could have done differently and give up these extra utilities so that her project could have been enriched. As Ehrenreich began her first new life in Florida, she clearly states how she will avoid certain occupations for many reasons. Being a hotel clerk is eliminated because the job is to remain standing for eight hours; waitressing is also out of the list because it involves a lot of work; lastly, she leaves out telemarketing because she has no personality (Ehrenreich 13). Instead of avoiding these occupations, Ehrenreich should have done differently and taken them. Any person who is in the low-wage workforce does not take into consideration his or hers personal opinions about the job, especially if it is to make a living. The applicant will take anything that comes to hand, and taking these jobs could have improved her experience. After all, Ehrenreich ends up working as a waitress in a restaurant she called ‘Jerry’s’ where the work was demanding. She did not last long, though, and when she was exhausted from it, she described how she did not “walk out, I just leave. I don’t finish my side work or pick up my credit card tips, if any, at the register or… ask

Community service is an act of selflessness that grows a caring community. Community only consists on what it’s members are willing to contribute to it. Personally, it is my pristine pride to assist the community in it’s development it into a bountiful place for all.

In Barbara Ehrenreich’s personal account of working for minimum wage, Nickel and Dimed, she gives a candid description of trying to survive under the extreme hardships endured by the low wage workforce. The documentaries 30 Days and American Winter display similar experiences as various families try to make ends meet on low-paying jobs; each day they scrape by. While everyone has their own unique struggles, they also share problems, revealing greater issues felt by the working poor as a whole. Ehrenreich compares her fellow workers to philanthropists giving up their own wellbeing to ensure that customers receive a decent meal. Those in poverty are almost invisible to society, as many people do not think about the hardships of this lifestyle; they become a marginalized community. Even volunteer services often shut down during the needed hours, leaving many with nowhere to go. Patrons do not stop to

The last two sections of Ehrenreich’s narrative provide a personal evaluation of her project and the reactions to her book. She begins with an applause for her successful performance as a low-waged employee. She admits that although she has a Ph.D., manual labor is not as easy as it seems and that no job should be regarded as unskilled. Ehrenreich celebrates the moments in which she thrived at each of the particular workplaces. She praises herself for abiding by the rules that she set at the beginning of the experiment and doing her best to keep a job. Overall, as a worker, she gives herself a grade of B or B plus.

This is the reason why most people volunteer. The Statistics Canada Volunteering in Canada survey found that 93% of volunteers said that making a contribution to the community was the key motivational factor in their decision.

She takes note of that in the event that you can't manage the cost of the security store for a flat, you are compelled to live in a lodging - which is at last all the more exorbitant. On the off chance that you have just a room, you can't spare cash by cooking nutritious, shabby nourishment. On the off chance that you have no medical coverage, you wind up with critical and unreasonable wellbeing issues. Following two weeks, Ehrenreich acknowledges she will need to land a second position. The things she experienced were not the sorts of circumstances that she normally experienced. She wasn't accustomed to living and working situations of poor people. She needed to manage the diverse identities and traditions of her colleagues, their living game plan, and the administration chain of importance in every occupation. She filled in as a server at two unique eateries, as a servant administration cleaning houses, and as a dietary assistant at a nursing

In the US and in most countries, communities are more than just houses, departments, grocery stores and shops. Communities are formed by its civilians to facilitate their way of life and to also be a team instead of just single individuals. These communities are formed by the people living in that area and the values they share. Kekes (1993) defines values as ‘humanly caused benefits that human beings provide to others…’. Kekes and kane also states that they espouse values such as empowerment and caring , not just because they lead towards good or better society but also because they have merit on their own (kane, 1994: Kekes, 1993) CP, p54.

Volunteering in your community helps solve many dilemmas in your community that descend through the eyes of government and social agencies (Everything you ever wanted to know about volunteering).

With community service, you can meet new people, try new things, and step out of your comfort zone. By doing this community service, I have created a new experience that will follow me for my entire life. I have done something I usually wouldn't do and stepped out of my comfort zone. By creating a new experience,people will find some comfort in the activity they are doing, and it won't seem so awkward and uncomfortable if they do it again. Community service has taught me a lot about myself, the others around me, and the community as a

The aim of the book is…to diagnose certain tendencies in modern society…and to indicate how the quality of life might be changed radically by the development of a new sense of community (Kaufmann, in Buber, 1970, p. 38).