Daydreaming: A Bus Girl

High turnover is something that goes hand in hand with low wage jobs, so companies are always looking for a workers replacement. Finally Ehrenreich is able to secure employment at a place she give the pseudonym, Hearthside. To help protect identies of companies and people she actually worked for and with, Ehrenreich decides to use fake names to achieve anonymity. Ehrenreich starts out at 2.43 an hour plus tips. One of the first things Ehrenreich notices is that the people around her are only working hard enough to get by. Because the managers will yell at anybody who is done with their work, and not doing something new, the workers seem to be happy with just working at a slow pace, doing just one job. Because the only reward for finishing early is being yelled at by a manager, that apparently spends his day doing nothing, there is no real bonus to go the extra mile. Due to this negative reinforcement, Ehrenreich notes that the restaurant is almost moving in counterproductive mode. With less being worked on, less is being accomplished, attributing to the overall sad appearance and low morale of the restaurant and its employees. The next problem Ehrenreich encounters is the constant berating handed out by her supervisor "Stu". Ehrenreich observes that due to this constant barrage of insults and degradations, workers are forced to feel like they are subhuman. Weekly the managers announce

When I first walk into the restaurant, Im alway immeditaly greeted by a smiling hostess. Typically on a week day, the wait time is normally very short and youre almosy guaranteed a seat right after arriving. However on a weekend the wait time can be a bit longer, such as fifteen to twenty minutrs, but outdoor seating is provided so you dont have to stand and wait. When you are finally seated, a friendly waiter is always ready to happily serve you with a smile. The employees are always on top of giving out refills for drinks and they provide customers with all you can eat peanuts and encourage you to just toss the shells on the floor when youre done. When receiveing your meal, the waiters always make sure that everything looks good before leaving you to dig in. I have never recieved unacceptabke service even when the restaurant is at its

Acquiring a job, whether it be in a doctor’s office or a fast-food restaurant, can transform a person. Jobs tend to educate employees, both about themselves and life in general, either indirectly or directly. In Climbing the Golden Arches, nineteen year-old Marissa Nuñez discusses the work ethics she gained while being employed at her McDonalds. Within her essay, Nuñez mentioned how she faced both pleasant and unpleasant circumstances at her work, all which prepared her for her future career. As an individual who worked at McDonald’s, Nuñez learned how to fulfill her role of being an employee by becoming an expert at all the placed stations, dealing with the various types of customers she encountered on a daily basis, and by acting as an efficient team member. When Marissa Nuñez, who was a high schooler at the time, first applied for this job at McDonald’s, she probably did not apply with the intent of becoming a more responsible and efficient individual. However, as time went on and she utilized the skills she obtained from working long and hard at McDonald’s, Marissa Nuñez found herself transitioning from a high school student to a

One anecdote Barbara Ehrenreich uses was to show the relationship between managers and employees. She provides the situation with Phillip, the top manager, who thinks he is above the employees and threatens them by taking away their break room and lockers in their meeting. Andy, one of the cooks, left the meeting angrily and calling the meeting “almighty bullshit.”

The most irritating thing is to have to wait for the staff to bring you things that you need to enjoy your meal. During my last visit my waitress, Manni was the best I’ve ever had at Applebee’s. When the hostess sat us Manni was there to introduce herself and to get our drinks within 2 minutes. When I go out to eat my most favorite part is lemonade. My first question is always what kind of lemonade they have and the selections are normally wide and I choose a different every time. The pomegranate lemonade is to die for and a must have. After the drinks were ordered we were ready to order. Ordering was easy with having a waitress that is very familiar with the menu and able to give suggestions on the popular items, what’s her favorite and what’s her least favorite. After our food arrived she visited our table regularly making sure the food was tasting great and constantly refilling drinks. Her attentiveness was amazing and she deserved every bit of her tip. “MB and I enjoyed the friendly and relaxed manner of our server, Miguela. She was there when we needed her. She did not intrude,” said Marilyn.

Rose helps the audience gather a mental image of what he experienced occasionally on a day to day basis; it was the 1950s in a Los Angeles family restaurant. Mrs. Mergalio would do more than just waitress, she could handle working the register and the counter with little to no help (Rose, 2017, p. 272). Sitting behind a desk all day, white-collar employees have little to no face time with the outside world or their colleagues. As a waitress,

The sun was in the sky and it seemed to be the middle of the day. How could this happen? I checked my phone to see what it said. “4:00 p.m., November 9th,” I gasped in disbelief. This probably meant that I had my job back again! I happily walked through the crowds to my office, but I noticed that I was getting a lot of dirty looks. When I entered the office I was taken aback. Instead of being filled with mainly men, the office was made up of mostly women. A stern looking woman walked up to me. “You must be Evan,” she declared “Congratulations on your new job, we don’t really get a lot of good men that apply if you know what I mean.” As she led me through the lobby I heard many remarks “Hey sweet face,” snared a woman to my left. I heard roaring laughter arise from everyone. Suddenly, I felt extremely uncomfortable. “Is this what it’s always been like for women?’ I asked myself as I made my way up the stairs. I still heard muffled whispers from downstairs “He probably just got hired for his pretty face, men don’t have talent.” I overheard. All of the sudden, I didn’t want to be there anymore. Why would I want to work somewhere where I was criticized because of my

After finding a temporary residence in an efficiency apartment within a forty-five minute drive from the prospective employment options in Key West, Florida, Ehrenreich attempts to find a low-paying job that could defray her living expenses. She applies for multiple jobs and waits a couple of days until she is hired as a waitress at a restaurant attached to a hotel that she calls “Hearthside.” During the first few weeks as a waitress, Ehrenreich is concerned with being an effective worker and providing a convivial atmosphere for the customers. She soon discovers that the onerous demands of waitressing can only be alleviated by desensitising herself to the quality of her work. Upon doing so,

Caroline: Jake, I’m a freakin’ waitress and you were calling me like fifteen times in one shift, I was running on the floor off the floor – my boss finally asks “who do you work for – Me or Jake?”.

When workers bring up their boss in conversation, words like intimidating or hard-nosed might be tossed around. Also, any good employee knows to look busy when their boss is around and to be on their best behavior. Bartleby, in Bartleby The Scrivener did not abide by these office rules many of us follow. Bartleby was a scrivener for a law office on Wall Street. In the beginning days of Bartleby’s new job as a copier, he exceled greatly surpassing his fellow co-workers. This inspirational work ethic soon turned sour when Bartleby refused to do any work at all around the office. Lack of discipline from the boss of the law office turned Bartleby’s “I would prefer not to” into a much larger problem. The boss being such a pushover

I chose to research this subculture because I was so curious about it. I have some friends that wait tables, but I hadn’t really thought about how being a waitress involves so many things aside from serving food. Waitressing is more about handling all different types of people, and learning to multitask successfully than just serving food. When I go out to eat, I usually only notice if the waitress or waiter is nice to me and my party. I make sure that all of the food and drinks come out the way we ordered them, and I also pay attention to how the food tastes. When I started my research and observation for this ethnography, I started to pay more attention the server when I was eating at restaurants. I started to notice how many tables the server waited on, I noticed how many times he or she had to take food back to the kitchen because someone thought it was wrong or not cooked right, and I also noticed how unhappy he or she was when they left a certain table. I have also

They expect me to be patient, clear with orders, not demanding, and aware of what is going on. I must know what food they just told me was done and where to take it, but first I need to pay attention to hear when my name is called. There is usually more tension between the kitchen and waiters than there is with any other workers. The roles are so different. The kitchen staff usually looks at servers as just wanting to get a good tip, and that we do not care the extremities the kitchen has to go to for us. It is important that servers respect the kitchen staff; they are in charge of the food we will be serving. “Servers, as mediators, need their food when their customers demand it: sometimes this is before the food is ready; at other times after. If servers demand food too early, cooks are stressed; but if they don’t pick up the food on time, the food is poor and the cook seems incompetent.” (Fine 105). This is the most true on Friday and Saturday nights. Everything seems to be more chaotic on these nights, since most people decide to go out. This is good because it brings in more business for the restaurant, but then there are always more unhappy customers on these nights as well. Overall, positive interaction with the kitchen staff can make amazing things happen.

In part one of the book there was a story that really hit home. There was a receptionist for a company that apparently took her job very seriously because she knew she was the first point of contact for the company. Often, people in those jobs do not believe their position is important. I have an AT&T cell phone. I call

As part of the experience, more attentive service is given to the patrons, whereby a waitress and chef is designated for each party. Since there are only two tables - with each table serving up to eight patrons at a time - the waitress and chef are not overwhelmed. The direct attention given to the patrons by the chefs is savored by patrons; Rocky prides the company’s extensive three-year formal

Typical, it is 7:31 am Monday morning and I am running late. Knowing it will take approximately twenty minutes for me to make it to 8:00 am lecture on time, I grab my book bag hastily lock my apartment door and fly down the slightly stained cement stairs. In less than sixty-seconds, I miraculously made it from the third to the first floor without falling. I congratulate myself and hop in my old reliable dusty gray, 2011 Toyota. At last, I arrive to campus just in time to park in the closest lot near the School of Nursing building making it to my first lecture of the day with ten minutes to spare. This seems like a small and normal morning routine for some, for others who do not have