Ehrenreich Training Video Summary

In Gail’s case, she has a roommate that drives her mad, but paying rent would be impossible to pay alone (pg 132). Many of the coworkers are in a similar type of situation, where they rather be in a different living situation, but they bear the negatives about their situation and does nothing to change it. Ehrenreich includes these living situations about her co workers as real problems that low wage workers can recognize as similar problems they face because of the low wage jobs. She builds her logos by recognizing the different living situation that are relatable to most low waged workers. Gail should move out to avoid her overbearing roommate, but with the salary she receives, she could not continue living in the

In the introduction of the book, Ehrenreich begins to provide the reader with statistics, such as “according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, in 1998—the year I started this project—it took, on average, nationwide, an hourly wage of $8.89 to afford a one-bedroom apartment, and the Preamble Center for Public Policy was estimating that the odds against a typical welfare recipient’s landing a job at such a “living wage” were about 97 to 1” (page 3) and continues to present data throughout the story. These type of statistics are also included in the footnotes at the bottom of several pages, along with cited sources. In Ehrenreich’s evaluation at the end of the book, she reflects on how she did as a low-wage worker and points out the problems with being one. She uses her experiences to support her argument, for instance, “Why isn’t this resistance met by more effective counterpressure from the workers themselves? In evading and warding off wage increases, employers are of course behaving in an economically rational fashion; their business isn’t to make their employees more comfortable and secure but to maximize the bottom line.” (page 204) Ehrenreich’s use of logos gives the reader reason to follow along with her claims since she has provided the research and proof needed to back up her

One was management: she was under the surveillance of men and women whose job was to monitor her behavior for sins of sloth, theft, drug abuse or worse. “Assistant managers” in low-wage areas like what she was dong became the class enemy. In the restaurant business, most assistant managers are former cooks and servers, and paid a salary of about four hundred a week. Managers can sit, but it’s their job to make sure no one else does, even when there is nothing to do. This is why for servers, slow time can be as exhausting. During Ehrenreich’s employment, a mandatory meeting came up, and a consultant sent out by corporate headquarters opened the meeting with a sneer, and said “break-room and whatever is in them can be searched at any time,” and all gossiping must stop.” After the corporate manager exhausted his agenda of rebukes, complaints followed concerning the work conditions. However, the consultant did not show any interest for improvement. Ehrenreich had never been treated this way, and when she asked why, it was muttered “management decisions.” Her second reason why she could not continue in the service position was that low-wage jobs showed no signs of being financially viable. People that live year in year out on six to ten dollars an hour must thrive to survive. For instance, her coworker Gail was sharing a room in a well-known downtown flop house which she shared with a male

Ehrenreich proclaims her message through her experiences and as well as her evidence. Therefore, when she begins her experiment, she starts to get an insight of her co-worker’s lives and the struggles they face in the world. Through her surveys, it has been revealed that her job in Key West, Florida “shows no sign of being financially viable” (25). Most of her coworkers either rent a room or sleep in their car. As for Maine, it becomes difficult to acquire an

One of the many rhetorical techniques Ehrenreich uses is syntactic repetition as a way of instilling emotions in a readers in order to make them feel sorry for the conditions low wage workers endure and then help in some capacity. In very first sentence of the article Ehrenreich lists; “At the beginning of June 1998 I leave behind everything that normally soothes the ego and sustain the body - home, career, companion, reputation, ATM card - for a plunge into the low-wage workforce” (Ehrenreich 243). In this quote Ehrenreich just lists facts of what she leaves behind but it makes a reader

In the Essay “Blue-Collar Brilliance”, Mike Rose writes about the knowledge and skills a blue collar worker gains from their experiences in the work field. Rose talks about his Mother’s job as a waitress and how she learned certain routines throughout her experience as a waitress. In the essay, Rose mentions his uncle with an eighth grade education and how he used the knowledge he gained at the Pennsylvania Railroad to improve the company and advance in his career. Rose writes about how blue-collar workers are generally seen as less intelligent individuals to their white-collar counterparts. Rose gives examples on the little things blue-collar workers do such as a mover determining how to get an electric range down a flight of stairs and a plumber seeking leverage in order to work in

In the beginning she was reluctant and did not want to do it herself. She was going to have "some hungry neophyte journalist with time on her hands" do it instead. For the first sections of the book, the author is passive and does not care. Despite trying to educate the public of the strife of the minimum wage workers, she is not passionate about what she is trying to teach. However, as the novel continues she becomes more actively involved. With this involvement she quickly becomes exhausted. Referring back to this invalid out of date experiment, when Ehrenreich was too tired to continue she had the option of quitting, of going back to her normal life. The people she was trying to imitate do not have that luxury. They do not have the option of quitting and starting over when they feel tired. Or they do not like their job, or they are being mistreated in the workplace. Actual low wage people rely on the one or two jobs they have to live. Getting fired or quitting for them is like a death

She starts to become impatient about her itchiness on her hands and arms from the chemicals exposed to her skin, so she fell “back on the support networks of my real-life social class, call the dermatologist I know in Key West, and bludgeon him into prescribing something sight unseen” (Ehrenreich 88). Here, Ehrenreich shows to have ‘cheated’ on one of her rules which was to use cheap accommodations. Although not mentioned, the price of a dermatologist can be quite expensive, so rarely anyone who falls in the category of the lower class will do anything like this. Later, Ehrenreich continues to work at The Maids and tries to get through this experience. In one instance, she explains the dirtiness of the places where they do the services at. She was very grossed out at one place where the bathroom has full of pubic hair. Here, she complained that she did not “know what it is about the American upper class, but they seem to be shedding their pubic hair at an alarming rate” (Ehrenreich 92) which again targets her other respective audience, the American upper class. As the second part of the project came to an end, Ehrenreich finally decided to resign at The Maids. However, before she left, she made it very clear how the people working in low-wage salaries “are the untouchables of a supposedly caste-free and democratic society” (Ehrenreich 117) which explains that the lives of these individuals are anything

Throughout Ehrenreich’s writing, she developed her essay around the story of her going undercover as a minimum wage worker to understand what the lifestyle of a low wage income is like for people that live in poverty. Some details she included were her work environments, the judgemental customers, her relationships with the other employees, and her overall experience as a server. Ehrenreich included how gross her work environment at Jerry’s

In her personal essay “Serving in Florida,” Barbara Ehrenreich offers to show her experience as a middle class citizen living on a low income. Ehrenreich asserts that an average middle-class employee’s life is not like one would expect it to be, implying that it is just a mask. Many of such workers’ way of life is unpredictable, which Ehrenreich characterizes in her ethnographic essay. She portrays her argument in a specific structure which defines the life of low-paid employees. She describes the whole management system in the beginning and how the system affects each of the employees. Ehrenreich’s use of language emphasizes to the reader how much this issue sickens and annoys her daily. She expresses her argument through the appeal to pathos

From an outside view, working as a hotel maid, or as a server at a restaurant might not seem so difficult, but without any prior knowledge, anyone might think these stressful, labor-intensive, back-breaking jobs pay well, or at least decent enough that you won’t need to take a second job. In Fact, they don’t and this is exactly what Ehrenreich wants the reader to understand. The low-wage, undervalued American, and their important role in our society. Without them, America would be an entirely different place. The beginning of Ehrenreich’s essay she uses a digestive system metaphor that introduced the reader to a negative connotative feeling while describing the horrors of a restaurant kitchen. For instance “The kitchen is a cavern, a stomach leading to the lower intestine that is the garbage and dishwashing area.” Although the entirety of “Serving in Florida” is set in Ehrenreich's perspective, we are still able to understand her workers' perspective. Which isn't anything different than Ehrenreich's’ As she delves deeper expressing problems with her work conditions, her employee's, and her struggles. She sets up her essay in a way builds up to what she describes as the “perfect storm” these last few paragraphs

Ehrenreich challenged the popular opinion of poverty being a condition of unemployment, through her experience as a low wage worker. Barbra witnessed her fellow employees work incredibly hard, face disdain by managers, and persist for long hours, in exchange for wages incapable of sustaining a healthy lifestyle. Circumstances her fellow employees endured included, living in what Barbra refers to as “substandard housing” such as motels or vehicles, or

She wanted to shift the people’s attention to the fact that it isn’t the working class’s fault for not prospering, but instead to realize that the system is corrupted. Wages are set low, while rents and things necessary for survival are set at a high price. The working poor often have to in endure endless hours of hard labor to be able to survive. Ehrenreich stated that, “What [we] don't necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you're really selling is your life” which makes the working

Ehrenreich use of descriptions allows people of upper and middle class able to understand that earning a minimum wage is not living wage to survive in life leaving them without having any doubt that every person in the U.S should have equal opportunity when it comes to job wages. Ehrenreich put away her old life to test an experiment showing the personal struggles that she went through while trying to live on a minimum wage salary. She uses descriptions and examples of all the bad experiences that she encountered as having two jobs in order to live a stable life. This is shown in her words “For six to eight hours in a row, you never sit except to pee” (Ehrenreich 1). She describes how she worked six to eight hours without stopping for break

In, “The ‘F’ Word” by Firoozeh Dumas, the author explains her and her family’s difficulties moving to a new place. She just wanted to fit in and not have people make fun of her like her brothers. She wrote the narrative essay to inform her readers that everything comes with its difficulties but sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to overcome them. She showed many examples of Rhetorical strategies throughout the essay, she uses ethos, pathos, compare and contrast. She showed many examples of Rhetorical strategies throughout the essay like ethos.