On Dumpster Serving By Barbara Ehrenreich Summary

Creamy carrion, pizza barf, decomposing lemon wedges, and water-logged toast crusts; sounds like the typical garbage can. Would anyone believe that these phrases apply to a run-down restaurant in the middle of Florida? Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover at a local fast food diner known as Jerry’s to investigate life as a blue-collar laborer, serving to customers arriving in “human waves” (Ehrenreich 180). It is throughout her journey working for both Jerry’s and a factory known as Hearthside that she learns the difficulties faced with minimum wage and severe working conditions, and how the career you pursue and the environment that the career puts you in can change you. Through the

Every establishment that she applies would rather hire her as a waitress because she is white and speaks English. When applying to Hearthside, Ehrenreich even downgrades herself in order to attain a job as a housekeeper. “I mutter about being woefully out of practice as a waitress, but he’s already on to the uniform” (Ehrenreich, 16). However, even though the author attempts to prove she would not make a good waitress, her employer is already stubborn and thinks that she is more worthy as a server as opposed to a housekeeper. So why did her boss make her a waitress when she clearly wanted to be a housekeeper? Her boss made her a waitress simply, because he used stereotypes to judge the author. Therefore, her boss only saw a white woman who was better equipped with serving skills even though Ehrenreich believed she had better housekeeping skills. Now, sadly if a fluent English speaking Hispanic applied to the same job, she would only be hired as a housekeeper. In fact, she would be rejected as a waitress for the same reason that the author couldn’t become a housekeeper; the of color her skin. In today’s society, when someone thinks of a hotel maid, they think of a Latin woman who isn’t fluent in English. It is this very stereotype that affects the type of job a low-wage job a person receives simply because of the color of their skin and not their personal abilities.

In Lars Eighner’s short essay “On Dumpster Diving”, he describes his experience of being homeless and the art of dumpster driving. Eighner prefers being referred to as a scavenger rather than a dumpster driver. Eighner stated “I like the frankness of the word scavenging. I live from refuse of others. I am a scavenger.” (383) He describes scavenging as a full time job, that requires a lot of effort. He believes that if one follows certain guidelines and rules, with doing so this could possibly help one to become efficient. One rule is knowing good place and time to look for food and other items, that could be useful. Another rule is knowing how to eat safely from a dumpster . Eighner said

Yesterday I threw out an old jar of peanut butter with only about an inch left. It no longer served a purpose, as I had purchased a new and improved jar. As I began to toss the jar towards the garbage, I was reminded of an essay I had just read. In his essay Dumpster Diving, Lars Eighner suggests that when we throw away items, homeless people can find a way to make use out of whatever it is. Therefore, if we don't want there to be bums on the street, it is inferred that we shouldn't throw anything extra out. I myself was not supporting the homeless community, or being wasteful, I was just trying to make room in the cabinet. If I would have kept that inch of peanut butter, it wouldn't have made the world's population of homeless people try

Currently, the rates of homelessness in America continue to drastically increase. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2012) depicted how many people are homeless in a single night in America. The findings revealed that there were approximately 633,782 people who are homeless in America or 20 out of every 10,000. Approximately 394,379 are single individuals and 239,403 are people in families with 77,157 homeless families in a single night, and approximately 162, 246 are children. Veterans are more likely to be homeless than those who are non-veterans, approximately 29 out of every 10,000 veterans are homeless. Unfortunately, 38 percent of those who are homeless are unsheltered, either living on the streets or in places that are not suitable for human inhabitation. Most states account of for less than 1% of homeless population, whereas Texas contains approximately 5.4% of America’s homeless population. In San Antonio, there are approximately 2,981 people who are homeless each day, and 1,243 are unsheltered. Through a sociological perspective, the social problems of homelessness can be analyzed through the concept of sociological imagination, the comparison of the person-blame approach and the system-blame approach, and through the analysis of one’s own community’s effort in helping those who are homeless.

In the passages of “ Serving In Florida” by Barbara Ehrenreich and “ On Dumpster Diving” by Lara Eighner, they both address the life of living under the poverty line. These two are both relating to each other because they talk about two individuals who are living in the United States but also living below the poverty line. However, Ehrenreich’s story has more of a negative connotation towards it because she complains about the life she is living day by day by the jobs that provide low-wage income. Ehrenreich’s life, working low income jobs give her many struggles and responsibilities she has to take to be able to have a roof over her head. On the other hand, Eighner’s story has more of a positive connotation to it because Eighner is so positive all the time and explains what being a Dumpster diver is like and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Moreover, Eighner explains the life of a Dumpster diver in more of a positive direction throughout the story.

The Box Man is an essay written by Barbara Ascher that addresses and criticizes how American society does not give homeless people the respect they deserve. In the essay, Ascher describes a night of the life of an average homeless man. Ascher accomplishes this by using her character the Box Man to represent the homeless people of America and to display how society sees the homeless. Barbara Ascher’s The Box Man utilizes thoughtfully chosen diction, precise negative and positive imagery, and effectively placed tone shifts to argue that the homeless, represented by the Box Man, are worthy of respect.

Homelessness is increasing every year and effecting Americans of different age, ethnicity and religion. In Lars Eighner “On Dumpster Diving” he explains what he went through while being homeless. He describes how and what foods someone should be looking for and to always be conscious of what one is eating because there is always a reason why something has been thrown out. He continues to go into detail about other items that can be found in the dumpster like sheets to sleep on and pieces of paper to write on. Things that can keep him busy through the day. Eighner carefully explains to his readers how being a dumpster diver has become a life style for the homeless and this is how they survive. It’s a way of living and they are comfortable

Dumpster Diving is an essay written by Lars Eighner. The Texan and former homeless man who roamed the streets searching for food from unpleasant sites in order to help him survive the harsh times. His loss of income made him to get food from garbage sites, which he refers to as ‘Dumpster’ He wrote this essay to express his experience as a homeless and destitute person. The essay gives a detailed explanation of how people like him struggle to get food from dump sites and the dangers they face. Eighner used basic English to describe the process of scavenging and its consequences in the essay.

American authors Barbara Lazear Ascher and Lars Eighner reveal unique relationships between socioeconomic classes and lessons learned from adversity in “On Compassion” and “On Dumpster Diving.”

Throughout the book Ehrenreich’s co-workers all seem to struggle, such as the trouble with housing in Key West and healthcare in Maine. Having a place to live, eating properly, and healthcare seem to be the biggest cause of concern within the working class. Most of the jobs that she worked, the workers did not have healthcare packages or benefits. So it wasn’t uncommon for them to have trouble trying to manage their health and struggle to pay for medication, let alone a visit to the doctor. Without healthcare and a lack of proper diet (in Maine she had a ‘thirty minute’ lunch break but most of her co-workers barely ate anything close to a meal) it is not hard to see how the working class can easily be shot into poverty; seeing as most of the working class that she had encountered were just living above the poverty line. Reading about what she noticed and noted about her co-workers it isn’t hard to imagine how easy it would be to fall below the poverty

Barbara Ehrenreich is a best-selling author, who wrote the descriptive narrative essay titled, “Serving in Florida”. In this writing, Ehrenreich tells the readers about her experiment into seeing if it was truly possible to live off of minimum wage, in a low-wage community located in Florida. Ehrenreich initially published this writing in her novel called Nickled and Dimed, but since then, it has also been published in other books for students in school. In “Serving in Florida”, Ehrenreich finds a place to live for about $500 per month. While living there, she had a waitressing job, paying 2.13 per hour plus tips. Throughout the writing, Ehrenreich described the obstacles that made it almost impossible to live off of only minimum wage.

The essay begins with stating a common assumption that “vast majority of the homeless were in the same state of semipermanent distress” and raising a question “what could be done to help them?”. The author represents two main arguments, understanding the types of homeless population and how do we assist them, to the readers, so that they can easily follow along. Later in the first paragraph, the author brings the readers into a real situation where a researcher—student Dennis Culhane graduated from Boston College—tells his story inside a shelter. Instead of believing that Culhane speaks eloquently without firm evidence, readers tend to give Dennis Culhane’s story credibility because his experience makes him closer to the truth and the readers. Quoting words from the one who experienced living in the shelter himself adds reliability of the essay.

Amid her time in the eatery business, Ehrenreich comes to loathe administration. She finds that while she should always be working, doing anything at everything except sitting still, her directors can sit for quite a long time. Administrators and aide supervisors are to ensure the eatery profits; they regularly need empathy for their representatives and for clients. Ehrenreich's other dissension about the eatery business is that the pay is not fiscally reasonable. She offers a review of each of the non-administration representatives and demonstrates how they are scarcely ready to make due on their wages and how the vast majority of them won't have the capacity to proceed monetarily for long. . At Jerry's, Ehrenreich encounters the various issues that emerge in the middle of representatives and the work environment. The bar gets to be beyond reach in light of the fact that a server gets to be impeded.

Working in a diner as a waitress, Ehrenreich becomes overblown by the living conditions of her coworkers. Unlike her coworkers Ehrenreich allotted herself with $1,300 to commence her journey as an ‘unskilled worker’ and utilizes this money to pay for rent. On the contrary, her coworkers started from scratch and are trying to stabilize themselves in their current dwellings. Basically, certain individuals are unable to pay for a month’s rent for reasons such as transportation (to get to the current job) from their current dwelling, insufficient money to pay first month’s payment and a down payment, or really not enough money to feed their household and pay for rent altogether. Being aware of these dilemmas she realizes that the foundation to one’s survival is by people supporting