Book Report #3

Barbara Ehrenreich continues her work at the Alzheimer’s ward and finds that she must run the dining time.  She can’t seem to find many of the staff around.  She thinks that they are all trying to stab her in the back and make her look bad, but her suspicions have no grounds.  It turns out the staff were all busy and one even brought her a breakfast sandwich the next day. 
The next weekend, Ehrenreich is back working for the maid service.  One of her fellow employees had been let go because they had been caught stealing.  While at the first house Ehrenreich finds that another fellow employee is injured.  She has a bad ankle.  This is when Barbara loses and calls the boss to complain.  She then has an argument with her coworkers over the qualifications needed to work this job and whether or not she will get fired.  Ehrenreich finds that she is not fired and in fact gets her way when the coworker with the bad ankle is sent home to heal. On her last afternoon working she tries to tell everyone that she is an investigative author and everyone thinks it is a joke.  She then departs and leaves behind a bunch of brand new friends. 

I think the maid service relates back to the Wal-Mart uniform discussion we had in class.  All the maids had to wear these ugly uniforms and cleaning supplies while upper management got to wear what they wanted back in the office.  Multiple times, Ehrenreich comments on how the uniform made the employees feel subjugated.  Just walking into a gas station the author got stares that said “what could you possibly need here, you’re just a maid.”  I think that the ugliness of the uniforms reflected the pride the employees felt in the job, which was little to none. 

Ehrenreich starts her next assignment in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  She finds a job at housing wears store and begins making $8.50.  She then decides to look into the employment options for drug users.  She surfs the web looking for ways for potential employees to pass drug tests.  She also gets a job at a Wal-Mart. 

A few days go by and Barbara still doesn’t have an apartment to live in.  She keeps looking but can’t find quite what she needs for her limited amount of income.  She goes to both job orientations for Wal-Mart and the housing wears store.  She learns that her pay will be $7 and 10$, which makes her question whether or not she will even need the Wal-Mart job.  

Group Project

My group chose to look at the Enron scandal.  We feel that there were multiple organizational breakdowns that occurred that helped lead to this problem.  We believe  there was a lack of communication, a problem with leadership, and poor ethics.  These three organization problems helped lead to the misrepresentation of funds that ruined the company.  I would like to look at the way my team chose the topic.

We all came to the decision of Enron after our first idea for a topic failed.  Our first idea was to do our project on Fannie Mae and how their organization failed.  We decided on this topic by having each group member bring a topic idea to a group meeting and then everyone vote on which we should choose.  After we chose Fannie Mae, we decided the Enron scandal should be our back up topic in the event our original idea did not pass.  It was a very democratic process, and we all have already chosen our roles.  We have a group leader, motivator, and a mediator for the group.

quiz

On Wednesday the class took a quiz to look at what happens behind our deciding process.  We looked at how previous stereotypes affect the process, as well as, how past experiences can also affect this process.  I found that I actually did pretty well on the quiz.  As soon as i read the first question I thought it might be a quiz on which the obvious answer is usually the wrong one.  I thought that the quiz was designed to say, "hey, you jump to conclusions."  However, I never really looked that deeply into why I choose answers to questions I couldn't begin to understand.  After we finished the quiz, the class looked at why we may have gotten some of the questions wrong.  I thought it was a very helpful exercise in general.

Book Report #2

Barbara Ehrenreich makes her second attempt at living on minimum wage in Portland, Maine.  When she first arrives she sets up her base for operations at the local motel 6.  After her first experience in Florida, Ehrenreich has figured out that she needs apply to as many jobs as possible.  Just because companies are putting up help wanted ads doesn’t mean help is actually wanted.   She gets jobs at two places, an Alzheimer’s home and a maid service.   

The Alzheimer’s home is a lot like a waitressing job because Ehrenreich is in charge of feeding the elderly.  However, it’s a lot easier.  The elderly have simple orders and there are no where near the amount.  She doesn’t even have to bring lunch to work because the employees get to eat the leftovers from the shift.  Ehrenreich briefly has a conversation with one of the looks from the home, and finds out that the dining services there run a lot like a restaurant.  The cook can make or break the waitress.  

After her first shift at the Alzheimer’s home, she goes looking for cheap housing.  There is none in the immediate area, but some efficiency housing is located about 30 minutes away.  All of the places she finds are either too expensive, or almost unlivable.  Eventually she finds apartments on the cheap at a motel.  However, she can’t move in for a few days.

In the mean time, Ehrenreich begins working for a maid service.  She finds out quickly that being a maid is a lot harder than she imagined.  There are multiple training videos instructing new employees on the “right” to clean (left to right, top to bottom, what room to start in, etc.).  The houses are filled with a variety of owners.  Many of whom keep an extremely watchful eye on the staff.  Some will leave extra dirt in hard to reach places to ensure that the maid service is cleaning everywhere.  Other owners will tape the cleaning staff to ensure no theft occurs. 

In one particular case, an owner stood in the kitchen and watched Ehrenreich scrub a floor on her hands and knees with no knee pads.  The author commented that this gave the owner of the house a superior look on his/her face as she watched Ehrenreich dripping with sweat.  After Ehrenreich was done, the owner’s only remark was to ask if she could scrub the breezeway. 

I think that in this section of the book, Ehrenreich displays the lack of status maids have.  She remarked that every where she went after work she was looked down upon, even when she was the customer.  At the diners she ate at, the waitresses would not even pay attention to her when she asked for refills.  At the convenience store she would get stares saying, “What could you possibly need here.”  At her job, Ehrenreich comments that the owners of the houses would act as if the maids were simply there because they had nothing better to do with their time, when in all actuality they were barely getting by.  

Orange

On Wednesday i had no idea what to expect when Jeff and I volunteered because we didn't do the readings.  Once I was sat down in the front of the class and had read the slip of paper i recognized the scenario immediately.  In my communications class last year we had the same scenario with the orange, where one person needed the pulp and the other the rind.  I think of the object of the exercise was to demonstrate some of the qualities a negotiation can have.  I started off the negotiation by trying to be cooperative and asking what Jeff needed the orange for.  His response was extremely aggressive which I didn't expect to happen.  In a motion of good faith, I told him what I needed the orange for and pretty much showed him my hand.  He realized I was trying to work out a deal and cooperate with him, so he tried to cooperate with.  I believe that is why Jeff and I reached an agreement so quickly.  It made more sense to me after Dr. Goates did the diagram of creating util.  Now that is kind of the way I look at the prisoner's dilemma.  When both parties try to cooperate, they create value.

The Negotiator

During Wednesday's class period we practiced the skill of negotiation.  I was deemed a Seller and was aiming for a price above $16.  The higher i was above $16 the better i would look to my employer.  When I began the activity I had no insights into what the Buyer's scenario was.  I did assume however that the Buyer would know that the market price for the product was around $30.  I believed that as long as I could make a profit, it really did not matter how close I was to the market price.  As a result, I started my negotiation price at $30.  In hindsight, I think I should have started my negotiation prices much higher in order to maximize profits.  In the end, I was able to make a sale at the price of $25.  I did not think it was a bad price at the end of the negotiation time because it was $5 less than the market value, and $9 profit.  After going over the negotiation process and analyzing it in class, I believe I could have gotten a much better price on the product.  If I would have started the negotiations by anchoring the discussion at a higher number, I may have gotten more.  I think that with the new knowledge from class, i could do much better the next time.

Convenience Stores

I really liked the activity we did concerning the convenience stores in Pemberton.  My group, Isabella and I, wanted to maximize profits through each round.  We knew that the other team would not want to surrender possible profits on their side.  We decided to have our store stay closed the first set of weeks in order to minimize losses.  We did this because of the unpredictability of the other convenience store.  After staying open the first set of weeks we generated a loss of $100,000.  During the first negotiating stage our group agreed to stay closed if the other group stayed closed.  We continued this cooperation through the rest of the simulating and each convenience store ended up with a profit of $160,000.  I think that this exercise was a great representation of the Nash equilibrium.  This means that if all parties involved move directly towards their greatest profits all parties will end up missing out on even greater profits.  By having the convenience stores cooperate with each other both attained a greater profit than if each worked alone.  In a way, the two independent convenience stores represented two persons in a group that begin to depend on each other.  When this interdependence occurs better things happen.

Book Report #1

Barbara Ehrenreich begins by setting up the parameters of her experiment in living in a minimum wage lifestyle.  The first rule was that she could not rely on her skills from her education or career.  Second, she had to take the highest paying job she could get.  Lastly, she had to use the cheapest accommodations she could find.  She starts her first minimum wage job in the Key West.  She can only find affordable housing 45 minutes away from the job market.  She applies to over 20 jobs with no call backs.  Ehrenreich eventually lands a waitressing job at a hotel restaurant called Hearthside. 

                She begins by following an experienced waitress around to learn the ropes of the job.  In the beginning she makes mistakes but gets the hang of it in no time.  Hearthside is filled with an assortment of employees, cooks, busboys, and servers.  Ehrenreich starts investigating how the rest of these working class folk make it by day to day.  She finds that many share rent with a boyfriend or husband and the one even lives out of her car.  Had it not been for Ehrenreich’s original starting funds she would not have been able to procure her current residence.   As the first couple weeks roll by, she begins to slowly lose money and determines it impossible to continue without a second job.  Ehrenreich gathers all her saved funds and purchases a trailer in a nearby trailer park so that she may pick up the second employment opportunity.

                Ehrenreich puts in job applications all over and once again receives no reply in the beginning.  Later, she receives a second waitressing job at another hotel restraint called Jerry’s.   Jerry’s has a much heavier customer load and requires a lot more energy.  Soon after starting at Jerry’s Ehrenreich quits at Hearthside and searches for another second job.   This time none of her job interviews receive any attention.  This causes her to ask the hotel that the restraint is attached to for a second job if she is to continue to pay her rent.  They give her a housekeeping job.  For the next few days she bounces between housekeeping and waitressing.

                One night shift at Jerry’s a customer complains that they did not receive what they had ordered and brings the problem to the manager.  The manager flips out on Ehrenreich for not noticing the difference.  With her lack of energy to deal with the problem, Ehrenreich breaks down and walks out of the restraunt.  She was defeated by minimum wage.

                Throughout the reading there were many examples of behavior throughout the book.  At the first establishment that Ehrenreich works at there is obviously a high performing team element.  There is a heavy interdependence within the group of servers.  If one of them is not feeling well or is having a bad day, the others will help with tables to the best of their abilities to hide it all from management.  I believe the reason for the interdependence in the common goal element.  The servers are all working for tips and know that each person needs every cent to survive.

                There was also a moment when I recognized something resembling Tuckman’s Stages of Development.   I remembered back to the last stage of adjourning and how the team would lose a little of its cohesiveness due to the leaving of old teammates and the arrival of new ones.  At the second establishment, Jerry’s, the first day of work no one really acknowledged Ehrenreich.  She had felt a cold shoulder from everyone.  Her second day on the job she found out why.  The reason for the cold shoulder was because most did not make it past the first day.  I believe this is a reaction to the arrival of new teammates so often.  There was no need for the serving crew to create interdependence with a server that would not show up the next day.  However, once Ehrenreich did show up the next day at Jerry’s she was accepted into the group.