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.
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.
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