Barbara Ehrenreich begins her book by discussing her preparation for her endeavor: to enter the low-wage workforce for a period of time as a way of investigating poverty. Her objective is to experience, first-hand, the daily obstacles that the poor encounter as a means to survive. She sets up a few rules for herself — no hunger, no homelessness, no relying on skills derived from her education or job experiences, and access to a car, and she must take the highest paying job which she is offered. She begins her journey in Key West, Florida, where she initially accepts a waitressing job.
After only a few days on the job, problems begin to arise. First, management is oppressive. Managers are constantly assigning trivial duties while they sit for hours doing nothing. As a future restaurant manager, I want to ensure that the restaurant is making money, but I still want to exhibit compassion and understanding to my employees and to my customers. There is balance to being personable with employees and customers while maintaining a level of authority. As a manager, I would never want my employees to feel intimidated by my presence that they would feel apprehensive about coming to me with an issue, feel apathetic that nothing would happen, or feel afraid that they would be disciplined.
It is important for a level of trust to be established between all employees, especially between management and their teams. Throughout the book, there is a common theme: the contract between the experience of individual workers and the priorities of the corporation. Corporations have organizational priorities, including operational efficiency, and sometimes corporations lack faith and confidence in their employees.
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However, the manner by which managers handle workplace issues scan lead to unpleasantness for the workers and distrust and unfortunately, the employees are often left to suffer the results of such doubts from management. As a manger, I understand the need to regulate the certain actions of my employees, but I would never want my insistence to workplace tasks translate adversely to their self-esteem. Barbara feels psychologically put down. With the condition for constant work from management always winning, there is no time or place for her to develop relationships with other people on the team.
Barbara shows how this mentality can become an entire world view. Ehrenreich also complains that her pay is not financially viable which forces her to pick up a second waitressing job. Barbara’s footnote suggests that some people may be making even less than minimum wage due to the sneaky evasion of employers. Waitressing wages are particularly vulnerable to changes based on the economy, the season, and even as much as the moods of the customers, and what they wish to tip. As a manager, I would ensure that my employees are making enough money to meet the requirements of the law.
This sort of unhappiness and emotional manipulation within any organization will result in high turnover since this type of managerial supervision is too controlling and restrictive. Barbara is faced with the link between low-wage work and high turnover, and she begins to understand that this link means she cannot be picky with her job. She also understands that “choosing” a career is a privilege for the wealthier.
Chapter 2: Portland, Maine
To her disappointment, finding a good paying job in Maine is just as difficult as it was in Key West. However, she secures a job as a “dietary aid” at a nursing home, called the Woodcrest Residential Facility for $7 an hour, and a position as a housecleaning service, at an organization called The Maids, for $6.65 an hour. In one scenario at the Woodcrest, she finds herself taking covering the entire Alzheimer’s ward, caused by another employee not showing up to work. As a manager, I would have to discipline the employee who did not show up to work without a proper reason or proof. When employees do not show up to work, that potentially causes the manger to ‘cover their shift’ meaning that they are not managing.
As a manager I want to establish trust, so that I can trust that they will show up to work and they can trust me in things such as honoring requested days off. I will not tolerate calling the morning of or not showing up. A problem that Barbara encounters is a problem honoring workman compensation. The maid’s owner, Ted, tells his employees to “work through it”; however, this is illegal. Later Holly, Barbara’s coworker breaks a bone and refuses to go to the emergency room. As a manager, I would make sure to write an incident report of the accident that occurred, no matter how minuscule of an injury it may be, especially if the employee is ‘refusing’ to go to the ER. This prevents any legal action taking place beyond that of workman’s compensation.
There is also a problem regarding money. Barbara does not get her first pay check and she later learns that the first paycheck is withheld until she eventually leaves for quits, so that she doesn’t fail to show up a second week. As a manager, I would never allow this to happen. The people at this job live paycheck to paycheck, they simply cannot afford to not get paid. A withheld paycheck is an example of suspicious management, and as I manager I never want my employees to doubt my abilities. Withholding a paycheck is completely unethical.
Chapter 3: Minnesota
Barbara isn’t sure why she chose Minneapolis as her next destination, but this time, she’s hoping for a more comfortable living situation. Having gotten a relatively comprehensive introduction to the trials of low-wage labor in waitressing and housecleaning, she is now ready for a change. Here she secures a position at both Walmart and Menards, but ultimately ends up working in the clothing department of Walmart. A topic that comes up in this chapter is the Walmart employees forming a union. In a video during orientation, the employees are show how Walmart is so well known, there is no place for a union.
The video warns that employees could lose their voice to the union organizers and even their wages and benefits would be put at risk. However, as a manager I would make it clear to other managers, that the video seeks to be bias against unions before they even begin working, since unions can serve as a tool for employees to demand higher wager, so the dire warnings make sense for management. However, since Walmart is such a large and well-known company, they should be able to afford to pay their employees decently. As a manager, I would fight for my employees to be paid what they should be paid based on their prior experiences and resume, not just on the position of the job.
Barbara ends her job at Walmart on a hopefully note, as it seems that some of her coworkers have gained awareness of the ideas of forming a union, even if that may not be translated into action. There is also a lot of orientation and video watching at Walmart before the employees begin the job. As a manger I would make sure that the employee training problem is both hands-off and hands-on. I think that one can know exactly how to do something, but without trying it or prating will not necessarily be able to complete the task at hand. A balance must be reached.
Evaluation and Conclusion
Though one may think someone who has a Ph.D. can easily hold a low paying job, in this world she was not as successful as one may have originally predicted. A part that she failed to realize and that no amount of money could have prepared her for was the physical and emotional tolls that all her positions required of her. In Key West, she immediately felt the back pain and in Minnesota, a rash proved to be a breaking point that week, since the medicine she needed required almost her entire paycheck. Furthermore, social relationships have been a key element of this investigation, and along with this comes a need to be able to read people and to respond. Her investigation proved that no matter the race or age, these jobs do not discriminate.
People of all backgrounds work these low paying jobs, not because they necessarily like it, but because they have no other choice and have to make some ends meet. Barbara argues that the poor are poor, because once you are poor, there is essentially no escape from it. The system is stacked against those in the lower class. In the end she concludes that there is no way that a single mother would be able to sustain a healthy, somewhat bearable life with the type of money she was making. She was fully employed, yet still was barely able to make ends meet for herself. If a child was thrown in to the picture, there was simply no way this would be feasible.
However, this is the truth. Millions of people live like this, which only demonstrates to me, that something has to change. And while this book was written in 2002, almost nothing has changed more than the minimum wage has increased. However, with that increase, the standard of living has also increased, so essentially the ratio is the same, if not worse. There are so many good people out in this world who are stuck in this cycle, a cycle that does allow them to live a life where they reach a life of self-actualization.
