Nickel and Dimed

In Barbara Ehrenreich’s social experiment that was designed to get an in depth look on how the American poor survive. One of the many things that affected Barbara’s experience as a poor person was how her employers treated her and her fellow employees in all of their professions. Overall, I think the employers of lower class people treat those people with disdain and put a lot of pressure on employees. This is done to demoralize lower employees and also get the as much productivity as possible out of them. Barbara was treated somewhat differently by each employer she worked for though. This may have happened because the tasks in each job were different but also each individual employer was different. There are still patterns in how employers of lower class employees treat their workers. Barbara shows the relationship between employer and employee is important in how work is done but also how the worker feels about him or herself.
The first part of Barbara Ehrenreich's journey landed her in Key West, Florida. The most significant low wage job Barbara had in Florida was as a waitress at two restaurants, the Hearthside and Jerry's. Barbara complains about her restaurant managers many times throughout this chapter. She talks about how managers in restaurants (and probably everywhere else) are there to scrutinize and survey employees for unsavory behavior such as sloth, theft, drug abuse, etc. (Ehrenreich, 22) Managers are there to make sure workers are always on the move and not wasting the time and money of the company. Managers always want their workers on the move and doing something productive. One group member, Stephanie told us she could relate to this very much being a waitress at a restaurant. She will always be working so ...

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...usly shamed, embarrassed, and demeaned their employees. I think this kind of behavior is a way of separating employers from employees. It helps keep employees in line and also adds the benefit of making employers feel good about themselves at the expense of their employees. Demeaning actions prevent employees from organizing or protesting for higher wages or better conditions. It keeps them “in their place” and does not allow them to hope or strive for anything better. In spite of the dehumanization of employees by employers, there are silent rebellions committed by lower class employees such as jokes, gossip, doing other's work, and just in general helping each other out. These are silent protests, they do not change the status quo in any way, that would be too risky for these employees. It is survival and caring in a corporate world that does not care about them.