Nickle and Dimed – Response Log

“Customers are in fact the major obstacle to the smooth transformation of information into food and food into money-they are, in short, the enemy. And the painful thing is that I’m beginning to see it this way myself.” (Ehrenreich 37)	The Author, in this instance, seems to be surprised with the transformation that she is experiencing.  The “painful” realization that her once journalistic and objective approach to her minimum-wage mission is now having a negative affect on her character obviously scares her.  Her lower-class life is becoming more difficult than she imagined and will help to give her and her readers a new respect for the working community.
“Oh, he tried staying home, but you get stir-crazy, you know, you start feeling like an outcast. And this touches me, somehow, even more than the presumptive lie about his assets: that this place he has described as so morbidly dysfunctional could amount to a real and compelling human community.” (Ehrenreich 65)	This detail is particularly effective because it gives the reader a different look into the life of a low-class worker.  Many details inside this eye-opening book deal with horrendous working conditions and tight monetary situations, but for once Mrs. Ehrenreich gives her readers a glimpse into the social aspect of being a poor worker.  The passage helps one to empathize with these workers, and shows that less fortunate individuals are in countless ways similar to upper and middle class citizens.  All people, regardless of class, deserve the same sense of companionship, usefulness, and community whether it is found in an everyday suburb or a “morbidly dysfunctional” rest home.
“Who wants an afterlife if the immediate pre-afterlife is spent clutching the arms of a wheelchair, head bent back at a forty-five degree angle, eyes and mouth wide open and equally mute, like so many of the charges at the Woodcrest? Is the “soul” that lives forever the one we possess at the moment of death, in which case heaven must look something like the Woodcrest, with plenty of CNAs and dietary aides to take care of those who died in a state of mental decomposition? Or is it our personally best soul-say, the one that indwells in us at the height of our cognitive powers and moral aspirations?” (Ehrenreich 68)	This depressing and disturbing imagery, in combination with a few troubling ideas, leaves readers scratching their heads.  This topic of death and religion is briefly touched on by Mrs. Ehrenreich more than once, but only brought into full focus during this passage.  As she painfully describes the charges at the Woodcrest as “head bent back at a forty-five degree angle, eyes and mouth wide open and equally mute” one can easily picture the dreadful surroundings in the Woodcrest that most likely triggered this profound insight.  Mrs. Ehrenreich has a talent for taking many commonplace ideas and perceptions and painting them in such a way that her readers can see the disastrous masterpiece that is America, as she has demonstrated by examining death, religion and the working poor.
“But the point at The Maids, apparently, is not to clean so much as to create the appearance of having been cleaned, not to sanitize but to create a kind of stage setting for family life.  And the stage setting Americans seem to prefer is sterile only in the metaphorical sense, like a motel room or the fake interiors in which soap operas and sitcoms take place.” (Ehrenreich 76)	Using the simile to compare the “American Dream” to a fake sitcom interior was extremely effective in this situation.  It attacks not only maid corporations all over the nation for their practices, but also directs its attention to selfish individuals who attempt and live the fantasy life depicted on television.  People should not be satisfied with a house that “appears” to be clean. The pressing issue here is that families in America are more concerned with cosmetic appearances, rather than true cleanliness.  In a way, this entire passage is a metaphor to the way lower-class individuals are viewed, being judged on cosmetic appearances and wages, rather than true character.
“At least now that I’m ‘out’ I get to ask the question I’ve wanted to ask all this time: How do they feel, not about Ted but about the owners, who have so much while others, like themselves, barely get by? This is the answer from Lori, who at twenty-four has a serious disk problem and an $8,000 credit card debt: ‘All I can think of is like, wow, I’d like to have this stuff someday. It motivates me and I don’t feel the slightest resentment because, you know, it’s my goal to get where they are.’” (Ehrenreich 118)	Two very different tones arise in this passage: the bitterness of Mrs. Ehrenreich, who feels certain that her fellow workers must be infuriated with their wealthy customers, and that of Lori, who despite Mrs. Ehrenreich’s certainty, feels not angry, but only envious.  This passage again helps the reader to pull away from the common perception of the working class.  The reader is able to connect to workers like Lori though this passage.  The more a reader is able to connect with characters inside the book, the more powerful the message becomes, and therefore Mrs. Ehrenreich is enhancing her purpose by including passages such as these.
“Yes, I know that any day now I’m going to return to the variety and drama of my real, Barbara Ehrenreich life. But this fact sustains me only in the way that, say, the prospect of heaven cheers a terminally ill person: it’s nice to know, but it isn’t much help from moment to moment.  What you don’t necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you’re actually selling is your life.” (Ehrenreich 187)	Mrs. Ehrenreich brings another interesting viewpoint out into the open in this passage.  She has been throughout the entire book, in a sense, examining the value of time.  Her comparison to a “terminally ill person” effectively shows the reader how desperately these working poor need assistance, and the fact that they “sell their lives” is troubling in more ways than one.  Throughout this passage, a very ugly situation is shown for the working poor and through imagery and common sense, Mrs. Ehrenreich has managed to show all of her readers the awful reality that the lower-class face, and transformed her reader’s opinions on what it means to truly be “poor.”