Serving in Florida Barbara Ehrenreich

Juliane Harms

Period: C

To Mr. Cronin

Serving in Florida

1. Why is Ehrenreich working as a waitress?

She wants to tell her experiences as a waitress to other people and tell them about how it is to live with a low-paying job.

2.  By looking closely at on of the stories she tells about her experiences and the experiences of the men and women she works with, describe How Ehrenreich uses specific stories about individuals to serve as examples of the difficulties of living on very little money.  One example is not enough.

She describes her experiences that she had more about the people that she met there and their experiences and not really about what she experiences there.

Her first experience is when she has a job in an restaurant and meets Gail another waitress who trains Barbara. She finds out the real world under what conditions people have to live, for example like Gail who has to live in her truck. Her boyfriend was killed in prison and another waitress called Joan has to raise three children in a mobile home by herself.

On problem of the low-wage world is that Gail can’t afford the two month’s down payment in rent it would take to get an apartment.

At another restaurant the customer volume is much higher and she mets George there. She tries to teach him some english, that shows how bad the education of the people is. While she is working there she takes another job in a hotel next door. The other worker at the restaurant are impressived, because they coudn’t manage another job at the same time.

It all ends when the manager throws a fit and Barbara walks off the job.