Book Report on Nickled and Dimed

Victoria Conrardy Mrs. Lord A. P. English 11 February 21, 2013 AP Book Project Part One Introduction 1. Title-Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is significant because Ehrenreich does explain how many do â€Å"survive† off of minimum wage which really is not much. 2. Author-Barbara Ehrenreich is seventy-one years of age and is a widely-read and award-winning  columnist  and  essayist, and author of 21 books which include: Blood Rites; The Worst Years of Our Lives; and Fear of Falling. 3.Persona- Ehrenreich persona is described as credible because she displays her story through real events because she admits to have mildly conquered her challenge of testing to see how complex it is for the working class. She proves her theory by stating â€Å"[Someone ought to do the old-fashioned kind of journalism-you know, go out there and try it for themselves. ]† in the Introduction section. 4. Passage- Ehrenreich, Barbara. †Serving in Florida. â€Å"Nicke l and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2001. 11-49. Print 5.Prompt Selection- Prompt One-Read the chapter you selected and then write an essay analyzing the rhetorical techniques the author uses to convey his or her attitude toward the subject. Part Two: Passage Analysis How you ever wondered why your parent’s always made you clean the house â€Å"the right way† or why they keep nagging you to clean up the simplest messes? They just wanted you to appreciate what they have provided for you and the family because their jobs take a huge toll on their life, usually doesn’t pay well and could be gone within seconds.Barbara Ehrenreich of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America takes on the challenge to prove how tough adults actually work to keep all the nice things through imagery, diction, and tone. Barbara Ehrenreich a common wealthy lad starts off the challenge in Key West, Florida where she actually lives and uses imagery to describe her expressions. She feels anxious about the idea and fears that someone will recognize her in â€Å"disguise† but she attempts to find a place to live.She estimates that if she makes $7 an hour she could afford a $500 rent and ends up living in a â€Å"cabin† in the â€Å"swampy backyard† where her landlord lives with his girlfriend. Her next step is to look for applications fit for her ideal job which involves â€Å"†¦certain supermarket jobs, such as deli clerk, or housekeeping in the hotels and guest houses†¦Ã¢â‚¬  which uses a strong detailed diction. She then gets dolled up and within 3-4 days of no calls, decides to try out to be a waitress and immediately interviews her, ending with â€Å"When can you work? and informing her about the uniform for Hearthside which was just a matter of â€Å"being in the right time at the right time†. While entering Hearthside, she hears â€Å"Fuck this Shit! † and Gail, a co-work who trains Barbara, comes to her rescue and explains, â€Å"That’s just Billy†, â€Å"[He’s on the rag again]-a condition occasioned, in this instance, by the fact that the cook on the morning shift had forgotten to thaw out the steaks. †, and gets back to â€Å"running-around† and taking orders. Hearthside only pays $2. 3 an hour plus tips and the employee service isn’t the best but she still manages to hang in there for quite a while. Within a couple of weeks, Barbara realizes that she doesn’t have enough money to pay for the next rent and decides looking for a second job. She gets hired at â€Å"Jerry’s† which she describes by using a sarcastic tone, â€Å"Picture a fat person’s Hell, and I don’t mean a place with no food. †, but what she really means is a gross, sticky place forcing the employers to walk â€Å"like Susan McDougal in leg irons. , with absolutely no time to be sitting un less in the bathroom, with a rude management â€Å"†¦whose contribution is to stand by the kitchen counter and yell†¦ †. Barbara quits Hearthside and becomes a part-time employee at Jerry’s due to the better pay. Finally she quit Jerry’s because she couldn’t handle all the raucous being held and moved on to land her â€Å"dream job† as a housekeeper. Barbara implies that getting your â€Å"dream-life† that you’ve planned out since you were in high school doesn’t always work out.You might have to quit a job to focus more on school or an activity or might have to find a second job to keep up with the rent. So now that you some-what understand how tough the â€Å"real-world† is hopefully you’ll become more appreciative towards things. Part Three: Book Review I really enjoyed reading this book because I felt it really applied to me and my future. It helped me unlock new thoughts about jobs I might want to co nsider due to whom will pay better, working environments, and physical effects.She does mention different jobs she did take and the struggles she heard/learned about from her fellow co-workers Annette and Tina, as mentioned on page 26, â€Å"Annette, a twenty-year-old server who is six months pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend, lives with her mother, a postal clerk. † and â€Å"Tina, another server, and her husband are paying $60 a night for a room in the Days Inn. This is because they have no car†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . I also really enjoyed the fact that Ehrenreich went out and tried to live a â€Å"normal† working class life because it will soon apply to me and gives me a better deal of how to balance and handle jobs.