In a fascinating excerpt titled “Serving in Florida,” by Barbara Enrenreich, the author sets out on an experiment where she submerges herself into the world of the minimum wage worker. Enrenreich works as a server at a low-end restaurant, and as a housekeeper at a local motel. Her results are sobering to say the least.
In her experiment, Enrenreich was attempting to learn what the low-income class of Americans experience on a day-to-day basis. She wonders how it is possible to live by making only $6.10 per hour. Enrenreich forges minor relationships with coworkers at the places of her employment. She relays to the reader the way these people deal with life, e.g. the lack of proper health maintenance due to lack of health insurance, the borderline homelessness, and hunger they face.
This real life documentary style of writing is very effective. Enrenreich has a gifted way of presenting logos, pathos, and ethos throughout the text. In one of her many vivid descriptions of Jerry’s restaurant, where she waiters for $2.10/hour plus tips, she writes how the smell is wretched (referred to "citris fart"), the sanity is nonexistent, the management has little respect for the employees, and the customer nearly becomes "the enemy." The visual images of her environment are brilliantly illustrated.
Enrenreich portrays how many people get trapped in this rat race for the rest of their lives. Lack of advanced education, and the ability to achieve it, binds people to a life of wage-slave labor. The only hope for many of these low-income wage-slaves is some sort of government support to give them a jump-start. Otherwise, it is nearly impossible to save enough money, or find enough time, for them to break the cycle.
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