ack! i’m once again lagging on writing in my LJ. dammit!
last week catherine and i went to go see a play called Nickel And Dimed. it was based on a bestselling non-fiction book by Barbara Ehrenreich. She was doing a lot of research on just how difficult it is to scrape by in the world if you are a single mom with no means of getting a high paying job. to write the book, she went undercover and got jobs that uneducated single moms often get. she would move to a town, and try to live only off the income she got from her jobs.
what she came to realize very quickly was that it was basically impossible to pay for rent and food with the income she would get from just one job. in all 3 cities that she tried to live in, she had to get 2 jobs just to scape by. she did work like cleaning houses, waiting tables, and working at wallmart. every single day she worked like crazy doing difficult and unrewarding work only to get off of work and go to her next horrible job. after that she would really only have time to sleep.
i’ve always realized that a lot of people have it really rough. but i dont think i grasped just how bad it can be. this play was definitely a real eye opener. i didnt know that restaurants could claim that your tips are “part of your pay” and therefore pay you well below minimum wage (she earned $2.15 and hour at one place!!). i didnt know that wallmart, in order to pay it’s employees less, would ask them to punch out after working 8 hours, and then continue to work for several hours unpaid. i didnt know that in a lot of places, even with *2* jobs, it’s still difficult to afford to live in even a trailer!
it was just so sad to watch these people struggle. and to think that that’s how they have to live day after day after day. the reporter could barely afford to take care of herself, and couldnt even begin to think how someone could afford to fee their family on these salaries. *sigh*
-v
I didn’t read the book, but I read critique about it, you may be interested in. If that’s what’s really in the book then the real reporter of it may be worthy of an eye-roll. It’s sounds like it must have been a pretty intense play though.
nice work on finally posting!
Comment by Laurel — 11/11/2003 @ 4:17 am | reply
I don’t know how it is in the rest of the country, but in the three states I’ve waitressed in (NJ, RI, and MA), I always got paid $2 and change an hour. This is why it drives me insane when people think it’s okay to stiff a waitress (unless she did an inexplicably horrible job) or be cheap about tipping.
Comment by felicia — 11/11/2003 @ 3:45 pm | reply
yeah, i bet a lot of people dont know that, and that’s why they dont tip. they probably just assumne tat the tip is just extra. that’s what i always assumed (of course i still tipped anyways, unless the waitress was full on rude).
-v
Comment by vlad — 11/13/2003 @ 10:11 am | reply
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