Who is Barbara Ehrenreich? Barbara Ehrenreich is a bestselling author! Ehrenreich is best known for her book “ Nickel and Dimed”. The book is about Ehrenreich herself doing a three month, experiment project. Ehrenreich is challenging herself to survive, three months on minimum wage.
In Part 1 of George Saunders’s Four Institutional Monologues, George describes how having a negative attitude leads to doing a job poorly while being positive makes the job more efficient and quicker. Saunders makes some solid points on how you, the employee, agreed on doing the job well and if you don’t, you will be replaced. It is life. You work to get your paycheck and if you can’t do the job well, then you will struggle in life. He makes another reference to lifting a heavy dead whale carcass on to a flatbed and how even with a neutral attitude made the task very difficult.
In Schwartz’s article “Rethinking Work”, he questions the satisfaction or dissatisfaction people have with their jobs, how they feel about their wage, and their purpose as a worker. Schwartz starts off by saying that the current way the workplace runs was based on a system that was created to minimize the need for skill and close attention. The idea was that workers were only working to get paid and in layman terms were lazy. He continues to say that this approach to work is not doing what it’s supposed to do; in fact it is doing the opposite. Working in an environment where your only motive to be there is your paycheck leads to dissatisfaction and poor work performance.
According to the stereotypes, blue-collar workers “aren’t smart enough to be that cynical” (Olson 1). The blue-collar workers symbolize being hard working but unintelligent, while white-collar workers symbolize being lazy but intelligent. This is not always the truth though. Both blue and white collar workers need the use of their body and brain, to give their best effort in their job. Blue-collar workers are the people who built our towns and cities, they just got over shadowed by the white-collar workers.
One individual named Joe became to love his work and found his passion loving what he did best. By using this experiment he shows that even though
In her book, The Worst Years of Our Lives, Barbara Ehrenreich asserts that “modern people, i.e., couch potatoes, do nothing that is ever shown on television” (22-24). That is an audacious statement. Is it reasonable to assume that anyone who watches television is indolent and does nothing with their life? Of course not. While anything in excess in not healthy, categorizing all modern people as "couch potatoes" is a harsh generalization that weakens Ehrenreich 's argument.
The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression is a nonfiction novel, not quite a biography as it also talks about several other influential people, by John F. Kasson. This book talks about the political elections before the Great Depression and how President Hoover didn’t help the people as he thought he was. The book talks about Franklin D. Roosevelt and how he helped fix America with his smile. Kasson also talks a little about BoJangles Robinson, who was a black dancer and actor. He starred in several films with Shirley Temple.
She uses her appeals to ethos, logos and pathos to convey the relatable experiences that low waged workers have run across while working in similar positions. These struggles that she has seen as a low waged worker run in line with the struggles that she has seen among her coworkers. Ehrenreich developed her focus on the struggles of low wage workers by her use of comparisons, antanagoge, and parenthesis. Through these different rhetorical devices, Ehrenreich revealed the work environment and the various living situations of low waged workers. She revealed true struggles that come along with little salary through her own life or the lives of her coworkers.
Humor causes the audience to be more drawn to her narrative. Additionally, Ehrenreich establishes pathos by describing the inhumane working conditions in which many Americans must endure in order to survive. Employees are fearful of losing their jobs if they do not meet the certain demands of managers who unfairly exert control on them. This all can result the audience to feel empathic towards not only Ehrenreich, but others who are forced to work under these conditions. Ehrenreich’s narrative proves to be compelling and successfully is able to get the audience to recognize the hard work of low income individuals.
He explains how he observed different types of blue-collar and service workers in action, and came to the conclusion that each of these tasks have a skill that takes a lot of mind power to master. Their work is educational at every degree. Blue-collar workers develop intelligence and skills in a workplace through proper planning, problem solving, social interactions and multitasking. Most blue collar jobs are constantly faced with new problems every day, in the midst of busy schedules, that demand instant solution. Blue Collar jobs require just as much intelligence as jobs that require formal academic credentials.
The respect for people who are in blue- collar jobs are extremely low. Mike Rose who wrote the article, “Blue-Collar Brilliance" wrote about his own personal experience. Ross writes about his family members who had blue collar jobs and how people treated them. People who are in white collared jobs have claimed that technology does not make people who are in the blue collar jobs use their intelligence and has to rely on this tool that they are using. Rose argued differently, it is who is operating the tools rather than the tool operating the person.
by the river is a verse-novel by Steven Herrick. The text is a coming of age novel, in which Harry Hodby, the main protagonist, reflects on his life in a quiet Australian country-town, where he encounters many hardships, leading to him wanting to escape. The novel scrutinises the theme of growing from childhood to adolescence, whilst exploring the many challenges and vicissitudes that it 's growing characters face along the journey. During this journey, Harry and classmate, Johnny Barlow, encounter many challenges to do with learning that in a small country-town they must decide whether to accept or revolt against the judgment of others. Harry must also learn the challenging aspect of handling new lust related emotions, whilst both boys must
Looking back from the 1900’s till the 2000’s life has changed drastically. Now a day’s technology is used in everyday life like social media, compared to in the 1900’s where their technology was the first airplane, radio, and electricity. Adams’ definition of the American Dream is inaccurate and unachievable for Americans today because the minimum wage doesn’t cover the cost of living, digital society has replaced man’s ability to communicate, and college loans leaving young adults in debt. The American Dream is accurate and achievable if you work your hardest and achieve what you want you will live the American Dream.
Providing the example of Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple, she says the people who work under Jobs break their backs at factories, yet he never credits the workers’ efforts to his overall success. Tokumitsu points out that the DWYL mantra is narcissistic for those who are overpaid for less labor, while those tricked into believing they love their job are less valued for the overall
I'd like to share a story with you about two interesting people that we ALL know. Ms. Jane D. Acceptor thinks, "I got this dead-end job, I'm bored to tears, but hey--it pays my bills. It keeps a roof over my head. So what I hate what I do, and I'm not crazy about the people I work with ...it's a job. Aren't you supposed to hate your job?"
