The first place she chooses to do her research on is a city called Key West, Florida. When she arrived, she started to look for place to live settling for a budget of $500 a month. Next she started looking through wanted ads and after a couple days of searching, she landed a job being a waitress at Hearthside were she only worked for two weeks making $2.43 an hour, plus tips. She worked there from 2 in the afternoon to 10 at night. On the first on the job, she was shadowing a waitress named Gail, to show her what she is expected of. She quickly felt overwhelmed and stressed by the work she had to do. She stated “Of the twenty-seven tables, up to six are usually mine at any time, though on slow afternoons or if Gail is off; I sometimes have …show more content…
Maine seemed like a place where she wouldn’t stick out in a low-wage job for being Caucasian and a native English speaker. She begins by living in a Motel right off of the turnpike and hope it will be temporary until she finds something better. Soon after, she finds a cottage where she spent $120 a week on. Pleased with her finding, she starts to apply for jobs. She looks for certain jobs such as cleaner, nursing home worker, warehouse worker, manufacturer, and even as a general helper. Ehrenreich acquires a job as a housecleaner for a cleaning service called The Maids making $6.65 an hour during the week and as a nursing home aide at Woodcrest Residential making $7 an hour on the weekends. In the weekends, she has to wake up at 4:45 am the latest so she can make it for her 7:00 am shift as a nursing home aid. At Woodcrest Residential, her job she is to feed the residents when they come in for breakfast, and then wash the dishes afterwards. As the day goes by, the job gets more and more difficult for Ehrenreich, both physically and mentally. In Maine, Ehrenreich learns that there is little assistance for the poor working people. When she tries to get assistance from her coworkers, everyone is either rude about it or unwilling to help. She stays in Maine for a couple of weeks then decides to relocate to