Job Conditions In Jerry's By Ehrenreich

Job conditions also plague millions of Americans across the country. Throughout the book, Ehrenreich had many jobs. She worked as a waitress, a housekeeper, a “dietary aide”, a housecleaner and a Menards and Walmart employee. In each of these jobs, she goes through many conditions that many Americans go through. She is not the only one that goes through these conditions; many of her coworkers go through the same conditions or ones that are much worse. Her first job is in a restaurant as a waitress. One of the first conditions that she discovers is that the management is very oppressive. Stu, her assistant manager, watches for behavior that would be considered lazy. If he sees any action that resembles relaxation, then he gets on the employees

When she realizes this, she gets another job as a waitress at Jerry’s. While at Jerry’s, she becomes really exhausted. She works from 8:00am to 2:00pm at Jerry’s, then from 2:10pm to 10:00pm at Hearthside. One condition that almost anyone goes through while working at a restaurant is having angry customers or waiting people that do not have any patience or respect for the waiter or waitress. Ehrenreich illustrates this when she says “there are the traditional a--hole types—frat boys who down multiple Buds and then make a fuss because the steaks are so emaciated and the fries so sparse—as well as the variously impaired—due to age, diabetes, or literacy issues—who require patient nutritional counseling. The worst, for some reason, are the Visible Christians—like the ten-person table, all jolly and sanctified after Sunday night service, who run me mercilessly and then leave me $1 on a $92 bill” (36). She mentions this to inform America that this type of behavior occurs to waitresses daily. The waitresses are verbally attacked with smirks or sneers from immature people that do not have patience or respect. They order their food and want it

However, in most cases, it is not the waitress that cooks the food. So, she cannot bring it to them as soon as possible. As well as waiting for food, people’s actions can make a waitresses’ life much worse. As mentioned before, people can be intoxicated when they enter a restaurant. They are not fully capable of knowing what they really want. If they want their meat to be well done, they do not remember because they are under the influence. When the food comes, and they start eating, they become angry because the food that they ordered is not what they really wanted. However, it is not the waitress’s fault because they do not bring it up when they are ordering the food. However, there is at least one more condition that a waitress must go through. This condition would be the state of spontaneity. Waitresses must always be busy. There is rarely a moment where they can sit down and relax. In “The Working Life of a Waitress”, written by Mike Rose, whose mother was once a waitress, there is one instance where his mom tells him that the waitresses must be all over the