Serving In Florida Summary

“Serving in Florida” is a piece of literature that comes from Nickel and Dimed, written by Barbara Ehrenreich that discusses her experience in as an undercover journalist trying to live a life working low-paying jobs. In 1941, Barbara Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, a blue-collar mining town where her father used to work before he earned a degree in the Butte School of Mines and moved the family. Ehrenreich became a part of a middle-class family and attended Rockefeller University where she graduated with a doctorate in biology. However, throughout the years she became more involved with politics, such as advocating for the women’s health movement in the 1970’s and wrote Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers. Eventually, she quit her teaching job at State University to become a full-time writer to create pieces relating to the

At her job, she always as to be occupied with a task, even though her manager does nothing all day. Conditions for the employees are unfair. Their break room is disgusting and it is reminded to them that it is a privilege, as well as their lockers can be searched anytime, they’re not allowed to gossip, and new and possibly current employees will be tested for drugs. Ehrenreich has trouble keeping up with her payments with the wages she is earning and can not imagine how her coworkers are able to live like this, however she later learns that they are also barely making it by. She decides she will need to gain a second job and becomes a waitress for another restaurant, Jerry’s(not its actual name). Jerry’s is far more popular than the Heartside, however, the employees are treated more harshly. There are no breaks, so most employees participate in smoking to get through the day. In the end, Ehrenreich can not handle the labor of both jobs, so she quits her job at Heartside and continues to work at