Post by kristincritchfield on Aug 7, 2011 14:36:30 GMT -5
Minimum wage nowadays is $7.25 an hour. Being a teenager, I can barely have enough pocket money (after paying car and phone bills) to go out shopping. I can only imagine how it would be if I had a mortgage. In her novel Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich said, “The ‘working poor,’ as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society… to be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor to everyone else.” To that statement, I must agree. Just think of the people who go into the work field right after high school. They must work their butts off trying to earn enough money to get by. And what do they get after working hard to earn a living? A lousy, minimum wage paycheck and no appreciation. Sure, they did have the choice of going to college and making something out of themselves. But some people, oddly enough, aren’t meant for college.
I felt sorry for the people that Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about in her novel. We all know that there are people out in the United States and everywhere else looking to move up in the world. And then there are also the unfortunate ones who are stuck in a low paying job with six kids and a 2 bedroom house to pay for. Barbara Ehrenreich actually gave us an insight into those people’s lives. There are more of them out there than we think. Sure, there are a bunch of people working corporate, six figure jobs. And then there are the people that work for them, like maids or nannies and whatnot. Like seriously, why would you be a maid or a nanny unless you really had no other choice? “It’s a job and it pays at least a little bit, so take it.” That’s what I’d say if I were struggling. I wonder what maids or nannies thought when they were children. They probably wanted a rich and glamorous life. Instead, they’re cleaning up after or watching the kids of the people whose jobs they would have liked to have. It is depressing, really, to think about it. No offense to those people who never went to college and who work low wage jobs, but I hope I never end up struggling like Barbara Ehrenreich described. I’m a teenager and I make minimum wage at Baskin Robbins and that’s already bad enough. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life serving jerky people who want pralines and cream on the bottom and pistachio almond on the top in a sugar cone who yell if I don’t get it right. When I get out of college, it will be the end of my people serving jobs. I’m going to get a job doing something awesome and I’ll make enough money to get by easily and still have some left over. I don’t want to end up being “a philanthropist of society” like the people in Ehrenreich’s novel. Once I’m out of college, I’m never serving ice cream again.
I felt sorry for the people that Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about in her novel. We all know that there are people out in the United States and everywhere else looking to move up in the world. And then there are also the unfortunate ones who are stuck in a low paying job with six kids and a 2 bedroom house to pay for. Barbara Ehrenreich actually gave us an insight into those people’s lives. There are more of them out there than we think. Sure, there are a bunch of people working corporate, six figure jobs. And then there are the people that work for them, like maids or nannies and whatnot. Like seriously, why would you be a maid or a nanny unless you really had no other choice? “It’s a job and it pays at least a little bit, so take it.” That’s what I’d say if I were struggling. I wonder what maids or nannies thought when they were children. They probably wanted a rich and glamorous life. Instead, they’re cleaning up after or watching the kids of the people whose jobs they would have liked to have. It is depressing, really, to think about it. No offense to those people who never went to college and who work low wage jobs, but I hope I never end up struggling like Barbara Ehrenreich described. I’m a teenager and I make minimum wage at Baskin Robbins and that’s already bad enough. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life serving jerky people who want pralines and cream on the bottom and pistachio almond on the top in a sugar cone who yell if I don’t get it right. When I get out of college, it will be the end of my people serving jobs. I’m going to get a job doing something awesome and I’ll make enough money to get by easily and still have some left over. I don’t want to end up being “a philanthropist of society” like the people in Ehrenreich’s novel. Once I’m out of college, I’m never serving ice cream again.