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Nickel and Dimed Evaluation

In Barbara's self-evaluation, she begins to reflect on everything she has gone through. In her opinion, she has done extremely well but has made some mistakes along the way. she now begins to weigh all of the good things she did with the mistakes she may have made and, after all she has been through, she comes to the conclusion that she made a very good poor person and, given time, she would have been able to survive, unless she were doing this while having kids and a husband.
After her self-evaluation she begins to give the reader her opinion about the lives of the poor people who actually live this life. She explains how America should be ashamed of the things they take for granted while these people do the jobs that we consider beneath us. She feel that the idea of having drug tests and personality surveys are extremely degrading and shouldn't be forced on the potential employees.

Questions: After Barbara has weighed the good with the bad, she explains that she made mistakes that anyone would make in those situations. However, if I were in the same situation as her Minnesota experience, I would have chosen the higher-paying job and, while working there, learn about the plumbing. Do you think that anyone would have really made the same mistakes that she did or do you think that she was trying to make herself feel better about making what could be considered "foolish mistakes"?
Barbara also stated that the mandatory drug tests and personality surveys were degrading to potential employees. Would you also consider these tests to be degrading if you were forced to take them or do you think that Barbara was simply ashamed of the things she may have learned about herself? Is she hiding something?

Part 3 of Nickel and Dimed

Barbara has now moved on to Minnesota and is working in the women's department of Walmart. Before anything, however, she explains her experience with meeting someone who is a living example of what she is researching by working in these low-paying jobs. In this part of her life, she seems to be making many mistakes. On one occasion, she decides to pay over $400 a week in order to stay at a low-classed motel when she had the opportunity to stay at a college dorm for $19 a night which, if she had accepted the offer, would have saved her around $300 a week. Her second mistake was choosing to work at Walmart for around $7 an hour instead of working at another store for $10 an hour. She chose the Walmart job because the other place put her in the plumbing department, where the terminology and items were completely foreign to her.
While working at this Walmart she begins to see how underpaid these people are for doing jobs that benefit the customers. As time passes by, she begins to despise the customer and also wishes the worst for her supervisor. As she begins to notice this change in her attitude, she realizes that the change - going from middle or upper class to lower class - is causing her to despise those who do not have to do such taxing tasks for little pay. In the end, before she quits, she begins to inspire a few of her co-workers to form a union and go on strike. In her opinion, she feels that the strike would have been possible if she were to stay a little longer.



Questions: During this section of the story Barbara explains that by replacing Barbara with "Barb" on her nametag, she is causing herself to become a less mature worker. She says that the nickname is what causes her to act in a way that she feels she would never have acted as Barbara. Do you believe this or do you feel that she is making an excuse for her immature behavior in order to feel less guilty?
Barbara states that, given more time at Walmart, she would be able to form a union and strike for higher pay. If you were in her position, would you stay a little while longer or would you just leave them to form a union themselves?

Part 2 of Nickel and Dimed

In part two of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, she shows the audience how tough life is in Maine. She reveals these hardships by working as a dietary aide for the elderly and a maid. As a dietary aide, she finds work to be tolerable; however, working as a maid causes people with higher-ranking jobs to look down on her and shun her from society. They instantly judge her and make her feel bad about her situation, which she describes as the feeling a black person may have in white society. At this time, she is losing her composure and, as a result, she starts to act in a manner that is considered, in all aspects of the workforce, to be unprofessional. After seeing how these women are underpaid and looked at as “untouchables”, she starts to sympathize with these women and, as a result, starts to show aggression towards Ted, her male supervisor who puts the job before the welfare of his workers. Sometimes, she finds herself searching for a form of welfare in order to eat. She makes new friends and begins to get more pay for the hard work that she does but, in her opinion, it is time to move on to a new place. In order to express these emotions, Barbara uses only a few literary devices. On occasion, I notice the use of metaphors and a change in diction and tone but her use of anecdotes is the main literary device used.

Questions: I noticed that most of the workers around Barbara are other females. As a result, I assume that most underpaid workers are females. If this is correct, why are the majority of these workers female and what do you think is the cause of many females becoming low-class workers?
The way that Barbara acts at times leads me to believe that her life was so good, she now begins to act childish when situations get tough. For example, there are times when she just feels like telling the people that she works for about her true identity in order to separate herself from the truth of what it is that she’s dealing with. Do you agree with this assumption, or am I mistaken?