One, Serving in Florida

Summary

Ehrenreich decides to work in Key West, Florida, near where she actually lives. (Although she worries about running into someone who recognizes her, that never happens.) First, Ehrenreich has to find a place to stay. On an expected hourly wage of $7, she will not be able to afford a trailer in town, so she rents an efficiency apartment thirty miles away. She applies to supermarkets and motels, trying to avoid jobs where she will have to stand in one place all day. Most of her potential employers just want to know that she is a legal citizen and has not committed any felonies. After applying to more than twenty jobs and not hearing back on any, she realizes that the many help-wanted ads she has seen do not indicate actual job vacancies. Instead, they are just a sign of high turnover. The places where she applied do not currently need workers, although they inevitably will.

She is eventually hired by a motel and pushed to work as a waitress in the attached diner (Hearthside). She starts at $2.43 an hour, which is above the legal minimum for “tipped employees.” She finds the job difficult, mostly due to her lack of knowledge and poor serving skills, as well as the necessary “side work” that she must complete while serving (sweeping, scrubbing, slicing, restocking). She gets along well with her coworkers, who range from teenagers to fifty-year-olds. Due to her work ethic and the working-class nature of her customers, she also feels a duty to nurture her customers. Her coworkers feel the same. She finishes work at 10 p.m. each day, drives to her efficiency apartment, and is up at 9 a.m. the next day to wash her uniform and start again. 

Ehrenreich does not like the management at the diner. They spend their time ensuring that the employees are always busy, even if there is no meaningful work when the diner is slow. When caught looking at an issue of USA Today that a customer has left behind, Ehrenreich is ordered to vacuum the diner. Since the vacuum is broken, she must operate it while on her knees. She talks to her fellow employees and finds that all their living conditions are unpleasant. She finds that most of her fellow employees are stuck with such conditions because moving would require first month’s rent and security deposits at a new location. Ehrenreich realizes that she will not have enough money for rent at the end of the month and applies for more jobs, securing employment at another hotel-attached diner (Jerry’s) that sees more customers.

Ehrenreich finds Jerry’s disgusting for many reasons, including the fact that she portions food with her hands. She tries to work for both restaurants but, after a few double shifts, realizes that she is physically unable to work fourteen-hour days. She quits Hearthside and works full time at Jerry’s. Ehrenreich slowly starts to dislike customers, including frat boys and “visible Christians” who neglect to tip. At Jerry’s, Ehrenreich earns a base pay of $2.15, and around $7.50 an hour with tips included. 

Ehrenreich enjoys speaking to George, one of the dish washers, who is Czech. He only receives $5 an hour from the agent that placed him at the diner. George lives in a crowded apartment where he and other renters have to take turns in the available beds. When George is accused of theft, Ehrenreich does not intervene, having become infected with “something loathsome and servile.” She decides to move closer to Jerry’s and finds a trailer to rent nearby. She also takes another job, as a housekeeper at the hotel Jerry’s is attached to, to supplement her income. 

Ehrenreich works both jobs for one day. Her housekeeping shift is physically demanding and boring. Between shifts, she is forced to try to clean her slacks before working at Jerry’s. At Jerry’s, she has four tables seated simultaneously, one of which contains ten tourists. She has difficulty keeping up and is yelled at by her supervisor. Ehrenreich walks out. She realizes that while she started the project in an effort to understand the finances of living on minimum wage, she has found something else. She states that “in the tunnel vision imposed by long shifts and relentless concentration, it became a test of myself, and clearly I have failed.”

When Ehrenreich moves out of her trailer, she arranges to have her deposit transferred to an employee at Hearthside who had been living out of her car.

Analysis

One of the most important themes in Nickel and Dimed is that poverty and the people living in it are considered unimportant by American society, which is structured so that the poor are invisible whenever possible. Ehrenreich supports this thesis with several examples. At Hearthside, the diner where Ehrenreich is hired for her first minimum-wage job, employees cannot enter through the front door; it is reserved for customers, seemingly implying that customers have inherent value while employees do not. Ehrenreich describes a conversation with a woman named Carlie, who explains that she feels invisible in her job as a housekeeper. Carlie says that it’s not that hotel guests don’t care about the workers, but that they don’t even notice the workers unless they suspect one of stealing something. Relatedly, Ehrenreich notes that despite her fears that she will be recognized by someone she knows in Key West, she goes mostly unnoticed by customers. In fact, in her new station in life, Ehrenreich is rarely even called by name. These slights and inequalities, and many others like them, create a world where workers like Carlie and Ehrenreich are practically invisible as they quietly perform the hard labor that keeps wealthy people comfortable and blissfully unbothered by the inequity they profit from.

Ehrenreich’s detailed description of the hiring process demonstrates that low-wage workers are seen for their monetary value, not as human beings. By pointing out that some businesses are perpetually hiring because of the fast turnover of workers, Ehrenreich reveals that these employees are considered easily replaceable from the start. Ehrenreich also proves that her skills and personality are unimportant to would-be employers by noting that applications are primarily interested in criminal history and the applicant’s legal status in the United States. Ehrenreich encounters more questions about the likelihood of childcare issues making her late than questions about how suited she is for the job, further proof that prospective employees sometimes aren’t evaluated for their skills but for their potential liabilities. The impersonal nature of the hiring process is further highlighted by the fact that the interview at Winn Dixie is conducted on a computer. When the hiring process does get more personal, questions focus on honesty and integrity rather than skills. Using her experiences as evidence, Ehrenreich demonstrates that from the beginning of employment, low-wage workers are not seen as valuable individuals with unique assets, but as commodities that can’t be trusted. 

Ehrenreich’s experiences as a waitress expose some of the immense challenges that the working poor face, with a focus on the difficulty of finding safe, affordable housing. Ehrenreich’s coworker Gail is forced to consider moving into the Days Inn (at a cost of $40 to $60 a night) to get away from a male roommate who makes her feel uncomfortable. Moving into a motel is Gail’s only housing option because she can’t afford the security deposit that is required to rent an apartment. Ehrenreich points out that people who aren’t able to pay a deposit upfront have no choice but to pay exorbitant costs for rooms by the week. In addition, people living in rooms without kitchens must buy expensive takeout food. People earning low wages often forego health insurance so when they are sick or injured, they must stay home without pay or work while sick. These entrenched social systems make it nearly impossible for the working poor to get ahead despite their hard work.

Also in this section, Ehrenreich explains how “side work” at restaurants is representative of the unfair practices that negatively affect low-wage workers. Servers are paid well below minimum wage because of the tips they earn. However, Ehrenreich points out that servers are also expected to complete side work, such as cleaning and stocking the restaurant, for the same low rate. Although servers usually earn tips on customer-facing work, there are no tips for side work. In addition, managers often use side work as punishment. When Ehrenreich calls out her manager for not using the dishwasher’s correct name, he punishes her with extra side work, and when Stu catches Ehrenreich glancing at a copy of USA Today, he makes her vacuum the entire restaurant with a broken vacuum cleaner. Although servers and managers make similar salaries, there is a power imbalance between the two positions: the manager’s primary responsibility is monitoring low-wage workers to be sure they aren’t resting while at work. Practices such as side work put low-wage workers in a vulnerable position where they are more likely to be abused, yet these practices are accepted as a normal part of low-wage restaurant work.

Another theme of the first chapter is the often-overlooked humanity of low-wage workers. Ehrenreich believes that many people forget that those working in “unskilled” positions are real people with intelligence, thoughts, and feelings. To illustrate this, Ehrenreich describes the genuine friendships she forms with her co-workers despite the differences between them. Ehrenreich also demonstrates that low-wage work can be just as stressful as highly-paid jobs when she describes waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking about mistakes she made at the restaurant. Additionally, Ehrenreich writes about how she and the other waitresses kindly indulge their customers by trying to make their food taste better. These situations demonstrate that despite earning low wages and being treated poorly, restaurant workers still care about doing their job well and often go above and beyond expectations.

Ehrenreich juxtaposes her life as a low-paid waitress with her life as a well-paid journalist when she writes about occasionally returning to her real home to catch up on email and see her boyfriend. She describes how the neighborhood market where she used to shop for produce looks completely different from her new perspective as a low-wage worker. The neighborhood market serves as a reminder that in her affluent life as a journalist, Ehrenreich can afford fresh produce. In contrast, her typical meal in Key West is frozen chicken patties with melted cheese on top and canned pinto beans on the side. Furthermore, the phone calls and emails that Ehrenreich the writer receives seem increasingly strange to Ehrenreich the server. As a server, Ehrenreich is too busy working to enjoy these types of communications. Ehrenreich’s visits home serve as a reminder that actual low-wage workers never get a break from their difficult jobs and circumstances.