Nickel and Dimed
Nickel and Dimed In reading the excerpt from Barbara Ehrenriech’s book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) getting by in America, I can certainly agree with the observations that she made regarding the treatment of people with lower paying jobs by society. Through personal experiences that I have seen first hand, the poor truly have a difficult time with trying to make a better life for themselves because of how society stacks the deck against them.
My earliest experience with inequality happened in the first grade through the type of reinforcements my teachers would give us. “Do your homework and study or you will end up poor with a bad job like a janitor or a trash man,” was something that I commonly heard from them almost daily. I can remember the janitors during my primary school days were constantly looked down on and how no one talked or paid much attention to them. The most interaction that I would see other staff members have with them was when directing them to a spill in the cafeteria or when something needed cleaning. I would hear other teachers complain about their jobs to one another and in order to make themselves feel better they would say “At least I am not the lazy janitor.” In hearing this, I grew up with the mindset that those types of jobs were only suited for the poor and lazy. It was not until I started my career did I notice just how hard the janitors and support staff actually have to work. In watching a 60 year old woman riding up and down elevators, cleaning the insides and outsides of doors, and squatting on her knees to get the in the cracks just for them to get dirty again within minutes; did I realize just how wrong those teachers and I were. While talking to the janitorial staff is when I noticed just how unequal things really were for them. Their hours and jobs were in constant flux or in danger of being cutout all together while the tasks that were asked of them constantly increased. Anyone that had an issue was asked to leave because
My earliest experience with inequality happened in the first grade through the type of reinforcements my teachers would give us. “Do your homework and study or you will end up poor with a bad job like a janitor or a trash man,” was something that I commonly heard from them almost daily. I can remember the janitors during my primary school days were constantly looked down on and how no one talked or paid much attention to them. The most interaction that I would see other staff members have with them was when directing them to a spill in the cafeteria or when something needed cleaning. I would hear other teachers complain about their jobs to one another and in order to make themselves feel better they would say “At least I am not the lazy janitor.” In hearing this, I grew up with the mindset that those types of jobs were only suited for the poor and lazy. It was not until I started my career did I notice just how hard the janitors and support staff actually have to work. In watching a 60 year old woman riding up and down elevators, cleaning the insides and outsides of doors, and squatting on her knees to get the in the cracks just for them to get dirty again within minutes; did I realize just how wrong those teachers and I were. While talking to the janitorial staff is when I noticed just how unequal things really were for them. Their hours and jobs were in constant flux or in danger of being cutout all together while the tasks that were asked of them constantly increased. Anyone that had an issue was asked to leave because