Barbara Ehrenreich Nickel and Dimed (2001)
I've had this one sat around for at least a decade, purchased on impulse based on Ehrenreich's Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War being, as I recall, phenomenal. I picked up Nickel and Dimed, started it, and actively enjoyed it on a couple of occasions, but somehow the time was never quite right. Also, I think I was slightly confused by how remote the subject seemed in relation to Blood Rites; although to be fair, I suppose it all falls under social anthropology to one extent or another.
Nickel and Dimed is one woman going undercover in low-wage USA, as the subtitle has it, taking those jobs no-one really wants in diners, chain stores, or cleaning houses, living in crappy short-term digs, motels, and the like. There's a substantial quota of online whining over this book, much of it generated by those living the lives here described and objecting that they never had the option of going back to the well-fed career of a successful writer at the end of the experiment. Most of the critics seem to have taken issue with the book they believe Barbara Ehrenreich should have written, or they seem to feel maybe Ehrenreich should have consulted them before writing, or maybe they just object because they dream of being paid $4.45 an hour to get up at four in the morning and lick the septic tank clean before the boss cuts off their heads. It's hard to tell. I spent twenty years living on fucking peanuts whilst engaged in back-breaking work, and yet somehow I've managed to not take this book personally.
Excepting the more downtrodden than thou and clowns who use terms like socialist propaganda, Nickel and Dimed is worth a couple of hours of anyone's time as a hand grasping the shittier end of the capitalist stick by someone lucky enough to have the perspective afforded by the availability of other options. It isn't a definitive account, and nor does it claim to be anything other than one woman's experience of getting economically shafted on a daily basis; but this is stuff which will be news to at least some of those who read it, and it touches on a lot of that which is rotten in our society without sneering or setting homework. Also, it's a thumping good read and keeps its sense of humour despite the circumstances.
Perhaps ironically, a few of the negative reviews serve to illustrate one of Ehrenreich's observations, namely that the working class is often its own worst fucking enemy - although she phrases it more diplomatically - in failing to rise above tribal bullshit even when the poor cunt on trial is actually on our side.
I've had this one sat around for at least a decade, purchased on impulse based on Ehrenreich's Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War being, as I recall, phenomenal. I picked up Nickel and Dimed, started it, and actively enjoyed it on a couple of occasions, but somehow the time was never quite right. Also, I think I was slightly confused by how remote the subject seemed in relation to Blood Rites; although to be fair, I suppose it all falls under social anthropology to one extent or another.
Nickel and Dimed is one woman going undercover in low-wage USA, as the subtitle has it, taking those jobs no-one really wants in diners, chain stores, or cleaning houses, living in crappy short-term digs, motels, and the like. There's a substantial quota of online whining over this book, much of it generated by those living the lives here described and objecting that they never had the option of going back to the well-fed career of a successful writer at the end of the experiment. Most of the critics seem to have taken issue with the book they believe Barbara Ehrenreich should have written, or they seem to feel maybe Ehrenreich should have consulted them before writing, or maybe they just object because they dream of being paid $4.45 an hour to get up at four in the morning and lick the septic tank clean before the boss cuts off their heads. It's hard to tell. I spent twenty years living on fucking peanuts whilst engaged in back-breaking work, and yet somehow I've managed to not take this book personally.
Excepting the more downtrodden than thou and clowns who use terms like socialist propaganda, Nickel and Dimed is worth a couple of hours of anyone's time as a hand grasping the shittier end of the capitalist stick by someone lucky enough to have the perspective afforded by the availability of other options. It isn't a definitive account, and nor does it claim to be anything other than one woman's experience of getting economically shafted on a daily basis; but this is stuff which will be news to at least some of those who read it, and it touches on a lot of that which is rotten in our society without sneering or setting homework. Also, it's a thumping good read and keeps its sense of humour despite the circumstances.
Perhaps ironically, a few of the negative reviews serve to illustrate one of Ehrenreich's observations, namely that the working class is often its own worst fucking enemy - although she phrases it more diplomatically - in failing to rise above tribal bullshit even when the poor cunt on trial is actually on our side.
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