Perhaps her acting is not so different from that of her co-workers.
When Ehrenreich turns to her old dermatologist to treat a rash developed at The Maids, she laments her own slipping out of “character” at the same time, however, when she undergoes her umpteenth job interview, she reflects on the performances required of all prospective low-wage employees. What happens to a “real” low-wage worker when the ceiling drops? That said, how is Ehrenreich not a “real” low-wage worker? One does not pretend to be a waitress, she notes one either is one or is not, whether for a short period of time or a long period of time. She is reminded again and again of the safety net she enjoys, even as a low-wage worker, with a bank account and health insurance waiting in the wings should the ceiling drop. Throughout her journey as a low-wage worker, Ehrenreich rubs up against notions of theater and performance that complicate her journalistic stance. Ehrenreich calls the state of the poor in America “a state of emergency” and concludes her book with a plea for help. What is more, low-wage work itself is often grueling, withering, leading the way to ailments and pains, and permeated with a callow sense of dehumanization: Wal-Mart treats its employees like babies, while The Maids instructs ill workers to “work through it”. Poverty is not just a side-effect of unemployment rather, those fully employed can slip into the deepest poverty, with wages too low to cover rising rents. America, with its paucity of social programs, seems particularly unconcerned with its least privileged citizens-the low-wage workers whose ranks Ehrenreich temporarily joins. Ehrenreich writes of poverty, especially toward the close of her book, with the verve and vibrancy of a Dickens or Sinclair, excoriating society’s indifference to this endemic problem. Ehrenreich had written extensively about poverty in America prior to embarking on Nickel and Dimed, so the revelations of her endeavor do not come so much as a surprise to her as a confirmation of her suspicions-namely, that poverty has not been helped by the late-nineties boom, and that if anything it may have been worsened by it.
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