Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Scrubbing BP post

Here's where you can post comments on the Scrubbing questions.

10 comments:

melissa said...

I THINK THAT IF HOLLY QUITS HER JOB AND REST LIKE SHE SHOULD SHE THINKS SHE WILL NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO SURVIVE AND PAY HER MONTHY RENT AND UTILITIES. THAT IS WHY SHE DOESNT WANT TO STOP WORKING BECAUSE SHE KNOWS SHE WILL NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO LIVE OFF WITH. WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?

Leftmost said...

I think the answer to the first question is a little frustrating. In that, when job demand is high, job pay is supposed to go up. In the higher levels of society, it probably does. But in the lower levels of society this is not seen. I feel this is due to a variety of reasons.

A) The poor are desperate and must compete against many high schoolers and young college kids still living with their parents. These young kids have everything payed for so for them, even a dollar an hour would make many of them happy.

B) Poor folk and demand higher pay all they want. But in the end its a matter of whose going to blink first. If they don't work at all, chances are they don't eat. Employers know this, thus the low wages.

As for Molly, I'm mostly curious. Sure, fear of not being able to pay the rent is a concern. But, her dedication towards Ted is, curious. There's suggestion in the way she sees the Accutrac, that maybe she has an emotional attachment to her job that gives her confidence. Perhaps she sees her fellow works as extended family and she doesn't want to let them down. Perhaps this job is a part of her self-identity. Worrying about the bills is one thing, but her high regard for the test opens the door of speculation wide open.

Unknown said...

It really bugged me how Barbara was always trying to but into everyone's business and solve the world's problems. It doesn't make sense for her to even try because she doesn't know anything about what it is really like to be poor and she has no idea what a poor person's mentality is like. Because it would definitely be different than her own.

I thought the part of her book where she went to the Christian Church was irrevalent. It doesn't have anything to do with how poor people survive on minimum wage. And she also made several comments that don't apply to all forms of Christianity. She should have given all the facts, such as what kind of Christianity it was before saying her opinion and all that generalized crap.

Megan said...

I think that in all of the jobs that Barbara has participated in she is working the job, but to her it is an experiment. She knows that she can do better, and she will be doing better when she gets done with her experiment. So she sees the bigger picture. And when she tells Holly that the TEST was nothing special it knocks Holly down because she feels special for being able to pass the test that others were not able to. Although the job is not the best, it helps pay the bills and that means that she is better off than others that do not have a job at all.

KKayLawyer said...

Honestly at the beginning of this book I was thinking it would be virtually impossible for her to even relate to minimum wage workers in seeing that she always had "privleges" as she liked to put them. She was pompus in calling herself an "exiled princess", but as you go through each chapter you start to realize that she forgets that at any time she can leave. This isn't her "real" life. One thing I must state though is I don't know how long she experienced this, but from her writing she seems judgmental, did anyone else get that?
-kkayl

Mushroompal88 said...

I also realized that Ehrenreich at first seemed like a spoiled child that wasn't going to be able to relate. She acted almost as if she was better then her fellow workers, but later through the book she actually becomes somewhat human. She starts to see the people for who the are and not for their job.

English 102 student said...

How can Barbra even begin to understand what living poor is like. She starts with money in her pocket, a credit card, and the capability to leave the situation any time she wants. Is this journalism? I believe it to be more of a mockery than investigative research.

Sara Ann said...

In question 2, I felt that Ehrenreich has fianlly worked at minimum and gotten very little credit. And now she is at the demeaning of all the job and it is hard for her to not put her in the same position as the other women. She goes home to a place she really doesn't want to be in, eats terriable and have to take off her toliet soaked shoes and socks that she would prefer to throw away, but can's because she has to turn around and wear them again the next morning. How could you not think about that and put yourself in the same position as the ladies you work with a that go home and do the same thing, But have kids to cook for and their own house to clean.

f.f.k.larson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
F.F.K.Larson said...

I agree to some extent with mely delfin on this subject. Holly is clearly stuck in a position that makes her situation difficult. I would be willing to bet she came from a poorer family, that didn't install ambition in her. As to this she is clearly lacking that ambition and drive to do better when she is very well capable with her strong and moral work ethics.