Day 3

1. Read 11-29
2. Essay Options
   
3. Interview in groups of 2.
   

• Worst jobs/Worst Bosses
  
  
  • What made it bad
    

1. Something we don't expect when we see you. Something we couldn't tell by looking at you.
   
   
1. Introduce to the class.
   

Introduction: Getting Ready

1) Why had Barbara Ehrenreich avoided "run of the mill low paid job[s]" in the past?

2) Why does Ehrenreich deny herself the skills her education has afforded her in seeking employment?

What rules does she set up?

1. Ehrenreich believes "there's no way [she] was going to "experience poverty'"(6). How can she say this, given that she fully plans to force herself to eat, sleep, and get by on the money she earns from minimum wage jobs?
   

What do you think of the "reassuring limits" she puts on any impending hardship she'll encounter?

4) What advantages does Ehrenreich have that she believe mean that she has "everything going for her" (7) in terms of her chances for meeting with success in living on the minimum wage?

Do these advantages matter as much as she thinks they do, in your opinion?

1. The general response of Ehrenreich's coworkers in the course of the three individual tests she makes of living on the minimum wage is to find what she is doing unremarkable and "anticlimactic": "My favorite response [was], "Does this mean you're not going to be back next week?'"(9). What does such a response show us about these co-workers? Why do they not find her adventure compelling, given that their very lives are what she is studying?
   

How relevant to their lives do you think Nickel and Dimed might be? (and this might be a question to reflect upon when you are in the middle or at the end of the book).