Listened to eAudioBook in July 2006.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that my local library now offers audio books for download that can be transferred to a portable media player. I downloaded this book and listened to it on my way to Portland this past weekend.
This is the story of an educated woman that tries to live on minimum wage alone. She hides/lies about her credentials and does her best to live within the means of a service-class person. Her jobs vary and her locations vary, but overall she finds it very difficult to make ends meet.
The book is well written, and doesn’t make any judgments on the service class, but rather makes many comments on the educated class and how the service class are often forgotten. The author does take some time to discuss her life at Walmart, which is highly entertaining. The author also makes several attempts to articulate the limitations of the welfare reform that has been passed in recent years – specifically that the calculations minimum wage and poverty rate do not include the cost of housing in a particular locality.
I found the book reminded me of my time working at Staples and Redner’s when I was in high school. This further encourages my philosophy that all young people should have service-oriented jobs when growing up so they can be introduced to this lifestyle. The author was often shocked at learning the lifestyle many of the full-time service workers experienced (no health insurance, living in cars/vans, no work = no food next day). This was less surprising to me since at Staples and Redner’s I was exposed to the full-timers at the job and got to hear about their lifestyle.
Read more about the book from Amazon.
