Serving in Florida - Grade: A+ PDF

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Essay project on Serving in Florida...

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People suffer from poverty every day right here in the United States. Lacking money and basic necessities, includings food, shelter, clothes, education, and healthcare are the goods necessary to live a decent life; however, not everyone has access to these basic necessities. In "Serving Florida," Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover as a waitress and housekeeper in Key, West Florida, and may live the life of one who is in the low socio-economic class. She discovers that it is not financially viable to live off just the minimum wage. She even has to get two jobs to survive. In "On Dumpster Diving," Lars Eighner describes his life on the street and the beautiful art of Dumpster Diving, which is diving in the dump to search for food, cloths, and other needs. He focuses on a reminder to those who are careless about their possessions that actually still can be very useful to others, especially the homeless.

In the essay “Serving in Florida” Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover at a local fast food diner, known as Jerry’s, to investigate life as a blue-collar laborer, serving to customers arriving in “human waves” (Ehrenreich 130). It is throughout her journey working for both Jerry’s and a factory known as Hearthside that she learns the difficulties to be faced with minimum wage and severe working conditions. In addition, she observes that the careers which people pursue and the environment in which they work can change them socially and emotionally.Through the use of emotionally charged language, ethical and logical appeal, and varying sentence structure, Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay “Serving in Florida” reflects her hardships faced as a laborer receiving minimum wage in modern-day America. Made evident through the use of logic, Ehrenreich establishes her credibility and creates a trustworthy bond between herself and the readers, allowing them to feel the pain she has felt as a blue-collar employee. The logic is, specifically, sensed through the footnotes of the essay. The very fact that she has footnotes

establishes a sense of knowledge; a sense that the author clearly knows what she is talking about, and she wants the readers to have an understands of her experiences as a credible source. The footnotes provide other logical tools as well: allusions, historical contexts, even citations are mentioned. In her essay, Ehrenreich claims that Jerry’s insanitation forces the employees “to walk through the kitchen with tiny steps, like Susan McDougal in leg irons” (Ehrenreich 136). Her extensive background knowledge and logical connection between the suffering of Susan McDougal and Jerry’s employees clearly depict the hardships that she is trying to present to the readers, as well as proof that her job at Jerry’s and everything that she had been writing about is accurate. Her logic is also proven through pure historical context. For example, when she mentions that all of the girls who “work[her] shift” would protect each other “if one of [them was] off sneaking a cigarette or pee,” she gives background information on the necessity of this, saying that “until 1998, there was no federally mandated right to bathroom breaks” (Ehrenreich 138). This statements claims the difficulties that workers at the lower socio-economic states must foluates.

By giving the reader this context, she is sharing her knowledge of her current situation, and this information can effectively make an author seem to the trustworthy and commendable. The basic information the author provides to a reader gives him or her a better grasp of the concepts in this essay that some people today may not understand. Logic effectively proves Ehrenreich’s credibility and also makes it easier for the reader to understand her purpose for writing and publishing this essay. The progression of crude and foul language shows one of the major hardships Ehrenreich faces: her transition from scholarly writer to poor waitress. She shows her desire to go back to her home, to her old, distant life. She becomes “so homesick for the printed word that [she] obsessively reread[s] the six-page menu” (182) at Jerry’s. Her dramatic

measures show that even though she could have easily quit, she tolerates the pain of grueling through so many hours continuously and earning such low pay. What at first felt like something heroic, handling two jobs really took a toll on her. When she first started, she claimed to feel “powerfully vindicated –a survivor…” and used words such as “beautiful” and “heroic” (180) to describe the beginning of her short-lived job at the factory known as Hearthside.

The essay "On Dumpster Diving" Lars Eighner fortage a homeless man, accompanied by his dog Lizbeth. He thinks that his audience will change their ways of thinking, in terms of how they view dumpster diving, as well as their own wastefulness. He views dumpster diving as being positive because divers are not adding to the problem of creating more waste. Eighner uses figurative language to reach out to his audience while maintaining a strong, steady purpose. He shows us that he is sincere about his daily routine of dumpster diving, by explaining his point of view and providing a positive tone. He says, "Between us are the rat-race millions who have confounded themselves with the objects they grasp and who nightly scavenge the cable channels looking for they know now what" (Eighner 158). As Eighner is sharing his own life experiences, he is trying to point out that it takes someone living on the streets, scavenging for survival, to show us how many everyday items we waste. Eighner uses chronological order to grab his audience's attention. By doing so, it allows the readers to paint a mental picture so they can relate to what it is like to dumpster dive. He does this by explainings various "diving" events which take place in many environment. For instance, Eighner starts out with a general scene of many dumpsters supplying many different types of food and supplies. Eighner mentions that, "All of these foods might be found in any dumpster and can be evaluated with some confidence largely on the basis of appearance" (Eighner 154). When he starts his daily routine of diving, it is difficult appropriate food at the time need. As the

days when he starts becoming a true "scavenger" (Eighner 146) he then knew where the hot spots. The restaurant manager and people around these dumpsters start becoming suspicious which then causes him to move on to different dumpsters. He then tells us about one of his favorite dumpsters, located behind a pizza delivery shop. Since Eighner frequentes this dumpster on a daily basis, he is able to tell which pizza is fresh and is made on that day and the pizza that is made the day before. Another scene described in this essay is the dumpsters located near a college, "Students throw out many good items, including foods" (Eighner ). He finds this as a reason to keep up with their move out dates at the end of the semester so he can scavenge their foods and any "Junk" (149) items that may be thrown away. Also, at the end of the essay, he says that he has learned two lessons while diving as a scavenger that (1) takes what you can use and let the rest go. (2) material things are temporary.

Although, the essay “Serving in Florida” and “On Dumpster Diving Both authors allure their audiences by describing the lifestyle of the poor who live on the poverty level and how they are invisible to the middle class. Barbara Ehrenreich ‘s mission was to witness firsthand the plight of the poverty but saw the middle class perception of it as disturbing....