In the guise of a social do-gooder, Ehernrich shows she's no less a robber-baron than a Huntington or Morgan, climbing to new social heights on poor backs. Spend a few months among the prols prompted by one's literary agent, assume a sympathetic self-righteous activist persona, appropriate some labor-related statistics to bolster a non-existent credibility: the whole premise reeks of opportunism and self-promotion. The result: a resounding commercial success complete with best-seller status and $20,000 (you got it) speaking engagements round the country.
The guiding ethos of this docudrama is clear: keep things snappy, bizarre, luridly underworld (digress at length about the "three kinds of sh--t stains"), and above all shallow. No 'character' is depicted with a greater than two-dimensional depth, individuality and pathos being consistently sacrificed for Hollywood-type caricatures ("like a TV comic," "like a comic book character," like "a band of wizened toddlers" are par-for-the-course). Except for occasional one-liners, Ehernreich rarely grants any co-worker a voice. Why should she? They have nothing intelligible to communicate about their plight, while the author is clearly the only sane, insightful personage roaming her solipsistic, sophomoric landscape. (Oh yes, and all white males are pimps or oppressors, and only women and people of color are prone to hardship. The book assures us it's "funny," referring apparently to the author's indomitable paranoia that every white guy walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, smiling, or driving a truck is out to jump her tired old bones.)
While putting up a Marxist pretense of 'us vs. them,' Ehernreich clearly regards her minimum wage specimens as scarcely human; in fact, as so much publishing fodder. No sooner has she exhausted one company of players--milked for their tabloid potential (takes about two weeks)-than she quickly switches to a new cast. And when the going gets tough, this pragmatist has no qualms about cutting her losses and getting the hell out of Dodge.
No attempt is made to trace the long-term ups and downs in these people's lives, a basic prerequisite one would think for any journalist with a social conscience. Why? This would involve commitment, a determination to probe beneath the surface, a responsible presentation that might actually make a difference. Instead we get undigested pabulum, a verbal spectacle of creative-writing-class prose that rises to the heights of a 20/20 "Special Report." One wonders what Ehernreich's next project might be. Black-up with shoe shine and go African American for a week? ("I'm getting a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be black" p.100. Not bad at age fifty-something). Or perhaps go native, see what the aboriginies have left to plunder?
In a simulation of honest reportage, Ehernreich confesses her inability to fully commit to her project: "No way I was going to experience poverty or find out how it really feels to be a long-term, low-wage earner"; and "I don't know [what happens to someone working a menial job for a year] and I don't intend to find out. But I can guess." She can't, for example, take buses because "a story about waiting for buses wouldn't be very interesting." Surely anyone with an ounce of journalist integrity would cringe at such a rationalization. After a brief stint as maid, she later informs us, in one of her internet-derived factoids, that nearly half of all bus-riders are maids. Go figure. (And why does Ehernriech need a Rent-a-Wreck anyway? Perhaps her BMW would blow her cover?)
But where "interesting" (read: entertaining) is the bottom line, depth and accuracy can apparently go hang. The only in-depth reporting here revolves around the author's yuppie-style preoccupation with protein levels, caloric intake, and buttock sizes. (And Ehrenreich's own usual bill of fare? "How about a polenta-crusted salmon filet with pesto sauce and a nice glass of J. Lohr Chardonnay?" p. 102.) At one point she stages ('Oh me, I plumb forgot!') a "chemical indiscretion" in order to pulpit-thump about drug-testing, and simultaneously hint at her own blue-collar (or is it yuppie again?) hip-ness.
As opposed, then, to a lived experience in the tradition of honorable undercover journalism, we get instead an Oprah-friendly thirteen-dollar-a-pop paperback "full of riveting grit" to be consumed by fear-of-falling upper-middle-classers who want to catch a noncommunicable glimpse of how the other half lives; or a Borders-ready book version of "Survivor": spend a few weeks among the primitives, eat native food, betray your friends, then retire to a life of capitalistic renown and designer salads having "entertained millions of strangers" (p.160). Anyone who's worked a minimum wage job for years, not mere weeks, knows the ink employed to publish Ehrenreich's observations ought to qualify as a fourth type of sh-t stain.
A partial salvaging might have been effected had Ehrenreich the courage to scrutinize her utter inability to descend from a habitually pampered environment of Stairmasters and PBS sitcoms ("my own peasant ancestors . . . ." Whose aren't?) into the minds of the modern working class, thus diverting her chatty edu-slang into an analysis of her own contracted, upper-class psychology. But alas, this would have been not nearly as entertaining, nor as lucrative. And how else pay for her daughter's Harvard education (p.79, fn.)?
No doubt this book will make the rounds of reading groups (don't miss the handy guide) and composition classes for a couple years, until the next cheap stunt topples it and takes its place. Perhaps in a more enlightened age this sort of hypocritical hucksterism would be hooted out of town before it could gain any sort of foothold and pass for genuine journalism. Meanwhile, I wouldn't inflict this coffee shop drivel on my dog.
So, what exactly do we have here? Ehrenreich's stated goal was to find out if the economics of low wage work is sufficient to support a person without sleeping in shelters or in her car. So she set out to three cities, Key West, Portland Maine, and Minneapolis, and worked a total of six low paid jobs, trying to arrange housing and eating on the money she earned. That's the basic set-up.
But a book about buying cheap food and comparing rental costs would be boring, so the reader is also treated to Barbara Ehrenreich's thoughts about everything. This is where the book really takes off, for better and worse. Let's face it, life is going to be tough in the circumstances she seeks out. Ehrenreich has many clear descriptions of the indignities faced by the working poor. The living conditions are often far from pleasant and there is much room for improvement. But by the time I got halfway through the book I just wanted to shout, "Shut Up!"
Ehrenreich is a sarcastic writer and thinker. It was actually amusing to read her endless spiteful comments about the homeowners who made use of the maid service she worked for, belittling everything from their personalities to their house's decor and their choice of reading material. One finally realizes how thoroughly annoyed she is that these people have the unmitigated gall to give her a job. Shame on them!
Sometimes her arguments self-destruct. If she wanted us to feel bad about how many employers don't trust the employees not to steal, then perhaps she should not have pointed out that at at least two, and possibly three of her six jobs, employees were actually caught stealing just during her few weeks there, including the clerk that took money out of the cash register to buy drugs with (on company time, if I recall the passage correctly). She states in a later chapter that she personally doesn't care about occasional retail theft. Maybe this is why she gets so torqued out of shape, but I found it hard to sympathize about some of this stuff, or I sympathized with the employers in some passages.
There is, however, a mitigating factor by which I'm giving Nickel and Dimed a high rating. Besides that fact that most of it basically rings true, I don't know that my own attitude would have been any better if I tried what she did, though I doubt it could be worse. She never claims this is a deep and penetrating study, just a journalistic jaunt by a self admittedly well off professional writer working on a personal project with a very narrow scope.