"Serving in Florida" by Barbara Ehrenreich

Right from the get go I knew I was going to love this story. My friends and I used to joke about how we were going to drop out of high school and become managers at McDonalds or some other minimum wage job. After reading this story I will never do that. I always knew that it would be hard to make a living being a waitress or a housekeeper but there were people out there doing it so it had to be possible. Who would've thought that they had to deal with so much. Barbara really put a spotlight on how much they have to suffer and I respect for taking her job so seriously.

This story is obviously taking place awhile ago but many jobs are still like this today. I worked at Cold Stone Creamery for minimum wage and could somewhat connect with the feeling Barbara was having. When you first start out at a new job its definitely scary and intimidating because the workers that have been there longer than you are usually annoyed because now they have to deal with a newbie. I felt like this at Cold Stone for a while just because no one new came in after me for a while. The veterans are always ready to make you do something they don't want to do, and always play little pranks on you. Like Barbara though you eventually become one of them, it starts to be like a family. The main difference between me and Barbara is that I left because I was tired of it and really didn't need the job to support myself, luckily I still had my mother. Barbara was able to leave too but it wouldn't have made her story as good as it was if she left the first minute it got hard.

I could never imagine dealing with the grossness, rudeness, and just not right things that these people had to go through. Living from paycheck to paycheck and having job that you completely hate but have to deal with because if not you would be living out of your car, is crazy! They were dealing with things no human should have to go through. Its sad to say that its still going on in today's world. Working till you pretty much overdose on Advil and are about collapse from being on your feet all day long just isn't right. Thank God that we finally go some worker laws that says we can't be treated so unfairly. The workers just won't appreciated by people, managers replaced people just as fast as they lost them.

Barbara was very witty and was afraid to say the truth. I was entertained throughout the entire story and was able to relate to it. Seeing what waitress and housekeepers had to deal with blew my mind and made me realize how important it is to stay in college. The real world isn't easy!