Analysis of Serving in Florida by Barbara Ehrenreich - Book Report/Review Example

Barbara Ehrenreich conducts a survey to find out that housing is the biggest issue for everyone. In desperation, she starts looking for another job and gets hired in Jerry’s. That job is equally pathetic and she has to quit her first job because she could not manage two exhaustive jobs.  Rhetorical Analysis: The appalling working conditions and the hard efforts by people working in low-wage jobs to make ends meet are described from a personal, yet factual perspective by Barbra Ehrenreich in ‘Serving in Florida’.

Surviving in such conditions needs immense will power and determination; and people working in such circumstances have to compromise a lot on their basic rights like food, housing, respect, relationships, etc.As this essay is written from a personal perspective, Ehrenreich employs her personal and unbiased observations and opinions and compares her hapless situation with others that are working in similar conditions. Her first concern is regarding workplace ethics. She complains about not having due facilities or worker-friendly rules.

She describes managers as people who “have crossed over to the other side, which is, crudely put, corporate as opposed to a human.” (Ehrenreich) She is surprised to learn that in a corporate environment, “there is no “we”…”  In this phrase, she sums up the phenomenon of corporate work ethics. Ehrenreich might have had some notions that professionalism was about working together; on the contrary, the management was a sort of unilateral power.Apart from facing inhuman treatment from the management, she believes that her “job shows no sign of being financially viable.

”  She proves her point by giving examples of the weekly salaries of her co-workers and then calculates their expenses. She explains the living conditions of each of her co-workers by calculating their earnings and expenses and thus persuades the readers to agree with her claim that even if they cut off on their basic meals and housing, they would still be struggling hard to make their ends meet. She conducts a housing survey and finds out that housing is the “principal source of disruption in their lives…” Her calculation is convincing and unbiased as she not only gives a personal account of her salary vs.

expenses but also provides the real picture of the financial and living conditions of her co-workers.