Chapter 2 Summary

In chapter two of Nickel and Dimed the main character and author, Barbara Ehrenreich, has just moved to a new town in Maine. In Maine there are a lot more white people and it would make it easier for her to find a job since she speaks English, where as in Key West the low paying jobs were most likely for Americans who spoke Spanish. On page 52 Barbara says, ”Maybe, I reasoned, when you give white people a whole state to themselves, they treat one another real nice.” She talked about how all of the want ads that she went through mostly promised a “fun, casual” workplace. She was hoping that she would be able to apply for as many jobs as she could and find a home in the next week or so. In the mean time, she was paying $59.00 a night to stay at a Motel 6. After a long day of looking for an apartment, she heads back to Portland in defeat when she notices that the Blue Haven Motel on Route 1 has apartments to rent. She says on page 56, “For $120 a week I can have a bed/Living area with a kitchen growing off of it, linens included, and a TV that will have cable company notices that the former occupant is no longer the bill.” Since she was under pressure and was paying $59 a day she went ahead and took this offer paying the $100 security fee on the spot.

Now that she has found a home the next step is to find a job. From experience in Key West she knows that she must apply for as many jobs as possible since a help-wanted ad doesn’t always indicate that help is really wanted. She also attends a job fair at Walmart, where she fills out a survey and is interviewed for a job. At the hotel she waits to hear back from all the places that she applied to. The first two calls are from the nursing home, who offer her a job on the weekends and the second is The Maids, who want her to start that following Monday. Both of these jobs are paying her around $6-7 an hour. The next day she starts her first job at the nursing home where she is required to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the residents there. She does the dishes and sweeps the floors once everyone is finished. She relates this job to her father and how he had died of Alzheimer’s disease. This job reminded her of him because he lived in the nursing home and serving the other people made her feel good since some of them could remember her name and even one women who made a joke by calling her “Barbara Bush.” This make her feel welcomed to her new job.

That night was her last night at the Motel 6. Instead of being locked up in her room all day she wanted to go out. She decided to attend a ten revival that a church was having. This becomes a brief experience. She chats with the women beside her, borrows her Bible, stands, claps with the song, and leaves before the preaching is finished.

Sunday comes and she finally ready to move out of the Motel 6 and into the Blue Haven, She finds the place small, but is still happy with it. On page 69 she says, “Not to worry—I have an address, two jobs, and a Rent-A-Wreck.”

On Monday she reports to her next job at 7:30 knowing nothing about maid service. On her first day she is barely noticed and waits to receive her uniform and instructions for her job. She goes through training where she learns that her job consists of dusting, bathrooms, kitchens, and vacuuming. She enjoys dusting the best. She says “..its undeniable logic and a certain kind of austere beauty.” After a day’s training she is judged fit to work with the team of the maids. She tells how this job is at a fast pace where everyone runs in and out of the houses. She also mentions that in her previous interview for the job she was promised a 30 minute lunch break, but turns out to be a 5 minute pit stop. All that this job running in houses, cleaning them, and then running out with minutes to spare. She describes how some of her co-workers boss her around, but that is the only problem that she is having so far. Later on in the chapter she talks about how one of her teammates said that sometimes the owners of the houses will leave tape recorders on so that they can hear what the workers are saying while they work.

Finishing off the chapter she finishes by saying how she is working her finally day as a maid and how she is going to miss everybody and her nursing home job.