MY LOW-WAGE LIFE PROPOSAL

My hypertext will be about the lives of wait staff and what they experience behind the scenes of a restaurant and in their lives outside of the restaurant. I will include topics such as how the serving salary had a different impact on my coworkers than it did on me, struggles that my general wait staff go through and points of views from servers of different ages.

For one of her jobs, Ehrenreich worked at a restaurant and she documented many experiences that I can relate to and would be helpful for creating my hypertext. I think it is very important to bond with your coworkers and create a type of support group. “If one of us is feeling sick or overwhelmed, another one with “bev” a table or even carry trays for her,” (37) shows that Ehrenreich also realized that it’s very helpful to establish a support system with your coworkers. Ehrenreich also stated that she wanted her customers to have the closest to a fine dining experience that they can, even though the restaurant was just a diner. I can incorporate this idea into my hypertext, relating it to the topic of quality of service that wait staff strive for. This also relates to the topic of how wait staff are able to conceal or dissipate their annoyances with frustrating customers, yet still treat them with the uppermost respect.

Schlosser brought up the concept of teenagers who try to balance (or not balance) their time between working and school. Elisa Zamot worked 30-35 hours per week at McDonalds and fell behind in school because she was working too many hours and was not getting enough sleep (80). Another topic that I want to cover in my hypertext is about high school students who become waiters and who try to balance their time between school and work. I can relate to this because I worked as a waitress during my senior year of high school and it was tough to juggle my time, especially when I worked on weekdays.

Shipler’s work can be related to the aspect of my hypertext that is about the lives of my coworkers. I worked at a mediocre seafood restaurant, with a serving salary that is minimum wage. With the added bonus of tip money, working as a server at this restaurant is a decent job. However, many of my coworkers had to commute from homes that were an hour to two hours away. The extra expenditures on gas money would build up and it took away a significant amount from their paychecks. This relates to the point that Shipler made, “people can get jobs that aren’t low wage but there are other expenses that go with it” (10).