Comparing Ehrenreich's Nickeled And Dimed

638 Words2 Pages

In Chapter two of Nickeled and Dimed, Ehrenreich moves to Portland, Maine. She decided to move to Portland because she believed it would be a better place for her to fit in, but soon realized the grass was not always greener on the other side. She encountered many problems in the beginning of her move to a new town including finding a new home without stable income, no references and no address. She visits many places to find a home, temporary or permanent. The first night, Ehrenreich has to stay in a Motel 6 room and recognizes that Portland does not have many places to stay in her budget because the wealthy vacationers stay in Motels and the rates will not drop until after Labor Day. She discovers a motel named Blue Haven which fits in her budget. After her luck in Key …show more content…

Ehrenreich feeds the residents at the nursing home then washes the dishes. She meets Pete and Linda which are two very sincere people that show her around. Ehrenreich soon finds out that the maid service she takes on has a lot of rules, has strenuous work and has a limited time frame to do so many rooms. She meets several other maids who don’t look well and definitely have no money. Ehrenreich works harder to pick up Holly’s workload because she is in such bad health and pregnant but unable to miss work because she has no money. Holly ends up tripping and has to call Ted, the owner. Before Ted said anything about shaking it off, Ehrenreich gets on the phone and tells him she doesn’t care what he says that Holly needed to go to the doctor and he didn’t need to push her around. After the conformation with Ted, Ehrenreich and Marge have a deep conversation about Ehrenreich getting fired for the way she talked to Ted. Marge tells Ehrenreich that she would not get fired because she passed the test and without meaning to insult Marge, Ehrenreich screams that anyone could have passed the

Open Document