The piece entitled "Serving in Florida" by Barbara Ehrenreich is a very interesting piece that covers a few different interesting areas. One thing that it addresses is corporate greed, in a way. While the article has more to do with the hardships that people like waitresses and waiters face when that is their full time job, this part struck me especially what has been going on with such things as Occupy Wall Street. Although many of the protesters there were doing it for the wrong reasons and many of them truly had no clue why they were there/were there just to be there, there were some level headed young people there who knew what they were doing. Although the purpose of Occupy Wall Street got a little bit misconstrued as a debate over the costs of college education, corporate greed was an issue there. In a way, I wish Ehrehreich did talk a little more about this because it is a hot button topic that, hopefully, becomes more of a mainstream issue and the younger population begins to learn more about and begins to oppose.
Apart from this issue, there were some very surprising things that were brought up in this piece. I do, however, think this piece would have been more effective if it was coming from someone who was actually living this life full time, not someone posing as such. Ehrenreich always has a way out; she can stop the experiment any time she wishes. For the rest of the people in this article. this is their real lives, and they do not have the option to just stop things and go to living another life. But seeing firsthand how some people were living, and realizing how many people really are living this way (like living out of their car or a hotel to avoid rent) is eye opening, and it makes me have more respect for people like this. In this way the article is effective, but it is still a bit tainted because Ehrenreich is not really living this life 24/365.
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