Serving In Florida

When I first heard the title, I thought the author would be writing about serving jail time. I'm not sure if the title was intended to take on that meaning but when I think about the job's described in this writing, They really could be equated with serving jail time. Ive had my fair share of time in the food service world, and though my experience was much more pleasant than Barbara Ehrenreich's, I could still see a viable argument that food service jobs, and jobs like them, are just about as pleasant as time spent serving a sentence. People constantly barking orders, not even being allowed a bathroom break without premission, And you are surrounded with unhappy people with no real future other than their current reality. To make matters worse, You are handling the crankiest people the world has too offer with a smile on your face. By the time your paycheck comes you wonder how on earth you can stand to withstand the torture for such minimal compensation. Even after tips, there is absolutely no way an individual could support themselves entirely, not even at an uncomfortable level. Barbara dive's into this world and soon finds her self consumed in a struggle to simply get through the day.
Barbra finds that her all consuming struggle begins to change her. Her spirit and body are slowly being worn down to the point where she no longer thinks about anything aside from the task at hand. She enters into survival mode or as she calls it a "flow state."-"Where signals pass from sense organs directly to the muscles, bypassing the cerebral cortex, and a zen-like emptiness sets in." I'm not sure how people make life-time careers out of this type of labor. I think I would argue that Barbara Ehrebreich would wonder the same thing. She could only stand a month of this type of work. She did point out how consuming it becomes though. You become so set in your ways, simply to survive, that even the thought of escape doesn't come to mind. Once you find yourself struggling, it is so hard to be happy, to feel like you could change your situation at all. More often than not, these people make a career out of this work not by choice but by necessity, there is no other option.
I found myself relating so well to this writing. When I worked as a server I became so judgmental, critical, stressed and focused. It felt as though I had a painted grin on all the time. I would guess the amount of tip I received not based upon the quality of service I was providing but by the type of person I was serving. More often than not, I knew a bad tipper when I saw one. You really do find yourself becoming drone-like. I didn't even have to do my work to survive, it was simply to get money for school and fun-time expenses. Barbara reveals a world most of us find depressing. She reminds us that these are people serving us, not machines. How often are we the bad tipper or the ignorant motel guest?