"Serving in Florida" by Barbara Ehrenreich

                     The story " Serving in Florida" is a journalists report on what she was forced to encounter as she took on an undercover role. Her story was a bout lower class citizens and what they face through there day to day struggles of paying the bills. The story began with Barbara telling college students to think twice before they droop out and persue a minimum-wage job.
                     My inicial perspective was that the authors story would have some difficult  moments and cause her to face the reality of what life truly consisted of outside of her comfortable living style. I expected the moral behind this whole peice to be sympathetic towards minimum-wage but still show an optimistic view of making it through in that line of work.
                     The story then goes on to describe the authors job and how difficult it was to maintain not just one but two waitressing jobs. though the author quite one job she was very quick to start looking for another to replace that space. It was challenging to make friends but she was able to meet two people that became very close to her, Gail who was a waitress at the Hearthside and lived in her van. Barbara also formed a very close relationship with a young man named George, he was the dishwasher at her place of  imployment, jerry's.  George was a sweat boy from the Czech Republic and as i read furthur into the story i found that he was convicted of stealing though the truth was never revealed,  i felt that the author never truly believed it to be. As the story progresses the author begins another job at a hotel as a cleaning lady. she describes her struggle on working both jobs but notes that it is necassary for her to aford her rent.I began to notice a change in the author as she progressed living and working at in that atmosphere, she no longer faught against the grain. Maybe the hard physical labor had began to wear her out, or maybe she had been to afraid to argue and loose her job. Whatever had caused her mentality to change was not good and she began to feel it aswell. It has become so costly for her to live in her appartment that she is forced to put a down payment on a trailer, but she only lives there for a short while before she calls it quites on the entire project.
                     I found the end of this story to be disapointing, it was great that the author chose to leave behind money for Gail and George to help them pay there bills but i felt as though she just gave up. The message she ened up portraying was not that of conquering challenges thrown at you, but that when the going get tough it easy to run away if you have a back up. What i took away from this article was that some desicions u make in life are not easy to some back from, sometimes what seems like the easiest road will be the most challenging and dissapointing.