Nickel and Dimed
Chapter 2

In chapter 2 Barbra goes to Maine to find another job. She begins by picking up her rent a wreck and trying to find a new job maybe as a convenience store clerk or at a shopping mall. She finds a place at a hotel 6. She will stay there until she finds a cheaper place. She finally found a place called blue haven motel with a price of 59$ a day.

Now to find a job. She applies to many jobs including goodwill where the pay is 7$ an hour. She also applies at Wall-Mart where she takes a personality test. She says that these tests are pointless because the answers are obvious. But the employer says that they can tell a lot about potential employees. She thinks that these tests are made to convey information to the employee.

After she applies to many jobs she finally gets a call from two different employers and she takes the jobs automatically. The jobs are a nursing home that wants her to work weekends starting the next day. The other job is a cleaning service called the Maids. The Maids tell her that she has passed the Accutrac test and she can start Monday.

She works at both places for a while she tells about how old people are not much fun to work with and she also tells about how her cleaning is not really cleaning. She admits that when she cleans she pretty much is taking dirt from somewhere and putting it in another place.

After a while she makes friends with most of her co-workers. Most of the Maids are Hispanic. Just like the jobs at Key West she begins to get into the groove of sleeping eating working. She takes pride in everything she buys. When she takes a shower she says to herself this is my water, I paid for it with my money.

While walking to her car one of Barbra’s co workers named Holy trips and falls. She starts screaming “it snapped I heard it snap”! Barbra suggests that she should go to the ER and get an X-ray. But Holy said that she did not want to miss work.

In the end Barbra quits because her trust has been lost with her employees. So she moves on and continues her story.