...Nickel and Dimed is a novel written about the life of Barbara Ehrenreich, as an upper class writer, who went undercover to discover the pain and frustration of how so many Americans are not getting by in America. She leaves all her money and clothes and goes city to city trying to find a job and make a living with her laptop in tow. As she finds new jobs, she also finds new companions and learns that their struggle to escape the ominous thought of falling into poverty is large and never ending. Nickel and Dimed proved that It is impossible for minimum wage to provide an ordinary life for those working under a blue collar forcing them to grasp and fight for their survival. In the first part of Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich decided to go to...
Words: 625 - Pages: 3
...The first reading we were given for this week was Nickel-And-Dimed on (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. This reading narrates the writer’s undercover experiment to find out how non-skilled, low waged workers make ends meet. The goal of the experiment was to see whether or not the author had enough money solely from the low paying job to provide for herself and also pay for the next month’s rent. Her first task was to find a place to live while she was staying in Key West Florida. She assumed that she would be paid roughly $7 an hour and could afford to spend $500 on rent. She eventually finds a trailer to live in for the two weeks that she would be staying in the city. After finding somewhere to live, she then found a job as...
Words: 553 - Pages: 3
...have grown up so similarly, but one went on to be very successful, and the other a convict? The book tell the author's side of the story, the story of his childhood and his life. Wes Moore grows up under very poor conditions, and barely makes it by with his small family. Wes' mother is forced to drop out of school, and forfeit getting an education, to keep food on the table for her kids, and because Wes' father has been out of the picture for several years now, there is no other source of income for the poor family. Wes tries to stay strong despite all the bad things in his life, and pushes through days looking for the light at the end of the tunnel to solve all his problem. When Wes heads off to private school years later, he is at first passing classes and learning at a steady pace. However, when his life at home becomes too much to handle along with school, Wes takes a fall and fails out of private school. Wes doesn't want to go on living in poverty, so he decides that he is going to get an education one way, or another. He decides to join a military school and enlist in the countries' armed forces, in hopes that he will have one more chance at getting a wonderful education to turn his life around. At first, he didn't seem cut out for the military, but with time came acceptance, and Wes toughened up and contributed to the war in his own way. After his time in the...
Words: 739 - Pages: 3
...Nickel and Dimed is written by Barbra Ehrenreich, she tries to show us how she did as a low wage worker. She although has good points about some flaws with the system, she tries to pin it all on the government. Ehrenreich does well showing the underbelly of society, but her personal motivation is quite mysterious and well hidden within the book. She points out that cost of housing is hard for the poor and the prices have skyrocketed beyond reason. Ehrenreich seams to forget that minimum wage is not meant to be lived off of ever, while she bashes the government about the system, she also shows the struggles of the low wage workers and what they face every day. Such as the medicine she took and how it affected her drug test or when she...
Words: 277 - Pages: 2
...Ameya talole 1) What did you learn from this negotiation process? Today’s case study was based on the single negotiation with multiple issues which has included the family issues. Two brothers named George and Ron they were negotiating on the time sharing of their father summer house. And also they were negotiating on father’s personal effects such as stamp collection, ring, pocket watch, bonzo (dog), and club membership As per today’s negotiation I learn how to get into negation if it has multiple issues * Analyse the negotiation space * Don't try to beat the other side * Identify the issues and outcomes. * Avoid single-issue negotiations: identify and negotiate multiple issues simultaneously * Develop a rating system to assess the importance of each of The issues and outcomes * Understand the other party's interests, constraints, and perspective * Negotiate over interests, not positions * Calculate the value of your Best Alternative to No Agreement (BATNA) and alternatives. * Test outcomes using the rating system. What would you have done differently? In this case I was playing role of Ron the elder brother so as per time sharing of the house I decided to split the weeks of the summer season for both the families as both preferred the same time. And the other issue was maintenance of house so we decided to open join account contribute 500$ each month and to pay the maintenance and electricity bill from that joint account. Moreover...
Words: 313 - Pages: 2
...and true in negotiate? And what is true for an individual is equally true for groups and nations? However, how to convert positions to interests? If negotiator is takes the extreme position and mere ego may prevent coming to an agreement. When you dig more into positions less attention will be given to understanding the real underlying issues and will stand on positions that are far apart from what are really going to agree and waste so much of time and energy. The more you clarify and defend your position from attack; you become more committed to your position. A position is a one-dimensional point from a much wider range of options. If you focus on position, the potential answer is quite limited. Focusing on the substantive issue helps both parties discuss the underlying factors. Therefore, reconcile interests rather than compromising between positions leads you to options that could never be considered if you focused on your concrete positions. Dealing with actual concerns than position and expands the potential options for resolution. Perhaps behind opposed position lie shared and compatible interest. Maybe, options are not rigid objectives; they are potential solutions that would satisfy most, if not all, interests that people have if they want to solve a problem. Example in Malaysia there is three main races – Malay, Chinese and Indian. Each one of us may have multiple interests not just one. We want to develop the economy, live all over the country, have no fight...
Words: 605 - Pages: 3
...Negotiations Getting to Yes is about improving your negotiation skills. First, it goes through the disadvantages of the classic positional negotiating tactic that involves taking a stance and slowly reaching an agreement after each party makes multiple concessions often ending with less than anyone wants and a poor relationship between parties. After that, it discusses principled negotiation which, in short, is focused on separating the people from the problem, focusing on the interests of the parties and not their positions, inventing multiple options that look for mutual gains through brainstorming activities, and basing the end result on objective standards. This is the bulk of the book and there are many examples ranging from insurance adjusters to Middle Eastern treaties. After the in depth explanation of principled negotiation, the last part of the book describes many situations where the other party is using tricky tactics, won’t cooperate, or have a much better bargaining position than you. There are methods discussed to try to lead the negotiation in the direction you want, creating a BATNA, or diffusing the tricky method by calling it out. Overall, this book did not guarantee that this method will win every negotiation, but it will allow you a much greater chance to efficiently go through a negotiation and end up with more than you would have gotten not using this method. After reading this book, I have noticed that for the most part I understood and easily accepted...
Words: 1108 - Pages: 5
...Article Review 7.1: Best Practices in Negotiations Article Review HR595 Negotiation Skills Course Instructor: Wendy Chung April 14, 2010 Week 7 Submitted by Bob Figone What is the problem or issue that necessitates such an article be written? This article comes directly out of both textbooks (Chapter 12 in Essentials of Negotiation, page 256 and Article 7.1 in Negotiation – Readings, Exercises and Cases, page 485) we have used for this course. It is a summary of what we have learned about the field of negotiation. It reminds us that negotiation is intrinsic in our lives and confronts us many times each day. This article is a reflection by the author’s using a broad view of best practices for negotiators to focus on in order to improve negotiation skills and techniques. What strategies or techniques are used to solve the problem or address the issue? The article lists Ten Best practices for Negotiators in a table and continues to explain the importance of each. The table from the text is as follows: |Ten Best Practices for Negotiators | |1. Be prepared | |2. Diagnose the fundamental structure of the negotiation | |3. Identify and work the BATNA ...
Words: 2145 - Pages: 9
...In class we had our first group negotiation, which proved to be a very challenging exercise. There were two teams, a labor union and factory management. The factory management wanted stricter rules and lower labor rates while the labor union wanted good benefits, higher wages, and less regulation. In addition to having team interests we also had individual interests. For example, I was an employee who worked at the factory 30 years so my interest was to have less regulation and to have higher benefits. Although each of us, had a desire to win, and had our own interests that could have made the negotiation distributive, the best approach was an integrative approach. This negotiation was distributive in nature since it had to do with getting the “most” or “least” points yet it did not have to be. Since my team knew that a distributive approach would not lead us anywhere we decided to use an integrative strategy. For example, the other side was not going to give us a substantial increase in benefits regardless of our options so we needed to find a way to accumulate points a different way. Therefore, we began pushing for higher wages and we were able to get a fifteen cent increase to give us 3 points, we required that we signed the labor clause (+2), slight increase in benefits (+1), weak regulation( -1), and one management regulation ( -1), etc. Overall, as a team we accomplished a gain of 7 points. There was not enough time and the other side was not budging. We tried not budging...
Words: 843 - Pages: 4
...Linda will be a reference for Bill she can give an recommendation to the interviewers about him before he has an interview. Linda can also tell Bill to study and research the company so he is prepared. Case #2 Question #1. The ethical issue in the this scenario is that Violet could easily take a computer for her son and only send 11 computers to the elementary school. These transactions are not kept on record so Violet would be able to do it without anyone noticing, provided the school doesn't know how many computers they should be receiving. Question #2. Instead of Violet jeopardizing her job she could go to her son and explain the situation. Let him know that getting a computer for him is very hard on her own and ask he if could pitch in to help. If her son got a job and used some of his pay to help out it would be easier for Violet to buy a computer. Also, Violet does not have to a buy a brand new computer. There are many ways for her buy a used computer and her son could use that until they can afford a better one in the future. Case #3 Question #1. The ethical issue in this scenario is that David is using his company computer to send personal e-mails which is against company policy. Even though David is not falling behind on work these kinds of e-mails are not permitted and he could get in trouble if he is caught. A lot...
Words: 738 - Pages: 3
...place. The place he just came to was actually his hometown many many years back. In the forest the people who attempted to kill Tucker were chasing after him. Tucker took the leap of faith into a disc the old lady said was the death of a prophet. Tucker soon came to realize the prophet was Jesus. He didn't want to be noticed by the executioners, he broken to a dead bolt to a hillside near him. There he found his dad hiding behind a rock inside a cave, that's where the tomb of Jesus was to be held. As the executioners approached the cave they stumbled across Tucker and his dad. Tucker was sentenced to death on the cross. He was nailed on to the cross where he nearly died. He was sent to the same hospital that he was just at. When he was getting better he was sent into a disc that read your DNA and sent you back to your town. He was sent back but his mom didn’t recognize her and his dad was in his 80’s posing as the church pastor. There was a miracle in his little town. It was believed that Tucker's dad created the miracle. Everyone flocked into the town park to listen to his dad. Once everyone was in and waiting the his dad’s assistant showed that he was one of the people who attempted to sacrifice Tucker. The book ended with the Tucker’s sacrificer pointing to his friend and exclaiming that he has been chosen as a...
Words: 741 - Pages: 3
...found it at a music festival called Woodstock in Ulster County. Young people travelled from all over to partake in the Woodstock festival, nearly 400,000 young people came to attend the festival (Gibbons, 2010). However, after the music festival ended, people were stuck in that county which turned into a problem. Homelessness and drugs became a major problem, the young people slept on benches, camped out in parking lots, and searched for food and clothing (Gibbons, 2010). This also became a problem for the townspeople. The young people were getting in trouble with the law because of the drugs. One woman, Gail Varsi, recognized the problem and decided to do something. She first, gave police her home number and instructed them to call her whenever a homeless youth got in trouble. She then reached out to local residents and businesses and together they began hosting food and clothes drives. Family of Woodstock, Inc. was founded with the help of Michael Berg (Gibbons, 2010). Family of Woodstock Inc. is an advocacy group that believes everyone is entitled to receive food, clothing, and shelter. The Family of Woodstock Inc. believed in having non-judgmental attitudes toward others. The...
Words: 811 - Pages: 4
...2011, 129) I agree with those words wholeheartedly. Sean was a fun loving kid who had everything going for him. His family described him as “a good guy with a big heart.” However that soon began to change changed. At the age of 13 Sean began experimenting with alcohol as a way to escape from the reality of his life. He felt that the buzz was his “miracle juice.” Drinking made Sean feel good. However, the sad and harsh reality of the situation is that it is the exact opposite of feeling good. Sean sees alcohol as a way to deal with the constant feeling of never being good enough in his father’s eyesight as well as a way to escape the fact that his father is a homosexual man. The constant pressure and bullying by his family doesn’t help...
Words: 1059 - Pages: 5
...How to learn how to swim without getting wet. ‘How to learn how to swim without getting wet’ is a quote which refers to trying to be able to learn to do something without actually experiencing it yourself and completing the task and relying on another persons advise. If we relate this quote towards the way we learn in university, it can relate towards the way that many students may establish the way of learning in university, and rather than being practical and focusing within lessons and attempting all tasks and completing coursework, many students may always rely on the help of other students and take their notes to revise and complete work this way they will not be learning on the basis of their own effort and putting in the hard work leading to them not being able to learn anything. Relating back to this quote if a person wants to learn how to swim without getting wet, there are many alternatives to this, for instance practicing the swimming movements that you will need to know to help you to begin to learn to swim. However practicing inside water and practicing out of water can be a very different experience, and still not teach you how to be able to swim properly, this goes for if we took a persons advice and their experience on how to be able to swim and the different techniques that would need to be used, even despite knowing what we would need to do it would still be difficult for us to jump straight into the water and be able to adapt ourselves into...
Words: 398 - Pages: 2
...treatment program for men and women adults to help them learn how life without drugs and alcohol. The environment I currently work in is a fast paced environment where anything can happen at any given point. This field consistently makes changes to their policies and licensing requirements. These all vary from the company to the field and insurance company your dealing with at that time. I am currently in school to receive my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration to eventually own my own rehab in the near future. Companies I Would Like To Work For I’ve been working in this field long enough to realize that this is my passion not just my job. I have the proper training and certifications to move forward in this field and work for a higher end facility. The staff understands the need for privacy in a supportive environment. This high end facility offers a resort like experience. Each facility offers different amenities but this facilities offers much more for the individual like yoga, hiking, and aquatic therapy. Depending on the level of treatment that you are requesting or in some cases required to take this will determine the level of care and what will be required of you. The second place that I would like to work for is called Reflections Rehab. This treatment center is in San Francisco and tailors to the executive career workers that are still attending their daily life with the help of a sober coach to be by their side to help them make better decisions in life. They...
Words: 769 - Pages: 4
