Nickel And Dimed Book review

Nickel And Dimed Book review

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich provides a direct insight into the lives of those Americans in the lower/working class. The book also gives a very vivid illustration of the McDonaldization that is occurring throughout the entire nation.   Throughout the book, she provides a detailed play-by-play of what goes on in the lives of these people on a daily basis. The entire book is filled with evidence of the McDonaldization of society.
McDonaldization has four key principles to it. These are efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. The first principle, efficiency, refers to the attempt to minimize the time needed to complete a task.   Calculability means that the organization is geared more towards a quantifiable goal (such as number of sales) rather than a subjective goal (such as the taste of food). These companies and organizations believe that a high quantity is equal to a high quality, and thus they want their employees to concentrate on how fast they can do their job rather than how well they do it. Predictability means that the experience should be the same every time. A good example of this is at a fast food restaurant, where the fry cooks are expected to make the food the exact same way every single time.   This also carries over to the jobs of the employees at these establishments. Their jobs are pretty much the same every day, thus they are predictable. The last principle of McDonaldization is control. Control in an organization or company means that the employees are highly regulated. This could be what they are required to wear, the way they are expected to act, the way they are expected to do their jobs etc. . . . A high amount of control in an organization will increase the efficiency because employees are required to be doing their jobs the most efficient way or they will get in trouble for it. There are several examples of each of these characteristics in Nickel and Dimed.
One example of efficiency in the book occurs while...