Barbara Ehrenreich attempts to give up her upper-middle-class life to make her case for a higher minimum wage while living the his life Nickel and Dimed. As she moves from Florida, to Maine, to Minnesota, Ehrenreich attempts to live her life as a minimum wage worker, including the lifestyle, subordination, and apparently alleged drug addiction of this lower class. Ehrenreich is unable to give up his higher social status as he interacts with drugs and drug tests in a very hesitant and shameful manner, even avoiding the tests altogether, which he only does successfully because of the privilege of his true background. However, his argument against drug testing stands out from this general failure regarding his personal stigma towards drug use, and his call to end drug testing ultimately stands out from his personal experience. Although his personal experiences with drugs reveal that Ehrenreich is incapable of abandoning his upper-class background, his argument about the illegality of drug testing breaks down when he forcefully calls those affected by the intrusion, the lower class, to action through empathy. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Florida, Ehrenreich begins his discussion of drugs by immediately giving power to the literal drug and stereotyping the poor people who use them. Ehrenreich begins his argument by recalling the enumerated “sloth, theft and drug abuse” (18). By placing drug use/abuse alongside these deadly sins, it places them on equal footing, forcing the low-wage drug addict to compare himself to the serial thief. Expanding on this proclamation of the evils of drugs, Ehrenreich reveals her personal prejudice as she "[blushes] as hard as if [she] had been caught smoking" (19). Her use of the subjunctive demonstrates how distant she sees herself from this drug problem, it's not real to her, just a remote possibility. He demonstrates his personal fear of the stigma surrounding drug use. Ironically, he invalidates the argument he is trying to make because he is unable to let go of the stereotypes he is calling for an end to all other middle and upper class people. Further stereotyping and confusion regarding the “drug culprit” pushes any drug user further into the rhetoric of criminalization. By naming a human being, someone with a possibly dangerous addiction, with a simple noun and adjective, both of which carry a negative tone, Ehrenreich simplifies this complex human being. That human is a criminal. And that human is a criminal because of drugs. While in Florida, Ehrenreich unfortunately begins to reveal his personal biases and his apparent inability to follow the solution he presents to everyone else. Ehrenreich turns employees against corporations while advocating an end to intrusive drug testing; however, ironically, he is incapable of truly understanding employees due to his inevitable biases. Through manipulation of employer requirements, Ehrenreich successfully vilifies companies as entities that smugly proclaim, “You will have no secrets from us” (37). Not only does this paint companies very negatively, but the antithetical “you” versus “us” pits the employer and employee directly against each other. She implicitly ridicules the act of drug testing while proclaiming the corporate message of "We don't just want your muscles and that part of your brain that is directly connected to them, we want yourdeeper self,” and, of course, we want your urine (37). However, Ehrenreich has never had to face these companies as disadvantaged as truly lower class workers do. He always has the privilege of leaving a job. never faces the pressure of having “something to prove” when his job and his life are at stake as the poor working class, the only thing he has to prove is the inequity in the societies practices (83). the role of “person who has valuable work to sell,” however, fails to realize that her use of the verb in the infinitive excludes her from that role; she has no valuable, infinitive work “to sell” (84). her measured work on her supposed identity. She assumes that because “the person” who can owns this valuable job, the unspecified antecedent allows her to take on this role as well. However, by refusing to take the drug test like the poor, she already has demonstrated that he could not truly play the role of “person”. Ehrenreich uses a sarcastic tone to comment on “what you get when you eliminate all the rebels with drug tests and personality 'investigations'” (98). Implicitly declaring that the “rebels” are those few who are unwilling to subject themselves to an improper and unprofessional intrusion into their personal lives and even their literal bodies. He lets his tone suggest the absurdity of the request for urine. Ehrenreich is unable to fully assume his poor identity, but he is able to successfully incite the movement of his argument. As an outsider, Ehrenreich continues his successful argument against drug testing. Although she unconsciously fails to fully assume her role as a low-wage worker, she successfully recognizes the dehumanization and objectification that drug testing entails as she claims she can prove herself proficient "at $8.50 plumbing" but only as long as passes a drug test (72). His prowess and literal monetary value seemingly reveal themselves through his ability to submit to an invasion of privacy. Eventually Ehrenreich begins to view drug tests as unnecessarily rude and extreme violations of privacy. While describing “the apps, the interviews, and the drug tests,” polysyndeton reveals how he sees these drug tests: as judges of a person's aptitude who can in no way determine how well he or she might do the job (99). He argues that obviously a person's preparation for a job can be found in a conversation or questions, however in no way can a person's preparation be found in his urine. However, she still holds the stereotypical view of these lower class people, that while even when she lives with them she seems surprised that they are not “drug addicts or prostitutes” (89). Ultimately, he is unable to put himself in the place of these poor workers because his prejudices present themselves too often; her argument about the use of drug testing, however, remains relevant only as it pertains to the company and its employees, leaving her mostly out of the equation. In the evaluation, Ehrenreich finally summarizes his argument that it is unconstitutional and unfair to force any employee to “take off his underwear and pee in a cup” (114). Its low diction allows this call to action to be broadly appealing, and this low diction appeals as ethically as any low-wage worker who has ever felt incredible shame and unbearable embarrassment over this requirement. Inspire to action those who understand this low diction, the employees. This allows her to speak to those who can make a difference. Continuing this final battle cry, continue the”.?