In Barbara Ehrenriech's book, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara takes on many jobs that require some sort of skill. She worked as a waitress for a restaurant called the Hearthside, she also worked as a maid for a company called The Maids, and she worked for Wal-Mart in the woman's department. All these jobs required some type of skill such as people skills, organization skills, math skills, memorization skills, and some time managing skills.
When Barbara worked as a waitress at the Hearthside restaurant, she had to use her people skills most often. People skills helped her deal with meeting the customers needs and being able to talk to the customer to make their time at the restaurant more enjoyable. "The only trouble is I'm spending time chatting with customers: 'That's how they know you.'.(35). People skills even come in handy when having to deal with the other employees. Barbara also had to build her math skills to be able to add up the amount that the customer owes.
A protest in Utah against Wal-Mart
English: Supermercado de Wal-Mart in Spring Branch...
Barbara Kibbee Jayne Special Collection PhotoTime management was an important part of this job because she had to be able to wait on one table and have enough time left to go take the order of another table, before the table had to wait too long. Also, Barbara had to memorize the way things were done. For example, "Carry the creamers to the table in a 'monkey bowl,' never in your hand."(17). So, many of job skills were needed in order to be a waitress at the Hearthside.
Barbara then moved on to the job as a maid for The Maids. Here, she had to use her time management skills to be able to clean what needed to be cleaned and still have time left to be able to go to the next house or task.