'Dirt Cheap: Life at the Wrong End of the Job Market' by Elisabeth Wynhausen
'Dirt Cheap - Life at the Wrong End of the Job Market'
by Elisabeth Wynhausen
And you thought your job sucked...
Elisabeth Wynhausen has often written about the lives of the Australian working poor. Dirt Cheap is her account of the year she joined them, going undercover to work as a factory hand, checkout chick, kitchen hand and cleaner, and attempting to live on her meager earnings.
This is the inside story of what it's like to work long shifts on a production line, sorting and packing eggs; of stacking dishwashers in a hotel kitchen during the day and cleaning an office at night for thirteen dollars an hour. As Elisabeth discovers that many so-called 'unskilled' jobs actually require an incredible amount of skill, so too does she learn that exposing the conditions of low-wage work can be sheer hell for your lower back, not to mention your morale.
Caustic, courageous and often funny, Dirt Cheap is a unique view of class, power and middle management seen from the other side of the serving counter, and a very personal experience of what it is like to be underpaid, under-appreciated and part of Australia's emerging underclass.
