The premise of this book is that a wealthy, PhD, respected writer decides to go "undercover" as a low wage worker to see if she is able to make ends meet and if it's actually possible to make a living. I think it's important to talk about these things. As a low wage worker, you are absolutely screwed if you don't have a safety net or some kind of help. Housing is terrible, jobs are terrible, schedules are terrible. And these things need to be discussed. But this book rubbed me the wrong way.

It never felt genuine. It always felt like someone cosplaying as a poor person. There was so much distance between herself and her coworkers, like every five seconds she needed to remind you that she wasn't actually one of them. That she had a PHD. That she had a real house and a real life to go back to. To me, it very much did feel like she thought she was better than them.

Once she got mad that her coworker wouldn't go home early when she'd gotten hurt and started making a scene and threats and the whole nine yards. Should the coworker have been able to go home? Absolutely. But there are other circumstances at play and if going home means your already limited grocery money (previously mentioned as the same money Barbara spent solely to feed herself, but this girl was feeding three people) is cut in half, someone's not gonna eat.

One time she started yelling about how the test they had to all take and pass before getting the job (I wanna say it was one of those stupid personality tests, but I can't remember for sure). She said it was bullshit and easy and anyone could pass, which was one of the most out of touch things I've heard. I work in retail and have many coworkers who wouldn't be able to pass a test like that without help. Whenever we have to take employee surveys at work, they literally assign someone to be available to help because so many people literally cannot do it alone. I can't imagine just discounting all of them. Discounting her coworkers who may have struggled with the test themselves. Can you imagine someone who's only worked with you for two weeks, when you are in a supervisory role, yelling at you that the employment test you needed help to accomplish was absurdly easy and anyone could pass? Especially come to find out she's a journalist who doesn't even need this job but is writing about you specifically?

At Walmart she decided to become pro union because she was annoyed that the job sucked so much, but she didn't actually do anything to help. This is a woman with connections and money who's been shown how awful it is to work there and decides that yes, Walmart desperately needs a union. So she goes around talking to all her coworkers about how they deserve to be paid more and need a union. Does she do any union organizing, start making actual steps? Nope, just starts mentioning the word union to her coworkers and quits a few days later. Thanks, Barbara.

She went on this whole big long rant about fat customers at one point and how much she hated them, which was super gross. Like don't get me wrong, my career is retail and I totally hate customers. But not because they're fat. That's awful and so unnecessary for this book. Leave your fatphobia at home, please.

I also didn't love the way this book was structured. She gives herself a month in each job, but that month included finding a job and place to live. I understand why she chose to do that, but I kind of would have preferred if she'd given herself a set up before going in, and started the month timer when she got a job. Because of this, she never actually worked for the whole month and I would have loved to see an actual month of working.

At the end she gave herself a big pat on the back for managing to get through the work and never needing a break. Like that blew me away. A break from what? She didn't really work for more than three weeks, which is totally exhausting, but why would you need a break from that as a healthy individual? It's only a couple of weeks. It's not like she did this for years like the rest of us. And she did actually get breaks because she'd go back home every time her month was over to chill in her nice house.

A few other little things: One time she was apartment hunting and rejected an affordable place because it was on the ground floor on a busy street. Like what? That's what curtains are for. That's not a reason to turn down a perfectly fine apartment. She took charity a couple of times, which bugged me. I get that she was doing the experiment, but I hope she donated back after the fact because it bugged me that she was using limited resources when she didn't need them. There was a little dig at the very end about how the restaurants she was going to in her "real life" were nicer than the ones she was working in.

I was gonna talk about big picture things in this review, but then I got so distracted by all the little irritations that I spent the entirety of this review on those instead. Whoops. But this book annoyed me and it really was all the little things adding together. Her tone frustrated me and the way she talked about low wage workers felt very disrespectful and condescending.