Official Review: Falling to Minimum Wage Misery

sahmoun2778 · Post by **sahmoun2778** » 21 Jul 2015, 14:31

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Falling to Minimum Wage Misery" by Tara Boxman.]

2 out of 4 stars

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This book purports to be a memoir of Ms. Boxman’s survival of the Great Recession. Unfortunately, I found it be more of an outlet for all of her personal angst about society.

Unlike a typical memoir this book is not a sequential narrative, but rather each chapter has a theme, such as a chapter about customers, or a chapter about the Connections department. The author starts out with a narrative about how she came to leave a city for a small town in rural Washington where the only job she can get is at a store she calls Cheapmart. She details the relationships between herself and her fellow employees, and the shoddy working practices of Cheapmart. She also spends quite a bit of the story talking about the mindset of the rural area she lives in, including the lack of interest in education, physical fitness and healthy eating. She was apparently much maligned at work because she chose to ride a bike to work every day instead of going into debt to buy a car.

I like this book for the fact that Ms. Boxman is, in telling her story, doing something about the problems she addresses in the book. She is upping the awareness of anybody who reads her story about the issues of underemployment, laziness, and illiteracy that continue to exist in the United States. She is also pointing out the complete disconnect between corporations and their frontline employees. The lack of proper job training is one thing that she points to several times throughout the book. As an employee, she was required to watch hours of videos and then dropped on the sales floor to just “figure it out”. She was then written up by managers for not doing the job correctly. I can’t imagine how difficult a situation that must have been to navigate, and at minimum wage after having ridden a bike for an hour and a half to get to the job in the first place. Ms. Boxman was certainly in a difficult place during the 5 years covered by her book.

I had some difficulty with the tone of the book as a whole. The circumstances she relates seemed to be so hopeless. As a reader, I was hoping to find some encouragement, some measure of “if I can do it, you can too” in the story, but I didn’t find that in this narrative. I also noticed quite a few grammatical problems which were a bit of a distraction throughout the book.

I’m going to give this book 2 out of 4 stars because, while I think the author points out issues that as a society we should be dealing with, I just didn’t feel like her point of view was very well written overall. It felt more like someone standing on a soapbox, than a story of struggle and triumph which the title led me to believe it would be. I think the best audience for this book would be people who are unhappy with corporate America and the social injustices in our society.

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Falling to Minimum Wage Misery
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zeldas_lullaby · Post by **zeldas_lullaby** » 22 Jul 2015, 19:06

I have a guess as to which store is "Cheapmart," and I HATE that store. I can't even go in there. Geez, it would bite to have to work there! I totally get her employment issues. I've had horrible employers too, although none quite that awful as far as workplace environment. Does kind of sound like a depressing memoir, though. I initially misread the first line as the Great Depression, and I was thinking, "How old is this author?" HA HA--joke's on me.

Post by **bookowlie** » 22 Jul 2015, 19:46

What a great review! I am amazed that the author rode a bicycle an hour and a half to work each day. It sounds like the soapbox tone of the book is the result of the author's negative experiences over so many years. The bitterness seems to have engulfed her.

zeldas_lullaby · Post by **zeldas_lullaby** » 22 Jul 2015, 19:54

Not only that, she was mocked for it! That's so rotten. What kind of adults mock a coworker for riding the bike in?

PashaRu · Post by **PashaRu** » 22 Jul 2015, 20:17

zeldas_lullaby wrote:Not only that, she was mocked for it! That's so rotten. What kind of adults mock a coworker for riding the bike in?

The kind that works at Cheapmart, apparently.

Nice review!

LivreAmour217 · Post by **LivreAmour217** » 30 Jul 2015, 11:20

zeldas_lullaby wrote:Not only that, she was mocked for it! That's so rotten. What kind of adults mock a coworker for riding the bike in?

People can be nasty if you don't act the way they want you to. A couple of years ago, I had some coworkers stop talking to me because I preferred to bring a sack lunch than to eat the so-called food from the cafeteria.

-- 30 Jul 2015, 12:22 --

sahmoun2778, this a great review. I appreciate how well you highlighted the book's positive aspects, in spite of giving it only two stars. Also, I have to say that I love you avatar! I want a shelf like that!

zeldas_lullaby · Post by **zeldas_lullaby** » 30 Jul 2015, 11:23

Geez, I'm sorry to hear that. What morons. I hope you don't still work with them!

Tanaya · Post by **Tanaya** » 11 Aug 2015, 09:37

I really liked the balance of highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of the book. It's unfortunate that she had such a tough time. It's definitely easy to empathize with her. Great review!

Tara Boxman · Post by **Tara Boxman** » 04 Sep 2015, 11:29

My intention was not to be hopeless, but rather to point out a rather dark period in my life. It was meant to highlight a ludicrous situation. At the end I did mention that I had moved on, and I had entered a hopeful situation. I also made these types of comments to indicate that there is a culture around this type of workplace. The shop has drawn a certain type of people to it, and that is the culture.
To the poster who asked if I still worked there, the answer is thankfully no I don't.