39. You Want Fries With That?: A White Collar Burnout Experiences Life at Minimum Wage by Prioleau Alexander

This is in the same vein as Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days show, only not as serious. In fact, Mr. Alexander is pretty funny. He quits his great paying job as a creative director for an ad agency (i think that’s what it was) because it’s a job filled with ass kissing and bullshit, and he was sick of it. So he decides to work some shitty minimum wage jobs and write a book about it.

Some of the jobs he tries out are Pizza Dude, Burger Joint Dude, Construction Dude, ER tech Dude, Ice cream Shop Dude, and even Cowboy Dude. He comes to find out that really, the worst part of these kinds of jobs? the public.

Don’t I know it.

He makes fun of the public pretty good. I will warn you that his ER tech story is pretty gross. In fact, I can’t get it out of my head, and I didn’t actually see it, you know? So if you’re grossed out pretty easily you may want to skip the couple of pages where he works at the hospital. You’ve been warned.

It was an enjoyable read, but it just wasn’t that in depth, or serious. It read more like a “My Summer Vacation” essay or something. Maybe it was supposed to? I don’t know. He didn’t really get into the financial part of it, and I think it would have benefitted the book if he had. I mean, you work minimum wage jobs for a year and have to pay bills, that’s hard as hell. But you work minimum wage jobs for a year and you have a nest egg and your wife works a good paying job, that’s not really that hard. It still sucks to work with the public and get paid peanuts, but you’re not having to worry about the car payment or insurance.

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