"Gee whiz everybody! If I just try my hardest, and never give up, I can be anything! All I need is a can-do attitude!"



That's the tone of this entire book.



I read this book after reading Nickel and Dimed, since it is supposedly a rebuttal to that book, and Ehrenrich even mentions it in her afterword. It is not, in any way, a rebuttal to Nickel and Dimed. There is nothing in Scratch Beginnings that resembles journalism, sociology, research, or anything of the sort. It is a memoir of a naive, conce

"Gee whiz everybody! If I just try my hardest, and never give up, I can be anything! All I need is a can-do attitude!"



That's the tone of this entire book.



I read this book after reading Nickel and Dimed, since it is supposedly a rebuttal to that book, and Ehrenrich even mentions it in her afterword. It is not, in any way, a rebuttal to Nickel and Dimed. There is nothing in Scratch Beginnings that resembles journalism, sociology, research, or anything of the sort. It is a memoir of a naive, conceited, and sexist young man, who decided he believed something and then set out to make sure that everything that happened to him during a so-called "experiment" supported the conclusion he made going in.



A side-by-side comparison of this book to Nickel and Dimed isn't even necessary to show the weaknesses in Scratch Beginnings - even if you've never read Nickel and Dimed and don't care about that book, this book still fails.



The tone has a lot to do with this failure. I'm not going to hate on anyone for being an optimist, but the spin here is so obvious that it is insulting. Shepard spends months living in a homeless shelter for men, which he describes as just a shade away from a frat house. Every now and then he throws in a line (once or twice a whole paragraph) about the facilities being "disgusting," but far and away most of what happens in the homeless shelter is jovial shared dinners, surrounding a TV to watch bootlegged DVDs of current movies, lively debates about current events, and exchanging of "war stories." Shepard even describes his first experience using the shelter's door-less bathroom stalls as nothing short of a life-changing epiphany about the true meaning of freedom. There is even a house-mother type who works there, making sure the homeless men are cleaning up after themselves and getting out the door on time, because she really wants to see them succeed.



Again, I'm not going to hate on anyone for being an optimist. I'm glad Shepard looks on the bright side. But this kind of approach leads to the second biggest weakness of this book, which is Shepard's naivete. Actually, I don't know that he is naive, as much as he is so committed to proving his point that he willfully avoids analysis, introspection, or any kind of thoughtful examination of people and situations. The best example of this is his time at Fast Company, a moving outfit where he works after leaving the shelter. Shepard's descriptions of this environment are nearly identical to those of the shelter - in short, everything is awesome, and that is what Shepard sticks to. He finds a "hero" in one of his co-workers, Derrick. He finds fulfillment in becoming a mediocre mover. (He started out as a crappy mover, so this modest improvement in his skills represents victory with a capital V.) But some facts about Fast Company sneak into all of the awesomeness - almost everyone Shepard works with is an ex-convict (and not petty crimes, either - one guy, Shaun, who he rides with for a few months was convicted of stabbing another man; Derrick did two-years hard time), the company does not require drug tests or background checks, the workers get paid daily in cash, there are numerous workplace issues like drinking on the job, theft, not showing up on time, etc. that go un-addressed. If Shepard were really trying to do what Nickel and Dimed did, he would have taken this occasion to analyze what kind of company he was really working for, and what kind of opportunities are available to ex-cons in this country. If he were doing anything other than trying to stick by his original idea, he would have at least questioned the wisdom of being a driver for Shaun, who drinks on the job daily (a fact which is apparently known to the company) and the danger he was putting himself in, but instead he makes a stand with Shaun about not throwing the empty beer cans out of the window because he hates littering. But his point in describing his experience at Fast Company is to show that a can-do attitude is all it takes, so he separates the guys with the "right" outlooks from those with the "wrong" - which basically amounts to people who complain and people who don't - and calls it a day. Those he judges "right" and "wrong" have a whole lot in common though.



Shepard declares himself successful about halfway through the proposed length of time for the experiment. His aims were, I think, low - he wants to have a vehicle, and apartment, and $2500 in the bank. But that's not really the problem. The problem is that when he declares success, he attributes it to his ability to stay disciplined, maintain focus on his goal, and make good decisions. He completely ignores how dependent he has been. He lived in a homeless shelter for two months, never paying a dime for lodgings and eating for free, though he did work for most of that time. Had he started paying his own way immediately, he could not have saved what he did, if anything at all, and he wouldn't have eaten as well as he did. He gets his first place to live out of the shelter (which is an attic apartment in someone's house) through the recommendation from someone he does odd jobs for - no housing search, no landlords, no real neighbors (he never mentions interaction with the homeowner), no deposits or first-and-next month's rent. His next apartment he gets through a recommendation from Derrick, and it comes with Derrick's cousin as a roommate. To furnish that apartment? Clients of the moving company give him stuff they don't want anymore. The only thing he actually buys is the truck. Had Shepard had to buy everything he got through charity, he would never have been in the position he was in halfway through his experiment. I think Shepard is probably aware of that, which is why he provides numbers on his earning so infrequently - if we could do the math along with him, it would be hard to attribute all this success to his motivation. Also, in another example of his lack of analysis, Shepard doesn't seem to realize that he hasn't really moved up the employment chain. He declares Fast Company a move up into a job that can lead him to greater things after working for day-laborer company Easy Labor. He doesn't seem to see that the companies are incredibly similar - no drug tests, no background checks, no contracts, no benefits, daily cash pay, show up in the office and get your assignment in the morning. If you don't show up one day, you don't show up. You can still work the next day. The only difference is that Easy Labor has a van that picks people up from the shelter, and workers have to get to the Fast Company office on their own. But to Shepard, his hero Derrick works at Fast Company, and Derrick was able to buy a house after three years of working there (with assistance from a government program). Basically, as Shepard himself does admit, he has worked up to poverty, but he declares himself a success nonetheless. He writes that he is on the road to more education or owning a business. I'm not sure how.



And the sexism. I was not expecting it, considering the subject matter, but it is there. It isn't really well disguised either. The only time Shepard complains about a job is when he is working for a female client. The first one, which is the most blatant, is a client he works for through Easy Labor - he is sent on a job to help set up an infant clothing store in a mini-mall. He complains that the women who own the store are late in the morning and make the laborers wait, and they direct the workers about where and how to set up the displays. I mean, how dare they! And then they want to search the giant bags the homeless men have brought with them. But then comes the worst of it - the owner of the store says she wants the work done by lunch, and Shepard assumes this means that she will be feeding the work crew. But then she doesn't! They finish, she dismisses them, and they wait outside the store for the van to come pick them up (it will pick them up and bring them back to the shelter for a free meal, so Shepard isn't in danger of missing a meal here). The bus is running late, and Shepard returns to the shop to ask to use the phone, and discovers (gasp!) the store employees are eating lunch. Shepard proceeds to insult, berate, and otherwise yell at the shop owner for the way the workers have been treated during their few hours of work and her refusal to feed them. She threatens to call security and he storms out. The scene is juxtaposed with what Shepard considers a good job. George, a man Shepard met on a construction job for Easy Labor, has hired him to do odd jobs around his house. So on Sunday morning, Shepard goes to George's house and shovels dog crap out of the backyard for a few hours, hoses down the dog's patio, and then George comes out and asks him if he would like to go pull some weeds for a while. Sometime during the afternoon, George tells him he can stop for the day and packs him a sandwich since he missed the meal at the shelter. George is a great guy, and Shepard returns to work for him every Sunday for months. The bags of dog crap Shepard shovels for him are emblematic of Shepard being on a path to success. (I am not kidding about that - Shepard uses that metaphor himself.) The other women in the book Shepard works for? One moving client is a recent divorcee who caught her husband cheating - she tells the movers about everything she had to go to catch her husband, after which Shepard comments "so that explains the cheating." One moving client has not pre-packed items Shepard feels she should have, and another just keeps more stuff that he thinks she should. A real estate agent whose home they are moving has the nerve to ask for an estimated time that they will finish, because she has a meeting to get to, and spends the time they are there conducting business on the phone. This isn't a sign of her dedication to her career, or her discipline, to Shepard - this makes her a bad client.



I could go on, but I won't. Like I said earlier, if anyone were to really take this as a rebuttal to Nickel and Dimed, there wouldn't be enough words to show point-by-point how Shepard fails at that. In fact, if anything, Shepard proves just how right that book was. If everybody stopped and declared success where Shepard did, no one would ever get out of poverty. A good attitude is important, but it can only take you so far, and Shepard's judgment of those who don't share his attitude is unfair.