Entry 8

Dolores Dante

Waitress

            I was interested with this passage because Dolores believed that she could help save so many people by being a waitress.  She chooses to be a waitress because she can pass information she learns from one person to the next person.  While she is describing her decision in becoming a waitress, Dolores Dante says, "Everyone wants to eat, everyone has hunger.  And I serve them.  If they've had a bad day, I nurse them, cajole them.  Maybe with coffee I give them a little philosophy.  They have cocktails, I give them political science," (Terkel 330).  By this, she is saying that she can help individuals with problems.  She can help people enjoy their day because she is serving happiness in her food or her gestures to people.  It is powerful to see one person do all they can to help another person in need. She shows the morale that people need to have during a time of low morale.  People are down because of the Vietnam War, and people like Dante can help them rise above it.  She answers the question, what can people do to gain morale?  How can an individual help make other individuals happy?  She shows what she can do to help people remain happy while working.  People struggle while working, and Dante is an important figure when it comes to being a happy worker.  When the individual is happy while working, more work can be done which will further progress the country.  And by progress, I mean that the country can progress by becoming better people and, the work will help progress technology. Overall, she interests me because it helps me learn how to become a better person and help others become better people.

Phil Stallings

Auto Worker

I was interested in this reading because it helps me learn how to avoid issues and to make goals. Stallings use to get into trouble with other employees at work.  He demonstrates how to move passed trouble.  In order to prove how to do this, Stallings says, "Lots of times I worked from the time I started to the time of the break and I never realized I had even worked.  When you dream, you reduce the chances of friction with the foreman or with the next guy," (Terkel 355).  He thinks of things that make him happy to brush off the friction and tension between workers.  Again, I believe that this issue shows how we can progress as humans.  Instead of instigating an issue with people, individuals can avoid the issue.  By focusing on their dreams, they can avoid the tension plus build a foundation for their future.  They build the foundation because by dreaming the individual sets a goal for the future.  The goal leads to the work that is put into the future.  Overall, Stallings demonstrates a way that the working society can overcome problems.  By getting rid of problems, work will be more smooth and much more can get done.