my final hypertext essay

My hypertext essay #2 explores the low wage lifestyle and hardships involved in the meatpacking industry in the United States. Many of us are unaware of the hardships that go into that lifestyle and how dangerous that job really is. Reading part of Einreich gave us a little insight into that lifestyle but I chose to dive a little further into that realm and discover just how disgusting and degrading those jobs really are. I feel I really learned a lot after finishing this project and am glad that I decided to change my topic even though I put in so much time researching for my first topic proposal.

Here is a link to my site.

http://itrs.scu.edu/faculty/mbousquet/spring07/english2/ghtrng2_spr07/meathome.htm

Serving America: The Low-Wage Life of a Restaurant Server

I chose to do my second hypertext on the low-wage life of restaurant servers. The reason I chose to do this topic is because we all come in to contact with them at least once a week and take them for granted on many of these occasions. The topic which I thought was really interesting and thus became the focus of my hypertext is the uniqueness of their low-wage. This uniqueness comes from the fact that a server’s wage is not consistent, and so they never really know exactly how much they are going to make. I thoroughly cover the factors which contribute to this inconsistency, from tips, to the distribution of these tips, to the limited hours. I also cover the effects of this inconsistent tip seen in their lifestyle outside of the work place. With the help of Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” I was able to effectively illustrate the tough lifestyle of a restaurant server and show how they don’t even get a break away from work. Some of the other topics included in my site are the unseen work done by restaurant servers and the health hazards they are exposed to everyday on the job, further emphasizing the suffering they must endure for such low pay. I also define poverty to show how close restaurant servers actually come to the qualification of poverty. I also offer solutions and ways you the customer can help to make the life of a server a little easier and to ensure these low-wage workers have a place to sleep at night.

The following is the link to my “Living the Low-Wage Life” hypertext homepage:

http://itrs.scu.edu/faculty/mbousquet/spring07/english2/rwakabayashi_spr07/hypertext2.htm

Single-Mothers LINK

http://itrs.scu.edu/faculty/mbousquet/spring07/english2/clewis_spr07/lowwagehome.html

^click and enjoy

Low Wage EMS with Nick Welter

My final project deals with EMTs living the low-wage life, and I can say that it is my best work ever. I have attempted to make the site useful for EMS and non-EMS folks alike, and the best element of it is the stories section. As a last-minute addition, I provided several web-blog entries and links to other blogs, in a hope that others would better understand what EMTs face everyday. While useful for non-EMS folks, the stories are also empowering for EMTs who can vent and know that they are not alone, uniting around their successes and greatest tragedies.

My hypertext itself is 24 pages, has over 2500 words, with a flat essay of over 2000 words, and harbors multiple links to other resources as well. Despite the difficult trial and error process of finding relevant sources, I managed to incorporate six scholarly sources into my research, and used personal experience as well to form what I believe to be the truth behind low-wage EMS.

The technical advances I have made over the quarter are amazing, and I hope it shows in the custom graphics and CSS styling that I have tried to incorporate into the website. My goal was for the website to look professional but clean, keeping in mind that people in the medical profession are often neat freaks when it comes to cleanliness.

I hope that my hypertext will actually be viewed by people, both in this class and the outside world. The people that work in this field are, for the most part, amazingly dedicated to helping others, and if I could help anyone myself I would help them. I hope my hypertext achieves that and shows how much I have developed this quarter.

Single-Mothers summary

Single-Mothers

I decided to explore the low wage life of a single-mother. Single mother's tend to be stuck in such binds as; doing work they do not wish to do, hours that work around picking their children up or dropping them off, being unable to financially support their children on their own, etc. Mother's who go from married to single or widowed, tend to go from being the nurturing mother, to the nurturing mother who has to bring in the money to support her family. The trouble is that with having the full time job of being a mother, it makes it incredibly difficult to having a lot of job experience to take on a prestigious job. Single mother's go into fields such as day care advisors, maids, waitresses, telemarketers, etc. My second hypertext website will take a look at some of these fields of work, the struggles single mother's face on a day-to-day basis, along with the hardships it brings to the child. Children are greatly affected when they are raised by only a female figure. They struggle to fit in at school, have a bond with their father (if the parents are just separated), and have enough time for school, extracurricular activities, and family time. In my website I tried to give the view point of children with single mothers, while also providing information for single-mother’s to refer to. Throughout the website there are factual information, but for the most part it is informative for people in the situation along with those who are not in such a situation.

Aspiring Musicians Webpage Summary

Artists of the 21st century have faced many challenges. Although their work is
much appreciated and much admired, they face many hardships and difficulties along the way. Including both stated facts and personal accounts, I have introduced the harsh reality of the saying, "Follow Your Dreams."
This website digs deep into the life of musicians and into my life as a musician as well. Even though the world of music is significantly appreciated, the world needs to understand not only the physical and mental hardships, but the low wage life behind the music and the overcoming of economic obstacles. Dealing with the hardships both mentally and physically is very underestimated both to the musicians themselves and those who experience the music. This webpage goes in to the inside world of the music industry and the true advantages and disadvantages of following your dreams.

http://itrs.scu.edu/faculty/mbousquet/spring07/english2/cclark_spr07/hypertext2.html

Bay Area Garment Workers

If you see the tag "Made in America" on your clothing, you may want to think twice before deciding that it wasn't made in a sweatshop. I was surpised to learn that sweatshops still exist in America today. The inspiration for my website came from reading Shipler's chapter on immigrant workers in America. I was struck by how unfair it is that when a customer buys a one hundred dollar dress at a department store, only about six of those dollars actually go to the workers who produced the dress. After researching the apparel industry in the United States, I was disgusted by the way the top levels of the garment industry profit at the great expense of the garment workers who actually assemble the clothes. My website is devoted to garment workers in the Bay Area, and what it is like to live as a worker who is treated without dignity. I tried to show not only the terribly oppressive work conditions and ridiculously low wages that workers face, but also the issues that arrise from being a low wage, female, immigrant worker in the Bay Area. Living in Berkeley, I feel that the Bay Area, which is supposed to be a progressive place, should promote equality and a living wage. I was shocked by the amount of discrimination that still exists in my hometown area. However, I was also encouraged by the way many female immigrants in the Oakland garment industry have had the courage to speak out against the abuses that they face in the workplace, and within the entire apparel system. Visit my website to learn about the influence of Global Capitalism on the garment industry, an overview of sweatshops in America in recent years, and garment workers in the Bay Area today. Please check out my work at http://itrs.scu.edu/faculty/mbousquet/spring07/english2/cmallory_spr07/aahomepage3.htm

Stripper Project Description

Ever since highschool, when I went to a party with a stripper, I have been curious to know what stripper's lives are like. My first feelings towards strippers were confusion and disgust, but as I did research I discovered that these women were exploited and abused by the rest of society in the workplace because of people's prejudgments of them.
It was extremely difficult to find books on strippers, probably because they are not considered worthy enough to write books about. Though with some work and the help of a librarian I found some books in the Stanford library.
I learned a lot about strippers situations as low wage workers. I learned about their deteriorating health because of their workplace conditions, their low self esteem, their low pay, and finally how vulnerable they are because of the nature or their work. I discovered that their is only one unionized strip club in the whole of the US in San Francisco. This illustrates that with a lot of effort strippers can improve their situations, but it is extremely difficult.
I learned a lot about strippers as low wage workers but I also was able to overcome my prejudgement of strippers and come to the conclusion that they deserve the same rights and social justice that every other worker.

tour of carrie's webapge

The purpose of this page is to invoke emotion to the viewer about the life of a low wage worker. In my opinion, the best way to do this is by using real life stories and experiences of the worker. For my second hypertext assigment, I choose to expose the realities of domestic workers. My splash page gives an into the main problems that maids encounter with links that connect to various pages. I would first like the reader to visit my history page so that those can see that the exploitation of domestic worker throughout history. Though we are not longer encountering slavery, the treatment of these workers is tragic. Other links are related to psychological and physical problems, some of the direct effects of this work. I also have a page that describes the unfair treatment of maids that work in the commerical field and another with background on unionization. I also discovered several people that have done undercover work in order to gain new perspective of the domestic worker. Many, many people hire maids at a low wage; my goal is to expose what many of them really go through on a daily basis.

About my Website - Child Labor in the Chocolate Industry

My second hypertext strives to shed light on the child labor being used in the chocolate industry. This is a little known fact that I myself was suprised to learn about when I read about it the first time in the Times Magazine.

Entitled "Chocolate and Child Labor" the hypertext shows its reader the hardship the child slaves in West Africa go through all so the consumer can have a bar of chocolate. Their horrendous living conditions and cruel punishment they endure under the wrath of the farmers that 'own' them. In my hypertext however I additionally strived to show the point of view of the different participants in this plight, mainly the families of these children, the cocoa farmers and the United States chocolate companies and the role they each play in the slavery.

http://itrs.scu.edu/faculty/mbousquet/spring07/english2/akhaw_spr07/H2index.htm

My New Site

I'm having a great time doing this final project. I feel so much more advanced in my web authoring skills and can really spend time on making the site aesthetically pleasing. One of the coolest things about my site is that there are statements from real telemarketers. I searched on Facebook for some real life telemarketers and found three people who were willing to answer some questions for me. They were really nice and said that they'd like to see the site when I am finished with it. It is still definitely a work in progress because I have been really busy with all my other classes, but once I can put in the necessary time I think it will turn out really cool! I’m also trying to touch up my personal site. I want to put to work all the skills I have used so far and make it something to be proud of. I know my family really enjoys seeing the work I’m doing at school but I hope that some of the telemarketing friends I have made will appreciate my work as well. Right now my site seems really blah because I haven’t added any of the pictures I have found, but I think once I do add these photos it will bring more life to the page and become more intriguing. All in all, I think this is going to be my best project; I just need time! I get done with finals Tuesday so I think I will be spending a lot of Tuesday night and most of Wednesday in the library making this thing awesome!
Check out my site: http://itrs.scu.edu/faculty/mbousquet/spring07/english2/epurner_spr07/Telemarketing/topic%20choice.html

What can Brown do for you?

My project concerns the practices of UPS in its treatment of its lowest tier workforce. As an on again off again employee of UPS, I use my own experiences to communicate the unpleasant aspects of working for Brown, while simultaneously explaining the exploitive aspects of their hiring practices of students. I also discuss the changing global economy of freight forwarding and corporate partnerships, looking at how mission-critical changes in the 80s and 90s created an environment in which UPS found itself spending large amounts of money for the future survival of the company. These policies and applications, which were instrumental in the companies survival, borrowed funds and energy away from programs concerning the cheapest, largest source of labor. I also investigate the Teamster Union’s hegemonic structure that further disenfranchised the low tier workers by using the low tier workers as bargaining chips against UPS and vice versa. I take from first hand accounts of UPS workers that post their frustrations online, and infer the motivations of UPS policy through economic studies.

I'll take some Strawberries with a side of Injustice...

California is known for many things. Warm sunny beaches, the Golden Gate Bridge, surfing, and oranges to name a few. Strawberries are one other aspect of California which people don't know much about. 87% of all strawberries produced in the United States are grown in California. To the best of my knowledge, there are very few people who do not like strawberries. Their taste, texture, and image all combine for a fruit which is universally loved. This is what brought me to write on this topic. With a product so delicious, how could there be anything not heavenly about Strawberries? In doing my hypertext on the strawberry workers in California I learned that there are many hidden evils about strawberries. The workers put in long hours (over 8 a day), hunched over, straining their bodies to the limit, all for at or below minimum wage. The result is that these people work so hard for very little and though they may believe in the American Dream, they are never able to realize it. Through my research I learned many reasons of why the untold stories of the pickers of California's strawberries need to reach the consumer. Some reasons include the strenuous conditions of the labor, the unfair system of sharecropping, the housing situation, and the pay. To learn more about the injustices that continue in the fields of succulent red strawberries, you can visit my hypertext essay.