Dishwasher: Post 2

As I venture farther into Dishwasher Pete continues to share more about his life leading up to becoming a dishwasher. A new side to him starts to emerge that really changes some of my opinions about his mindset and way of life. In the beginning of the book Pete tells you of experiences that make you pity his deprived childhood and leads you to admire his way of life seeing as he makes it sound as though he is achieving his life goal of traveling the US through his career. Now he shares details about his life as he heads off to college. He says “I didn’t know much about the school other than it was far enough away from my neighborhood that I’d have to move out of the city, but near enough that I could easily scramble back if need be” (17). This is where I started viewing him more as lazy and my pity ended. He just views college as an escape from his life but never really commits to make use of his time there. It’s irritating because he complains of being singled out and having a poor life but yet when he gets the chance to fix some of these things and make his life better he doesn’t; instead he lets these opportunities pass him by. He is eventually kicked out of college and fired from many jobs due to smart mouthing and unmotivated personality. He knows he’s lazy and that’s why he’s losing all his jobs but he does nothing to fix this and instead mooches of the others around him.

But through all this there is one thing that stands out to me, his love for reading. It seem out of place, here you have this lazy slacker who never really tried in school but yet he loves to read, he views it as his “peculiar talent for sitting and reading for hours on end without complaint” (33). Also his frequent personality and location changes keep you interested. You never know just what to expect; one moment he’ll be enjoying his job feeling as though he might have finally found his calling and a paragraph later he’ll decide otherwise and mouth off, oversleep or just plain out leave to try something new.

Jordan, Pete. Dishwasher : One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States. New York: HarperPerennial, 2007.

Dishwasher

Most of you probably wouldn’t aspire to be a dishwasher as Pete Jordan is or think of it as a very promising career and he would agree with you. Dishwasher is about a man’s quest to wash dishes in all fifty states. It starts out in Vermont which is Pete Jordan’s twenty-third state he’s checked off his list so far. Throughout the first few pages you really get a sense of his personality. Pete is just a laidback back guy who goes with flow. He tends to drift on the edges of thing just observing and keeping his opinions to himself unless asked. He leads a rather simple life traveling the country going from one state to another booking jobs at restaurants or events washing dishes. When he gets tired of his job, the people, weather, or just gets the feeling its time to move on he packs up checking another state off his list and moving on to a new one , no strings attached. He has always had a love for maps and traveling; he says his time “was spent riding busses. One thing I’d inherited from my dad was his passion for maps” (14). When he was a child he would buy maps and study them dreaming on day he could visit all of those places. So although Pete may not have the most extravagant of all careers I think it is one that really suits him and satisfies his desires of traveling the US while still making a living. This is something many of us are able to accomplish with our careers.

Pete tells us more about his childhood and some of the events that lead him to become a dishwasher. As a child Pete grew up in San Francisco in a poor family with unstable friends. Pete says “I learned very early on how one could start out poor; work hard all his life—and still end up poor. Since I was going to start out poor and most likely end up poor, I decided not to waste time in between” (11, 12). This was the case with his father who was your dedicated model employee who instead being rewarded, was surpassed by the “bullshitters” and “backstabbers” as Pete refers to them as. This really portrays Pete’s pessimistic view of life and the work world. This negative view is one main reason which led him to not strive for much in his life and instead take an easier wrought. Dishwasher gives a good perspective of the world through the eyes of someone with many different goals and views than many of us.

Jordan, Pete. Dishwasher : One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States. New York: HarperPerennial, 2007.