How to Do Things Right

I plan to compare Lars Eighner’s essay “On Dumpster Diving” and Daniel Orozco’s short story “Orientation”. Eighners writes his essay after being homeless and experiencing poverty due to a loss job. He gives instructions on how to be an ingenious Dumpster scavenger, during the everyday life as a homeless person. On the other hand, Orozco writes a short story about going through a very detailed orientation on the first day at a new office setting job. Although both of the stories are completely different, one about a homeless man and his dog and his means of surviving , and the other describing a cooperate job, both works compare by: providing specific instruction on how to carry out their responsibilities proficiently, they are both the go-to people in the writing , and they both exhibit the same type of attitude toward work.

One way Eighner’s essay and Orozco’s short story compare is the use of precise instructions that pertain to successfully complete a specific task. Eighner gives great detail for the way one would scavenge through a Dumpster in a proficient manner. As one could imagine, there are obviously things that should not be used or eaten that could be found in a garbage can. He shows incredible knowledge about what types of food appear and what type of condition they are in, whose Dumpsters to ransack through, what is safe to eat and what type of things one could keep from scavenging during a regular day. He also displays knowledge on how to react when people are around and the type of behavior a homeless person should display in public. In comparison to Eighner, Orozco gives direct instructions to the implied reader as to what one should do during their days work within an “office environment”. He presents the information in such a meticulous way, he doesn’t leave one room to have any questions. Not only does he tell them what to do, he tells them how to manage their time wisely, and how to keep oneself out of trouble. He gives a considerable amount of information about the lives of those who work in the cubicles and who one should become comfortable with and who to stay away from. Seeing as though they are both giving instructions on how to skillfully complete a task, they are both seen as highly respected by others around them.

Another way the two works compare is they are both experts at what they are doing. Eighners writes how other homeless people come to him to ask his advice in what should be eaten and what things they could keep. Others would see him hardly ever getting sick and saw he could skillfully look for things he needed and left what he didn’t for others to find. One instance he writes about, is when one of his companions asked “Do you think this cracker is safe to eat?”, after he had given him a cracker. He felt like they should know how to figure out what to eat on their own. He said he had been misconceived before and he is not always right, so why would they want to ask for his assistance. even though he doesn’t look at himself as being a Dumpster guru, he still possess more knowledge than most of the others do. Likewise, Orozco tells those going through orientation with the narrator, that the narrator is someone to come to when they had questions or concerns about anything. That shows that the narrator is not only a skilled worker but he/she probably works in the offices and not the cubicles which shows experience and they may have been there for a while. Usually when someone is taking another and showing them around during orientation, the new person will be doing a similar job, but they had someone higher up showing around a new person. That may have emphasized how much knowledge the narrator may have had. Therefore it shows that both of the works relate because they are being told by two profound sources of information that in some way have the