Third aspect of a quest is that there needs to be a stated reason to go somewhere. In the introduction Ehrenreich informs the reader of how she came up with this idea. The reason she decides to go on this quest was from a conversation she had with a friend. Ehrenreich was having lunch with her friend Lewis Lapham, and decided to bring up her favorite topic poverty. She tells him that somebody needs to experience what poverty is like and then write about their experiences. Lewis tells her that she should do that and write about her experiences when she was working minimum wage jobs.
