10. The assumption that there is a "F U" moment in the life of someone like me working these jobs, and those she studied who were on the job. Her complete cluelessness about the connection between the way we live our lives and the gratitude we have for jobs bugs me. I have been working for pay since I was 10 years old, outside of the home, babysitting not included. I picked fruit, and did odd jobs on farms and also cleaned houses and hotels and truck stops from the time I was 10, and this doesn't include caring for my own house or my siblings or sick parents. People like me, who have had to contribute to the family wages do not look at jobs that pay money with the same disdain she does, to assume we are looking for the moment we can leave friends and coworkers like she did in Florida to stick to the corporation made me mad. Real relationships grow from these jobs, and the connection is strong, and is very important. As long as we are grateful for the work, we will do the jobs, and not have the time or energy to wax poetic about the day we can tell the job to go screw.
9. Her refusal to go without a car. OMG what a huge piece of the puzzle that is! You want to really understand the mechanics of trying to live a life in a world that runs on cars without one. . .or a household with more than one working adult and only 1 car and different shifts to keep kids out of daycare. . .holy crap she's too good to go without a car, single and no kids???
8. Her total cave on the heath care issue. In the midst of her skin rash emergency, she quickly activated her Master status of upper middle class and cured herself pronto. Sorry Babs- keeping it real is not about calling your DERMATOLOGIST in Florida for help. . .just saying
7. The fact she did not attempt to understand her coworkers more by interacting with them- no mention of coffee dates, or any other kind of weekend activity, her time off was spent alone. . .and in the real world, we wage workers actually hang out and socialize, and dare I say BOND? The book may have reflected a much more nuanced perspective if she had actually looked at the lives OUTSIDE of work.
6. The pity. Most of us are strong, with the trials and tribulations that led to us being seen as downtrodden nickled and dimed maids, servers and retail workers making us shun anyone who is fake or imagines they are schooling us in the way the real world works. Holly is not the way she is because she's in Maine, she is that way because only someone who has a life and upbringing like she did will be in a position to be pregnant, sick and bullied by her husband to get to work anyway. There is a LIFESTYLE to those of us who have these jobs, and THAT is what you should be looking at. . .
5. Her weakness, despite her belief that she is strong. She caved at the first sign of trouble- skin allergy, her tips not making rent, and that is something that could have led to an in with her coworkers. . .asking for help, seeing her in need would have possibly introduced her to a whole new facet of how we live. . .one that I know quite well. . .
4. That George's fate is unknown.
3. That after she comes to the conclusion that Holly is pregnant and near starvation. . .she tries to lead a revolt that could get them fired- wow REALLY? Based on her departure from Florida, I can only imagine what would have happened if Holly had lost her job because Babs got her to stand up to Ted. Should they be earning more? Sure- can they go without wages while waiting for that raise? HELL to the no!
2. Not many of the people I worked with allotted themselves with downtime, and many showed a lot of initiative when it came to job seeking. . .the complaint she had in Maine about how it was too late to go job hunting after hours did not ring true, and also, many of us network amongst ourselves for family members and friends- who knows better about gigs in the realm of wage workers that us? Her assumption that we are closed off from the world around us was a huge downfall in my opinion.
1. The premise of the book did not match up with her actions. She wanted to understand us. . .but not quite be one of us, and when things went down, well we looked stupid. The exchange with Holly is most illustrative of this disconnect. . .Holly, in her inflections and the description of her by Barbara, is not educated, asks to have words spelled for her, and by extension, her refusal to risk her job to follow someone she doesn't know(and who is working under her authority, remember Holly was a team leader) is perceived as. . .stupid. Barbara doesn't describe a world she studied, she editorializes it, and the workers are sometimes found wanting and dealt with harshly for their refusal to SEE things THE WAY THEY ARE in REAL LIFE. . .Barbara, these people were not playing, and you never ever got that. . .it is your main flaw, you treated them like lab experiments after a certain point. . .because you could I guess. . .
4 comments:
Awesome!! I haven't read the book in ....hm, when was the last time I taught 104? With that caveat, I think your points about relying on friends and family for help (job networking, socializing, rides to work, day care) is a huge point that she doesn't even try to explore. I would hope that a sociologist or anthropologist or (egads!) a historian would actually immerse in the life of this culture. Hers is not an immersion experience. (And too funny about the skin emergency!) But, she is not writing for those she studied. (She might know she'd make them mad.) She is writing for other upper middle class folks because it is those folk who are in power and can do something about wages and worker conditions.
Well, that said- if they follow her example and NOT hire maids to clean their houses. . .what will happen to those who do it for a living? I understand that she wrote this for her crowd, but it was a skewed and flawed portrayal at best, and a call to eliminate more jobs. . .esp if she gets people to stop using maids. . .just saying. . .
P.S. You last taught 104 in spring 2005. . .:)
Nope, I taught it one more time in the fall of 2006! That was the semester that one of my TAs quit grad school partway through, so we had to scramble a bit. I miss teaching.
I am thinking the upper middle class + will always hire out their house cleaning. But maybe, they will think to hire an owner-operator instead of a corporation? Better yet, they will have a better understanding of low wage work when they hear from their constituents or read about a labor protest.
True, but guess was thinking that there are more of the middle of the road houses that probably make up the bulk of customers- not all can be like the house of Mrs. W. . .and imagine that the economy has already done more than a mass appeal to social justice- if you are losing your job, you are losing the ability to pay someone to clean a house you may lose anyway
Oh yeah totally forgot about that. . .quitting in the middle thing
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