 October 1, 2002
Dear Ms. Ehrenreich,
What a surprise for your postcard to come here! Yes, sure, I will be happy to let you put the letter on the website. Please omit my name, thanks. Now I am trying to remember what I wrote, which jobs I can tell you about.
At my church, deaf people, deaf pastor, I can tell you the jobs of most people. Some have computer skills, everyone is smart. Here are some jobs:
McDonalds cleaning lady
Janitor
Post office worker (good job, many deaf people work in the post office)
Cleaning ladies, private houses, three women
Lawn mowing service, husband and wife
Stay-home mothers, husbands work (lucky)
Hospital housekeeper (cleans)
Nursing home kitchen worker
Dishwasher, restaurant
Classroom teacher's aide
Wal-Mart, stock shelves
Wal-Mart, unload trucks
Office building, cleans
Babysitter for nieces (no pay)
Dry cleaners work.
A few people are retired and some are unemployed now.
Most jobs for the deaf are thobs that the boss thinks they won't need to communicate with that person. A deaf person is isolated anyway with the language barrier. The job usually is very boring. I remember working at a library. I was excited, thought, wow, I love books, this will be great. I didn't even get to put the books on the shelves. I was in a room all alone, putting labels for the computer on the books and repairing books that were torn. All day. One day before Christmas, they let a girl from high school, she was lazy, didn't do her job, they let her put up the Christmas tree. I asked the librarian, could I help put up the tree. She let me. But she didn't think I was smart enough to put it up myself. I remember in your book one girl in the cleaning group, she said, "They think we're stupid." That's how employers think about the deaf, that they are stupid.
Last year I worked as a teacher's aide to help in a kindergarten. One child was hard-of-hearing and one was retarded. They hired me to help them with their work and teach them to sign. I worked with them but also helped with all the class at different times. Lots of times the teacher left the room, or left me with the kids on the playground or at lunch. One week she planned to go to a conference. There would be a substitute to come, so I asked if I could sub that day, get the extra money. She said, "No." I asked why, and she said if the fire alarm rang, then it would not be safe. Oh, please. Twenty kids would hear it and jump up. Plus the room was on the outside, outside exit, and two other doors to other rooms. I told her my husband would come and hook up to the alarm so the noise would flash a light. He did this at our house and it took about 30 minutes. Anyway, I did not get to sub even though she left me alone with the kids many times. This is an example of the ideas people have about the deaf, they are not as capable.
I am a little like you, not a working poor anymore. My husband takes really good care of us. So I see things differently and feel angry about the way workers are not paid enough.
Sincerely,
...
October 6, 2002 via email
Yes, you can publish my letter. I've passed your book onto another person. Sorry for the loss of royalties but they couldn't afford it anyway.
I wasn't so shocked about the conditions of minimum wage work as I grew up doing it. Because I grew up in a resort town I worked every summer, sometimes at two jobs and all of them minimum wage. Actually that was the wage ceiling, some jobs paid under the table and paid less but you made it up on taxes. In a resort town, unless you work for the town, you learn to work hard for 3 months so you can afford to live thru the other nine.
For yet another slice of life you might try working on a volunteer ambulance corp. I did that for 5 years. The big disadvantage is that you can't really bitch about the pay. Unlike minimum wage jobs the ambulance job requires that you be semi-professional (paramedic training is required these days including standard and advanced first-aid, extrication and light rescue (prying people out of crushed cars), cardio-pulminary resuscitation, defensive driving and, the one that caused the most people to pass out, emergency childbirth). The hours are horrible as the people tend not to show up so anyone with a work ethic gets stuck with a lot of night/weekend shifts. The insurance companies try hard to drive you out of business and you are personally liable most times. The police have no respect for "volunteer" work and will only call you after THEY determine it is a real heart attack (so hurry, willya?). The fire department hates you because this has traditionally been their hero job. The town will do nothing for you because it is volunteer and not a town service.
The people who are attracted to the job are in love with the sirens and the ability to run red lights, are worse-than-average rubberneckers who enjoy being allowed behind the police tape, liberal fanatics who pick up sick birds, or retirees who just want to hang out without the hassle of actually taking a call. My excuse was that my boss (on the beach trashpicker crew) was also the head of the corp and thought it would be educational for me to volunteer. Besides, he needed the help. (Job networking at its finest, eh?)
The job has a higher-than-average risk as the ambulance drivers, as I mentioned before, love the lights and sirens. Now you have to understand that a light-and-siren has one of three possible effects on traffic. One type of person will absolutely ignore you and not move "because the light is red" and it isn't THEIR emergency. The second type will panic and slam on their brakes (I nearly died when someone did that to me on the highway. Fortunately the ambulance didn't roll over when I hit the grass on the median). The third type gets a glaze in their eyes and will drive right into you thru a red light (when they would normally stop) and hit you while you are stopped. Needless to say the ambulance driver feels empowered and invincible with the consequence that ambulances get wrecked all the time. (We did have a guy come back to life when he got thrown around in the back of the rolling ambulance so it isn't always bad).
The people you pick up fall into interesting categories also. You get your basic hypochondriac who calls at least 3 times a week. You still answer those calls because "ya never know". You get your basic 1-A.M.-the-bars-just-closed traffic accident. You get your basic domestic dispute; "man hit with an axe" or "man stabbed with kitchen knife" (it was a french knife, sunk in to the handle, and he was sitting calmly on the front steps waiting for us. He survived). You get your basic motorcycle accident (there is NEVER a good one). You get your drug addict temper tantrum (from personal experience I'd advise NOT trying to jump on his back as he will beat you against every wall and doorway in the building). You get your basic heart attack (always 300+ pounds on the 5th floor walkup so you have to do a chair carry). You get your basic electrocution (never sand a boat bottom while standing in water). You get your basic heat stroke at parades, usually a child or old person surrounded by frantic relatives expecting a lazarus-rise-and-walk miracle. Or your basic cancer patient who screams because they have back cancer and can feel your footsteps, which you just KNOW is going to make for a long and noisy ride. Occasionally you get some more interesting ones (we had a small plane crash into the stands at the air races). Or someone waving a gun (leave; did I need to tell you that?). In most cases you are just a fancy taxicab with the side benefit of cleaning up the blood afterward. Doctors don't like you to drop patients at their office no matter what the problem might be so you are generally forced to go to the hospital for everything. Hospital emergency room personnel do NOT like you doing a dump-and-run so they won't take the patient off your gurney until they admit him. The game is to walk the patient into the emergency room if at all possible.
And since it is a volunteer outfit that means you get to go play in traffic once a month with a bucket begging people to throw coins at you from passing cars. Possibly dressed in costume just to attract attention (because beautiful women don't volunteer) and/or avoid getting run over. Sometimes you buy your own medical supplies because there is no money in the budget for gauze. And don't forget the bingo game. Somebody's gotta set up the chairs, distribute the flyers around town and serve the coffee.
Once or twice you get to make a difference, or at least you get to believe you did. And you get immune to disasters to the point of being cynical. You do learn what to do in an emergency. You do get to see how people who live on minimum wage actually live (since they will gladly invite you in (oh, by the way, you'd be amazed at the number of people who have no job at all)). You learn to pray (that you'll never have to ride in an ambulance).
Check out your local volunteer ambulance corp. I'm sure they'd be happy to take you on as a volunteer even if you DO threaten to write a story about it.
Tim
October 8, 2002, via email
Dear Ms. Ehrenreich,
I just finished your book, Nickel and Dimed, and I want to thank you. I have already recommended the book to several of my friends and family.
I lived in the Portland, ME area from Dec 1999 to Oct 2001, and I had much the same problems. It took two jobs for a year to keep myself in my own apartment. I had no friends or family up there to fall back on, but I lucked out and made it. I divided my time up between working at 7-11 and for another cleaning company that worked in office building. I think I got a break on the cleaning job, because the owner was a regular customer of mine at 7-11 and he overheard me talking one day about how I needed a higher paying job. At the time I was only making $7.55/hr with 7-11, and he offered me $9/hour cleaning. I worked seven days a week for nearly three months before it started to catch up to me. I'm pleased to say that both managers were willing to work with me, and even though I worked the same number of hours each week, I was able to enjoy at least one or two days off every week.
Now I am back down in Florida, which is where I was born and raised. My job with 7-11 transferred, but due to distances and a car accident, I had to quit and go back out in search of another job. If I didn't currently live with my grandfather to watch after him, I would be in the same situation of needing two jobs just to maintain a place to live. Right now I am still facing the prospect of needing a second job in order to pay the bills from my accident, which insurance did not cover.
I sincerely hope more people read your book and realize that there needs to be something done, and then DO something about it.
Sincerely,
S.L.
November 2, 2002
Dear Ms. Ehrenriech,
I have enjoyed your book, "Nickel and Dimed...", if "enjoy" is a suitable description. I have been toying with writing about my experiences in the California workers' compensation system.
Do you know of anyone who has written or researched workers' compensation? I notice you didn't specifically mention on the job injuries in your book.
Lawrence White wrote "Human Debris: The Injured Worker in America," 1983, Seaview/Putnam
There is an exceptional series of articles on California work comp by Mary Fricker of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat published as a Special Report Supplement in about 1997 (see www.pressdemo.com/workerscomp)
Consumer Reports did an excellent article in February 2000- "Workers Comp: Falling Down on the Job."
I haven't seen much other general readership material on the subject.
In brief, I had one simple left knee injury turn into three other injuries, four to six other "compensable" injuries, three knee surgeries, and total permanent disability as indepently adjudicated by the Social Security Administration. Mine has been an unbelievable nightmare of medical abuse and indifference, severe chronic pain, employer discrimination and outright hatred, societal hatred as sown by the seeds of insurance industry propaganda about (nonexistent) work comp fraud, political hatred as injured workers are viewed as an enemy of entrepreneurialship America, total alienation from my former blue collar middle class (at times) life and upbringing, and chronic fear.
How could something like this happen in America?
I have in some ways, been better off than those injured workers who end up broke, homeless, and still in a lot of physical pain with no more medical coverage as I fired various workers comp attorneys and represented myself not only at the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB), but in several descrimination complaints against employers and prospective employers resulting in small settlements that allowed me to continue paying rent and buying food.
I also represented myself before the Social Security Administration, and prevailed, much to my own surprise. Thank God for Social Security's ability to see through the work comp BS.
I have written about four or five hundred pages as petitions to the WCAB, discrimination complaints to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, complaints to various state agencies, and even the state legislature. I have attempted to write a guest column for the Santa Cruz Sentinel, but my writing was too vitriolic, I suppose, and as soon as I used the "E-word," I'm sure I turned off the editors. (And the newspaper itself is an employer who undoubtedly hates the unknown cost of workers' compensation.)
Work comp is of course, at times, evil.
I am not broke and homeless, but I am in a lot of pain and cannot pay all of my monthly bills- I am living in a perpetual deficit hoping that work comp will provide a fair settlement to me so I can live out my life with the barest necessities, although I must admint that I do try and afford myself the luxuries of a monthly internet connection and satellite TV, which is cheaper than cable. I have also moved from Santa Cruz to the San Joaquin Valley where housing is almost affordable. I am mad as hell about the state of affairs in workers' compensation; such misery that injured workers have to live through is seemingly un-American.
The story desperately needs to be told so that social change can happen more quickly, if at all. I'm pretty sure I could tell an interesting story. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Charles Bruscino, Tulare, California
12-9-02
To Ms Ehrenreich
Hello, my name is Randy Doyle. I have recently read your book, "Nickel and Dimed," and I cannot agree with you more. I am a single father raising my daughter alone and could be almost any one of the people in your book. I can tell you first hand how hard it is and appreciate the way you are trying to get your message out.
I worked 6 years at my last job, then lost it. Between looking for full time work, I have also been doing day jobs that pay $5.95 per hour. The test that you took at Wal-Mart, I have also taken, along with several others at other companies. To stock shelves, or unload a truck, why do companies want to know how you feel about political and church leaders? Why should they care if I have a good relationship with my parents? These tests, I feel, without them coming right out and saying it, want to know if I will spy on my co-workers and never question management. These tests, that I am told have no right or wrong answers, I have to explain why or defend my answers. I have a good work history and references, but these companies will "let me know."
In the course of writing your book, you had a phone and a car. My car is broke and to eat and have a place for me and my daughter to live, I don't pay certain bills. A lot of companies ask how you get to work. If you have a car or not. The few places where I actually got an interview, will call me back. Try asking if you can call them back. Quite a few don't want you calling them.
When you went to a food bank, I can relate to that too. One will only let you come 6 times a year. One will hand out sack lunches and a few groceries. The main church here is Utah is the Mormon church. They kind of-sort of, will help non-members. If they do, they want you to join their church. To get food with them, you meet with the bishop, he fills out what you want. They do expect you to do work at the "bishops storehouse." I don't mind that at all. But, without knowing no one, no car, and very little money for bus, how do you get there and back? Steal a grocery cart. Don't tell anyone.
I have just been approved for unemployment, so that will help with the rent and all. $165 a week.
Sorry, I did not mean to go on for so long. But this helps me feel a little better now.
Just knowing that you went thru this kind of experience, and trying to tell people and do something about it is comforting to know.
I know that you are a very busy woman, but if I may ask, what advice could you give? What words could you offer to an unemployed (hopefully not for long though) single father, who is supposed to receive child support but doesn't, who is trying to just get by? Looking back on your experience, what would you, or could you, do different?
Working with the people you did, how many were single mothers? Any single fathers? In your personal and professional life, do you feel the two are treated any different? Both by employers and society in general? I can tell you that there are.
Once again, sorry that this was so long, once I started, just could not stop.
Thank you for your time and hope to hear something back from you sometime.
Thank you,
Randy Doyle, Midvale, Utah
(Via email, December 26, 2002)
Hello Barbara; (please excuse typos, this was written very quickly)
I borrowed your book from a co-worker; we both work a local hotel. I had leafed through it briefly and immediately thought it compelling enough to beg to read it. This book hits close to home in many ways, as I was raised in poverty, and most of my adult life have had to work menial jobs, sometimes several at a time just to survive. Particularly now, as I am now in my early thirties, I found this book profound because, I finally concluded last winter that education seems to be the only way out of this viscious circle, and I refuse to let this never-ending low wage corporate america rob me of my life as I have seen it do with countless families and friends. As a resident of northern new england, I am familar with the poverty you observed in Maine...and the vast gulf of the rich in contrast to the poor.
As our economy continues to spiral, it's the low wage earners who are really affected. In the hotel, I have come to know a pilot who flies time share jets...he told me something one day that really haunts me to this day when we were discussing the economy (granted, his economy was much better than mine)...he said, "You know, the wealthy aren't really affected by bad economies". And here we have a fat-cat Republican government that stoically believes that by making the rich richer, the poor will benefit...Reaganomics again. In Vermont though in recent years, we have made some progress thanks to the action of the Vermont Liveable Wage campaign in which the City of Burlington now pays $7.50 an hour as it's lowest wage. Other cities and townships in Vermont are consider the same. It's still a far cry from what people really need; affordable house is rare...vacancy rates are in the single digits...it's a landlord's market because of the high population of affluent college kids that can afford to share off campus housing and pool their resource with little other living expenses and worries of day to day living faced by the working class. The Vermont Liveable Wage Coalition has estimated that to live in an area such as this that has a heavy service/tourist economy and failing industry, you need to earn over $11 an hour as a single person to just survive. Yet many immigrants, migrant workers, and working class manage to subsist.
I can only imagine what the housecleaning staff gets paid by the hour; it is truly shocking consider the steep rates we charge to hotel guests...all of which are funneled out of state to a corporate office and shareholders...all who want to still cut expenses; save money in the interest of employees...when all their care about is the next earnings report. Our benefits are expensive too...$20 a week just for medical, which is really a necessity in this day and age, not optional. Someone like me who probably makes a bit more than housecleaning at $8.59 an hour, I see just over $500 every 2 weeks to live on....if it weren't for my partner, I would surely be in a shelter or living in squallor in some dusty slum dive. Overtime is prohibited...if you work extra, you are sent home early the next day.
There is hope for my situation, even though my current situation and my coworkers infuriates me. The working class is exploited...you give and you give; I will start school in the spring as a Registered Nurse. Not a glamourous career, but a respectable one with some stability. I realize that it is a very stressful choice, but making over $25 an hour will somehow I hope make the stress a little more bearable...even though it's human lives and not dirty rooms.
I've worked at a Friendly's...under the impression that it would be easy money...right. The side work was killer; the regime was grueling...all for $2.48 an hour. Often my checks were "VOID" because we could eat meals for 50% off and they took it out of your check. No benefits were offered for waitstaff. I could barely make ends meet...lucky if I brought home $45 bucks a day...sometimes in the winter, it was more like $7.
I've also worked in various factories and warehouses, doing shipping and assembly work for $6 or $7 an hour. One company had the privilege due to it's on mismanagement, allowed unlimited overtime during certian seasons or large contract work and you could double your paycheck if you could stand working 12 hour days, 6 days a week.
I could go on and on about the misery of low wage workers in America...you have lived it all and I commend you for it...you are a truly talented worker. Mr. Wellstone was a champion, and his passing is a tragedy...we have so few voices these days. Thank you for your book, I have mixed feelings as a consumer about everywhere I go...everything I buy...low wage earners touch everything...and are giving their blood and sweat to make corporate America rich...all the expense of being extorted their dignity and respect.
Take care,
Rob
(Via email, December 29, 2002)
Dear Ms. Ehrenriech,
I have just finished reading your book, Nickel and Dimed, and I feel compelled to tell you my story. My name is Thea, I am a 33 yr. old single Mom and victim of the current economic downtown. I was laid off my job almost a year ago. I have numerous office skills as well as bartending, so I thought I would find a job in no time. Wrong!
After nearly 6 months of being unemployed I decided out of complete and utter desperation to take a job at 7-Eleven. It was the most godawful decision of my life. It is humiliating enough to have to lower your standards and swallow what little self-esteem you have to work in a place like that. But to have the management treat you like literal slaves makes it all the more disparaging.
The first day of training, we were reminded over and over again that we must bathe. I have always bathed and I am sure the others in the group had as well. Then after starting work it only got worse. We were not at any time allowed to sit down at any time. I am only 33, not too terribly old, but I am not used to standing on my feet for 8 to 9 hours at a time. By early afternoon, I was in so much pain I could barely stand. I had pain shooting up the back of my legs so bad I thought I was going to collapse. I told my manager I needed to sit down for a while and was told, NO! I then informed them that I would have to go home then, because I was not going to injure myself to work there. I was then told I could go stock. This was there way of saying I could secretly sit for a minute, and trust me it was only a minute. After that it got to the point where I would go to the bathroom, just so I could sit for a minute and rub my feet.
I was constantly talked down to by certain managers, as if I was stupid or incompetent. I am none of these things. Finally after 3 weeks, I couldn't take it anymore. I did a no-call, no-show one day and was subsequently fired. Like I cared. I am here to put in writing that I will walk the streets as a prostitute before I will EVER work for 7-Eleven or any similar establishment ever again.
I would like to also mention that I really enjoyed your book. It was nice having realized I am not alone in thinking that corporate America treats the working class like s@#$!!!
Thank you,
Thea L. Bryan
Dear Ms. Ehrenriech,
Nickel and Dimed is the life I would have led if I had not won a scholarship that covered my freshman year in college. This is thanks to an English teacher. It is the life I was always afraid of falling down to and nearly did at several times. This life is the reason I hung on for too many years to a job I hated, Welfare caseworker.
However, I must tell you that you were lucky in getting full time work at those low wages. Here in the Ark-La-Tex, it is hard to find full time work. The lower the pay, the less likely you are to be hired full time. Most people are trying to juggle two or three part time jobs. They can never seem to make it work and still have a life. When I worked at K-Mart in Louisiana, the woman's wear department head would juggle her clerks' hours around their other jobs, because K-Mart was always changing shifts and numbers of hours while those other jobs were stable. The manager got in a snit because he felt K-Mart should come first.
Where I work now, a telemarketing place called Portrait America, we were told that we were not entitled to breaks unless the office manager allowed them. We work four hour shifts. We can pee once on company time. Another telephone op said that when she worked at Burger King, a seven hour shift, she was shown a policy book that stated she was not entitled to a break; however she was glad that they gave her free food even though she had to eat it while she worked. A lot of people here in Arkansas really do not seem to know there are federal regulations on this. Even if they do know, they have to keep their mouths shut or lose their jobs in a place where there are not too many. I should mention that telemarketing pays more than Books A Million, the best bookstore in town; something about this seems wrong. Also, I make more money selling Glamour Studio Portraits than I did when raising funds for charities.
Welfare is the employer of last resort for college graduates. My field territory in Dallas was Pleasant Grove, a neighborhood of working poor. The AFDC mothers had work histories. Food stamps is in constant turmoil because the lives of the working poor are so complicated. Their income changes constantly; yet food stamps are budgeted according to verified income. By the time the caseworker was able to get a change into the budget, the client's situation would have changed again. No one could keep up with the work, make their stats honestly. However, the people in Pleasant Grove were better to work with than the people in rooted-in poverty neighborhoods I worked in New York City. At least, having work histories, they understood about rules and regs. Before I left, Pleasant Grove had changed, the way a neighborhood can change quickly. The AFDC mothers then had prison records.
It is good that you pictured the health problems of the working poor. That is something hard for people with benefits to imagine. What money I made went for my Prozac and Diabeta, forget therapy counseling. Before my Social Security Disability started, I went to the Christian Charity Clinic here in Hot Springs. This is a volunteer group of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and social workers, and miscellaneous others. It was a life saver. I doubt if many other places have anything like this. Could you write about it? The only way I am managing now is because I have a trailer in my sister's backyard, so I don't pay rent.
Benefits for regular working people include paid vacations and holidays. Part time workers, who can afford it the least, have to take holidays and time off without pay. If they can get time off. I have never understood why you have to grovel and beg for unpaid time off.
Nickel and Dimed makes the life of the working poor real because you tell the stories of particular people in particular circumstances. This makes the social problems more vivid than any number of studies and statistics. There is nothing abstract about the book. An imaginative reader can get inside the minds of the people you met and wonder how he would have done in their circumstances. I do wonder, have you had any response to the book from the National Review types?
Sincerely yours,
Billie Louise Jones, Hot Springs, AR |
