"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. 'What road do I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want to go?' asked the cat. 'I don't know' Alice answered. 'Then', said the cat, 'it doesn't matter.'" -Lewis Caroll
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How often do we sit down in a restaurant and complain to the server host about the service, knowing that she or he was the person cooking the food, or controlling the volume of people in the place? And when do we let our frustrations control how we act towards people that are serving us? In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich expresses embarrassment for hiring a maid for herself because she would not want to have a relationship like that with another person. This statement undermines her entire work because in order to improve the conditions for low-wage workers they must have a job and do what they can to keep that job.
ReplyDeleteEhrenreich overlooks the fact that people in low-wage jobs need the money. Low-wage workers are often stuck working in conditions because they cannot walk away from the job as Ehrenreich did. They cannot simply move and find a better paying job without sacrificing their homes and maybe even families. Often they cannot even afford to move geographically because they do not have a car, or can barely pay the rent where they are living know like some of the employees from Hearthside. I can understand the embarrassment or the shame of having to ask for help or the odd relationship between someone who can afford to hire a cleaning service and the cleaner, but I do not think that this is a good reason to say that you would never hire someone. In fact, I am surprised that she would not try to hire more people because it would put money in their pockets, especially at her income level. People working at these types of jobs have one thing on the top of their priority list: money. If money was not a problem then of course they would not put up with the nonsense like random drug tests or they could afford going to the doctor’s. If she is upset with the way that maids are treated in the industry, the way to solve that problem would be solved best by advocating for change in some other way, maybe by creating unions (that actually work), or by getting the government to change minimum wage to a living wage. This would also allow these workers to obtain health-care and be able to put their kids in day care and be able to afford to take a day off if necessary.
While respect does not feed families, it certainly is important in treating people as they should be treated. Employers need to trust their employees. Employers need to trust that their employees are capable of doing normal tasks and have common sense. They should remember they hired them for some reason. Things like surveillance cameras on the workers, and fingerprinting or background checks can violate that trust, especially if there is no reason to expect that your employees are doing drugs or stealing money. Not that I condone hiring criminals because drug testing during an interview is not a violation of the trust however, random drug testing at any point in time is a little excessive. Some employers are so suspicious of their employees that in hinders the employee’s ability to do work. The lack of pockets on the uniforms would be helpful for keeping gloves or other work equipment but the employer is too worried about theft. Ehrenreich reflects, “I suspect that the reason there are no back pockets in our slacks is to discourage us from filling them with jewelry and coins,” (107).
Employers also need to give their workers constructive criticism. Yelling at the person for a mistake is not an appropriate response, especially if this is not a repeated response. If people want to work there the employee will want to do a good job, instead of taking hours to vacuuming to avoid other tasks, as Ehrenreich points out she did while she was a server at Hearthside. Constructive criticism includes also forms of compliments, so that the worker knows that they are doing something right.
ReplyDeletePhysically, the employees also need proper equipment to do their jobs, as Ehrenreich did not have kneepads to scrub a marble floor in Maine. She also had to carry a vacuum on her back, which was a lot of weight for a woman especially after a long day. Along the physical respect aspect, as a maid, Ehrenreich was not allowed to even have a drink of water while cleaning a home. This is absurd considering all people need water, especially doing manual work (which yes, cleaning is physical work). Along with a glass of water, low-wage workers should get adequate breaks such as cigarette, bathroom, and just to sit down and rest for a while since no one should be subjected to being on their feet for eight hours straight. Some employees cannot even take sick days for fear of losing their jobs. Ehrenreich explains in her chapter titled “Scrubbing in Maine” that although she had a rash covering her entire body and unbearable itching, her boss, Ted, thinks that it is just an allergy and tells her to return to her job and avoid whatever she thought was causing the rash.
Tips are also an important part of any low-wage worker’s job. A tip is an expression of gratitude and a way of showing how we appreciated what the server and/or the restaurant did for us. Compliments and being polite are an important part of this type of respect as well. We cannot be like the Jesus-T-shirt wearing man that Ehrenreich encounters that had a list of demands and complaints and then after every demand was met and complaint dealt with not leave a tip (36). Often if service is bad, the customer would like to yell at the waitress when in fact it probably was not her fault. We cannot expect poor service all the time from servers, however, we need to be polite when appropriate and reward people.
If all employees and workers were treated with respect then people would be more aware of the “state of emergency” as Ehrenreich calls it, and resolve this unbalance that exists in our country.
-Meg