Nickel and Dimed: Chapter Two

A few calls confirm my impression that winter housing for the poor consists of motel rooms that the more affluent fill up in the summer.

So I call about cleaning (both office and homes), warehouse and nursing home work, manufacturing, and a position called “general helper,” which sounds friendly and altruistic.

Was I married? I give him the short answer to the last question, leaving out the boyfriend for the moment, partly because it doesn’t make sense to talk about “the man I live with” when I’m not living with him just now and partly, I admit, because of a craven desire to recruit Pete as an ally, on whatever terms should present themselves.

One of them grips my arm when I bring her ham steak, whispering, “You’re a good person, you know that?” and repeats the accolade with each item I deliver.

Not all cleaning services do well, with a high rate of failure among the informal, mom-and-pop services, like the one I applied to by phone that did not even require a cursory interview — all I had to do was show up at seven the next morning.

And, as is explained in writing and over the next day and a half of training, we too have a special code of decorum.

It weighs only ten pounds, he claims, although, as I soon find out, with the attachments dangling from the strap around your waist, the total is probably more like fourteen. What about my petulant and much-pampered lower back?

In the prison movies that provide me with a mental guide to comportment, the new guy doesn’t go around shaking hands and asking, “Hi there, what are you in for?”

Not that I, even in my more histrionic moments, imagine that I am a member of that oppressed working class.

For the first time in my life as a maid I have a purpose more compelling than trying to meet the aesthetic standards of the New England bourgeoisie.

There’s nothing to do but try to ignore the nasty stuff soaking my foot and, as Ted exhorts us, work through it.

Our garish uniforms and bright green-and-yellow cars, for example, are probably designed to distinguish us from the average crew of burglars, and I suspect that the reason there are no back pockets in our slacks is to discourage us from filling them with jewelry and coins.

The exalted mood lasts for about a day, and there is backsliding even within that — for example, when, in a huge, gorgeous country house with hand-painted walls, I encounter a shelf full of arrogant and, under the circumstances, personally insulting neoconservative encomiums to the status quo and consider using germ warfare against the owners, the weapons for which are within my apron pockets.

Or maybe it’s low-wage work in general that has the effect of making you feel like a pariah.

The sitcoms and dramas are about fashion designers or schoolteachers or lawyers, so it’s easy for a fast-food worker or nurse’s aide to conclude that she is an anomaly — the only one, or almost the only one, who hasn’t been invited to the party.