Revealing the Survival Methods of the Underclass in the United States

Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: A seasoned American social critic goes undercover into the underclass: She left her home, rented a cheap hotel room, and disguised herself as a, inexperienced, divorced woman re-entering the workforce; she worked as a waitress, housekeeper, cleaning lady, an assistant at a nursing home, and a sales associate at Walmart; from Florida to Maine, then Minnesota, she took any job she could find, embarking on a hard, thrilling, and secret journey of transient fragments: "My colleagues were so poor. Anyone who did this job would feel desperate or think it was a mistake and a disappointing history, but I had no right to interfere. In the video recording of the professor's behavior, the protagonist didn’t ask everyone after the handshake, ‘What are you doing here?’ In the car and office, I learned from my colleagues’ conversations that no one was homeless. Everyone lived with their families crammed together, some even shared homes with others. The topics of conversation were mostly about visiting grandparents in the hospital; sending birthday cards to her nephew’s husband; single mothers living with their own mothers or sharing an apartment with colleagues or boyfriends. Among us, the oldest, Pan Ling, had her own house, but she slept on the living room sofa, while her four adult children and three grandchildren crowded into the bedroom. Although no one was sleeping in a car, I noticed from the beginning the signs of their hard lives: half-smoked cigarettes being put back into the packs; people discussing who would pay the 50-cent toll fee, whether Ted would be reimbursed quickly; one of my teammates in excruciating pain from a wisdom toothache but still making countless calls just to get free dental treatment. Once, our group found that the cleaning supplies were exhausted. I suggested buying a bottle from the convenience store first so we wouldn’t have to spend a long time going back to the company. But I realized I had brought no money, and the four of us couldn’t even up 2 dollars. On one Sunday while working at Amway, I happened to encounter the rare heat in Maine in early September. The temperature on the bank’s digital clock as we passed was 95 degrees Fahrenheit. I was paired with the grim-faced Rozelle and the team leader, Maddy. Compared to Liz’s stern demeanor, Maddy’s worried face was more comfortable for me. I heard that Liz was the highest-ranking cleaner, almost at an advisory level, and she loved to report on others. Maddy was a 27-year-old single mother who had been working for only three months and was worried about childcare. On the way to clean a house, she told me that her boyfriend’s sister was taking care of her 18-month-old child for $50 a week, which was almost half her salary at Amway. However, a formal daycare costs $90 a week. After finishing the job, we quickly ate lunch. Rozelle ate a little bread, and Maddy ate a bag of Pepperidge Farm fish. Then we headed to the next job site. The dispatch note said it was a large house with five bathrooms. But when we arrived, we were stunned by the house’s scale and stood with buckets for a long time looking for the right entrance. The house looked like a docked large cruise ship, with its bow extending into a large green lawn and countless windows. Maddy read the homeowner’s name on the note and said, “Wow! Mrs. W and her big dumb house. I hope she’ll feed us.” When Mrs. W saw us, she wasn’t very happy. When the Black nanny took us into the large hall or gathering room, office, or wherever she sat, she looked displeased. Anyway, she already had a nanny, a cook, and a bunch of servants at her command. She didn’t want to take us around the rooms because she had already told our company over the phone. But Maddy stood still, and Rozelle and I stood behind her until Mrs. W agreed to let us tour the house. As she led us around, she said, “Make sure to move everything off the surfaces when we clean and clean every corner of the walls.” I counted at least several miles of corners. Be careful with the babies—they’re nursing and can’t be near any cleaning supplies. So I began my battle with the dust. In a place where I didn’t even know how to define the room names, Amway’s special cleaning method was a big help. All I had to do was walk back and forth between rooms, trying to remember the different room numbers to avoid double work. The rags here were amazing because every item had to be lifted and wiped. From the furnishings, I learned that Mrs. W was an alumnus of a top women’s university and now worked in managing some investments and taking care of her children. I also found special forms designed for childcare, marked with different times of the day and the concentration and color of the new liquid. In the owner’s bedroom, the bookshelf was filled with books about pregnancy, breastfeeding, newborns at 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years. I wondered what had deprived Maddy of the right to care for her children. Perhaps women in the world are divided into two types: those who produce and those who serve. Women who work as maids shouldn’t have children. Maybe that’s why the office manager, Tammy, wore inch-long fake nails and a suit. She used to be a maid, and now she wants to show that she has risen to the level of producing and will never be sent out to work again.