For this part of essay # 3, the interviews I choose in Terkel are:
"Cleaning Up" Nick Salermo
"Telepnone Solicitor" Enid du Bois
The 1rst one interested me because I clean up every night almost at work and all the time at home. I don't mind doing it. It's fun relaxing, and it is usually when we agents "debrief" about what happened during the evening. But, some of my colleagues do not like doing it. They find it degrading and are always arguing about it." It is not in my assignment" you will hear them say while, we all know that the last shift is the one assigned to it. Because of the problems it always raises at closing time, the supervisors changed its name to "close up". I guess it makes people feel better knowing that they are "closing up" instead of "cleaning up". I was wondering how is Nick Salermo feeling about his job.
Very surprisingly, he is proud of what he does because he knows that he honestly earns good money from it even though, it is overwhelming.
The workload is big, and it is not easy to deal with people trash; it's like you are entering their personal space. Psychologically,it is demanding to know that you are being watched so you waste the company's money, and yourself you have to watch out for a well done job and children playing while you are working.
Also, people's view of "cleaners" is very biased, they look down at them, and even stereotype them. Their children are picked at at school because of their parents jobs.
I picked the 2nd interview because, I was wondering what make people like Enid, do a job like this one. We have all being once or many times bothered by one of their phone calls and we end up hanging up the phone on them. So how do they feel about doing a job like this one puzzles me.
Enid is a telephone solicitor who had to do this job because she needs to. The pay is not good at all, and she doesn't like it. She is "subsidized" with $1.60 an Hr plus commission if she is able to make people to subscribe to the newspaper she's selling.She is made to lie to people she is calling which she finds immoral. she relate to some of these people because herself she is not wealthy. Women are not well treated, they are watched while working by their boss. The pressure is very high: it is either you get people to subscribe or you leave, because there are many people who are willing to take your job out there.
In both these interviews I see that the environment in which you work matter, people you work with, and the kind of job itself make a difference for workers. Both Enid and Nick tell how they rely sometimes on their colleagues for support. Know that you are not alone feeling bad about your work put you at ease, and sometimes people you work with become your friends or even more.
It makes you really wonder if gender plays a role in the type of work people "choose" to do, and what is the role of the social class of an individual in the the type of work he/she will do.
In other words, are women more prone to do some type of work than men? Because, in Enid's case she says that women weren't well treated but at the same time, the majority of her colleagues were women.
Do your work determine your social class, or your social class make you do some type of work ?
Great reflections and a great question you end with. There's a book called "How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs" that addresses some of these issues.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the detail you mention about changing the name of the job from "cleaning up" to "closing up" - what do you make of that, and that fact that it sometimes works in changing people's ideas about their work?
Apparently it works on some people. But most of the time though it doesn't. People keep running away from it by volunteering to do something else right before we start.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's an old technique: as when management will give someone a new title instead of a raise or more benefits.
ReplyDeleteindeed, "cleaning up-->closing" is an overused trick, this famous Political Correctness. I think it does change people's perspective and attitude to what they are doing. It's an ephemism, right? Imagine, smb calls u on the phone: What are you doing? I bet one would rather answer "Closing up" than "Cleaning", right? :D It doesn't change the nature of your activity, but it does let you periphrase ur current occupation..
ReplyDeletei like your choice of interviews, miridi. when i was thinking about the worst job for myself, i'd come up with the debt collectors from the collection agencies, whose work is to create the feeling of fear and stalking. but selling the newspaper nobody wants to buy on the phone sounds also pretty terrible!
It is interestingly related to your question about privacy. I have my cell phone to serve my needs and objections and to connect with close ones separated by the distance, but not for any stinky company be able to call my number, offer me some useless crap and make me feel nasty when i hang up. It's definitely affecting my sence of privacy, isn't it?
indeed, "cleaning up-->closing" is an overused trick, this famous Political Correctness. I think it does change people's perspective and attitude to what they are doing. It's an ephemism, right? Imagine, smb calls u on the phone: What are you doing? I bet one would rather answer "Closing up" than "Cleaning", right? :D It doesn't change the nature of your activity, but it does let you periphrase ur current occupation..
ReplyDeletei like your choice of interviews, miridi. when i was thinking about the worst job for myself, i'd come up with the debt collectors from the collection agencies, whose work is to create the feeling of fear and stalking. but selling the newspaper nobody wants to buy on the phone sounds also pretty terrible!
It is interestingly related to your question about privacy. I have my cell phone to serve my needs and objections and to connect with close ones separated by the distance, but not for any stinky company be able to call my number, offer me some useless crap and make me feel nasty when i hang up. It's definitely affecting my sence of privacy, isn't it?