Yes. Most important of all, she's underscoring how shitty the maid services are for the employees. I'm halfway through the book just now, and she does an exquisite job explaining how crushing service sector work can be in general. It is very difficult to get folks who've never worked in the industry to appreciate just how gruelling service work can be. "What, it's not like working construction or in a mine. They've got A/C.
It's nothing life threatening, nothing to form a union over."
What's important to remember in this thread is her simple, specific aim: a firsthand account of whether or not income can overcome the expenses of a low-wage worker. There is a tremendous amount of nonsense in America over what it means to live this way. "Anybody can get a job." "That pay isn't so bad. It just takes discipline." Etc. So, if you don't have a job, you're lazy. If you do have one and can't pay your bills, you're fiscally irresponsible. "Of course there are jobs to be had, I see "Help Wanted" signs at all sorts of places!" These assumptions abound, and are not contested enough. That's what she's doing, forcefully and clearly.
She says "want ads are not a reliable measure of the actual jobs available" but rather "employer's insurance policy against the relentless turnover of the low-wage workforce." There are no secret stratagems for survival for the working poor. No money for a deposit = no apartment. No "business casual" wardrobe = no clerical work. The minimum wage is a joke. What is most affordable hardly counts as housing, and minimal housing is barely affordable. Those are the kinda points I'm taking from her thus far. And they are exactly the mundane sorta details that are obscured by welfare-to-work rhetoric.
-- Shane
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