Working

by Studs Terkel

  (Sighs.) Yeah, I take my work home. I put in two, three hours on the phone at home. I don’t care if I’m watching TV while I make a call. I’m disinterested in the call. DB21 calls. “Mrs. Smith, you promised to send in one on the eleventh. It’s now the eighteenth.” I’m watching Dick Cavett at the same time.

  I get so angry. I’d like to—I—I—I. (Laughs.) Sometimes it’s lucky that I have an extension phone. I’d have torn it off the wall many times. You can’t help it. I’m particularly choleric. Maybe there are people who take it better than I can. This one woman was making me eat crap for four years, to make me collect my money. I brooded about it for four years. Just making me absolutely crawl. I just—I just thought I’d like to hit her one.

  The stories you hear from many salesmen that go into houses are figments of their imagination. About sex. Women paying off in that way. I’ve never seen it happen personally. Your real drive is to survive—get in the house, get out.

  You go in. It’s sort of a reflex action. They hear your name, go get the book and the money. I know exactly when they have the money or not. When she opens the door and turns around to go somewhere, you know she’s got the money. If she stands there, blocking your way, you know she’s broke. You say, “Oh, you have no money?” Or she tells you. You say, “Thank you very much, I’ll see you next week.” Or, “Are you short?” Some quick repartee. Then I drive elsewhere.

  Saturday is the busiest day. I visit approximately seventy homes. There used to be men in the business who couldn’t sleep on a Friday night. They knew they had this terrible pace on Saturday. Most men are home on Saturday. There’s a rough and ready banter. Kidding around. I have Sunday off, unless I get very angry at a customer and go out to see her.

  For a person like me who likes to talk and exchange ideas with people, it’s very difficult to break away. I’ve been guilty many times of sitting down for too many cups of coffee. It’s a question of absolutely driving yourself to get out. Collection isn’t the only thing. I’ve got this book work. It’s the most aggravating angle of the business. Keeping track of the payments, your sales tax, your income tax. I’ve got eight hours of book work ahead of me now, at home.

  And you have to go out and do your shopping. On Christmas I’m shopping for a hundred people. I go to stores that are busy and wait to be waited on and am frustrated by every one of these decisions, as to what color, what size, and finding out they haven’t got it. So I’ve waited forty-five minutes for nothing.

  They give me a list of things. They want me to buy gifts. They want me to buy a 15-33 shirt for a son. The husband wears a 16½-34. They want a pretty color. They give you a choice and you have to decide. They’re paying you to decide for them.

  There are many people who can’t make decisions. This is the trademark of most of the people I do business with. They tell you to get a pretty shirt. You say, “Pretty? What do you mean by that?” They say, “Well, what you think would be nice.” They leave it up to you. You bring it and then they bawl the hell out of you if they don’t like it. So they can tell you off. They do. And they’re paying me for that service.

  “I’ve had a duodenal ulcer. But it didn’t come from this business. I had it when I was a furniture salesman. It was schlock furniture. A bait and switch type. Advertise something at a ridiculously low rate and then expect the salesman to switch the customer to something else. It’s worked on the TO system, turnover. The first man who greets the customer warms him up a little. And then is commanded to turn him over to a man who’s introduced as the manager of the store—which makes a tremendous impression. The greatest amount of things sold in this country right now is bait and switch. Schlock.”

  I’m tired. Because I’m not growing old gracefully. I resent the fact that I haven’t got the coordination that I had. I resent the fact that I can’t run as fast as I used to. I resent the fact that I get sleepy when I’m out at a night club. I resent it terribly. My wife is growing old gracefully but I’m not. I always have slept well.

  There will always be room for this kind of occupation as long as people want personal contact. We’re all over the world.

  ENID DU BOIS

  She had been a telephone solicitor for a Chicago newspaper. She was at it for three months. “There were mostly females working there, about thirty. In one large phone room. About four of us were black.”

  I needed a job. I saw this ad in the paper: Equal Opportunity. Salary plus commission. I called and spoke ever so nicely. The gentleman was pleased with the tone of my voice and I went down for an interview. My mind raced as I was on the train coming down. I’ll be working on North Michigan Avenue. It’s the greatest street. I was elated. I got the job right away. All we had to do was get orders for the newspaper.

  We didn’t have to think what to say. They had it all written out. You have a card. You’d go down the list and call everyone on the card. You’d have about fifteen cards with the persons’ names, addresses, and phone numbers. “This is Mrs. Du Bois. Could I have a moment of your time? We’re wondering if you now subscribe to any newspapers? If you would only for three short months take this paper, it’s for a worthy cause.” To help blind children or Crusade of Mercy. We’d always have one at hand. “After the three-month period, if you no longer desire to keep it, you can cancel it. But you will have helped them. They need you.” You’d use your last name. You could alter your name, if you wanted to. You’d almost have to be an actress on the phone. (Laughs.) I was very excited about it, until I got the hang of it.

  The salary was only $1.60 an hour. You’d have to get about nine or ten orders per day. If you didn’t, they’d pay you only $1.60. They call that subsidizing you. (Laughs.) If you were subsidized more than once, you were fired.

  The commission depended on the territory. If it was middle class, it would be $3.50. If it was ghetto, it would be like $1.50. Because some people don’t pay their bills. A lot of papers don’t get delivered in certain areas. Kids are afraid to deliver. They’re robbed. The suburbs was the top territory.

  A fair area, say, lower middle class, they’d pay you $2.50. To a lot of solicitors’ dismay they’d kill some orders at the end of the week. He’d come in and say, “You don’t get this $2.50, because they don’t want the paper.” We don’t know if it’s true or not. How do we know they canceled? But we don’t get the commission.

  If you didn’t get enough orders for the week, a lot of us would work four and five hours overtime. We knew: no orders, no money. (Laughs.) We’d come down even on Saturdays.

  They had some old pros, but they worked on the suburbs. I worked the ghetto areas. The old-timers really came up with some doozies. They knew how to psyche people. They were very fast talkers. If a person wanted to get off the phone they’d say, “No, they need you. They need your help. It’s only for three short months.” The person would just have to say, “Okay,” and end up taking it.

  They had another gimmick. If they kept the paper they would get a free gift of a set of steak knives. If they canceled the order, they wouldn’t get anything. Everybody wants something free.

  There was a chief supervisor. He would walk into the office and say, “Okay, you people, let’s get some orders! What do you think this is?” He’d come stomping in and holler, “I could pay all the bums on Madison Street to come in, you know.” He was always harassing you. He was a bully, a gorilla of a man. I didn’t like the way he treated women.

  I did as well as I wanted to. But after a while, I didn’t care. Surely I could have fast-talked people. Just to continually lie to them. But it just wasn’t in me. The disgust was growing in me every minute. I would pray and pray to hold on a little longer. I really needed the money. It was getting more and more difficult for me to make these calls.

  The supervisor would sometimes listen in. He had connections with all the phones. He could just click you in. If a new girl would come in, he’d have her listen to see how you were doing—to see how well this person was lying. That’s what they taught you.
After a while, when I got down to work, I wanted to cry.

  I talked to one girl about it. She felt the same way. But she needed the job too. The atmosphere was different here than being in a factory. Everybody wants to work on North Michigan Avenue. All the people I’ve worked with, most of them aren’t there any more. They change. Some quit, some were dismissed. The bully would say they weren’t getting enough orders. They get the best liar and the best liar stays. I observed, the older people seemed to enjoy it. You could just hear them bugging the people . . .

  We’d use one charity and would change it every so often. Different papers have different ones they use. I know a girl does the same work for another paper. The phone room is in the same building as the newspaper. But our checks are paid by the Readers’ Service Agency.

  When I first started I had a pretty good area. They do this just to get you conditioned. (Laughs.) This is easy. I’m talking to nice people. God, some of the others! A few obscenities. A lot of males would say things to you that weren’t so pleasant. Some were lonely. They’d tell you that. Their wives had left them . . .

  At first I liked the idea of talking to people. But pretty soon, knowing the area I was calling—they couldn’t afford to eat, let alone buy a newspaper—my job was getting me down. They’d say, “Lady, I have nine to feed or I would help you.” What can you say? One woman I had called early in the morning, she had just gotten out of the hospital. She had to get up and answer the phone.

  They would tell me their problems. Some of them couldn’t read, honest to God. They weren’t educated enough to read a newspaper. Know what I would say? “If you don’t read anything but the comic strips . . .” “If you got kids, they have to learn how to read the paper.” I’m so ashamed thinking cf it.

  In the middle-class area, the people were busy and they couldn’t talk. But in the poor area, the people really wanted to help the charity I talked about. They said I sounded so nice, they would take it anyway. A lot of them were so happy that someone actually called. They could talk all day long to me. They told me all their problems and I’d listen.

  They were so elated to hear someone nice, someone just to listen a few minutes to something that had happened to them. Somehow to show concern about them. I didn’t care if there was no order. So I’d listen. I heard a lot of their life histories on the phone. I didn’t care if the supervisor was clicked in.

  People that were there a long time knew just what to do. They knew when to click ’em off and get right on to the next thing. They were just striving, striving . . . It was on my mind when I went home. Oh my God, yeah. I knew I couldn’t continue doing it much longer.

  What really did it for me was one call I made. I went through the routine. The guy listened patiently and he said, “I really would like to help.” He was blind himself! That really got me—the tone of his voice. I could just tell he was a good person. He was willing to help even if he couldn’t read the paper. He was poor, I’m sure of that. It was the worst ghetto area. I apologized and thanked him. That’s when I left for the ladies’ room. I was nauseous. Here I was sitting here telling him a bunch of lies and he was poor and blind and willing to help. Taking his money.

  I got sick in the stomach. I prayed a lot as I stayed there in the restroom. I said, “Dear God, there must be something better for me. I never harmed anyone in my life, dear Lord.” I went back to the phone room and I just sat there. I didn’t make any calls. The supervisor called me out and wanted to know why I was sitting there. I told him I wasn’t feeling good, and I went home.

  I came back the next day because I didn’t have any other means of employment. I just kept praying and hoping and looking. And then, as if my prayers were answered, I got another job. The one I have now. I love it.

  I walked into the bully’s office and told him a few things. I told him I was sick and tired of him. Oh God, I really can’t tell you what I said. (Laughs.) I told him, “I’m not gonna stay here and lie for you. You can take your job and shove it.” (Laughs.) And I walked out. He just stood there. He didn’t say anything. He was surprised. I was very calm, I didn’t shout. Oh, I felt good.

  I still work in the same building. I pass him in the hallway every once in a while. He never speaks to me. He looks away. Every time I see him I hold my head very high, very erect, and keep walking.

  BOOK THREE

  CLEANING UP

  NICK SALERNO

  He has been driving a city garbage truck for eighteen years. He is forty-one, married, has three daughters. He works a forty-hour, five-day week, with occasional overtime. He has a crew of three laborers. “I usually get up at five-fifteen. I get to the city parking lot, you check the oil, your water level, then proceed for the ward yard. I meet the men, we pick up our work sheet.”

  You get just like the milkman’s horse, you get used to it. If you remember the milkman’s horse, all he had to do was whistle and whooshhh! That’s it. He knew just where to stop, didn’t he? You pull up until you finish the alley. Usually thirty homes on each side. You have thirty stops in an alley. I have nineteen alleys a week. They’re called units. Sometimes I can’t finish ‘em, that’s how heavy they are, this bein’ an old neighborhood.

  I’ll sit there until they pick up this one stop. You got different thoughts. Maybe you got a problem at home. Maybe one of the children aren’t feeling too good. Like my second one, she’s a problem with homework. Am I doin’ the right thing with her? Pressing her a little bit with math. Or you’ll read the paper. You always daydream.

  Some stops, there’s one can, they’ll throw that on, then we proceed to the next can. They signal with a buzzer or a whistle or they’ll yell. The pusher blade pushes the garbage in. A good solid truckload will hold anywhere from eight thousand to twelve thousand pounds. If it’s wet, it weighs more.

  Years ago, you had people burning, a lot of people had garbage burners. You would pick up a lot of ashes. Today most of ’em have converted to gas. In place of ashes, you’ve got cardboard boxes, you’ve got wood that people aren’t burning any more. It’s not like years ago, where people used everything. They’re not too economy-wise today. They’ll throw anything away. You’ll see whole packages of meat just thrown into the garbage can without being opened. I don’t know if it’s spoiled from the store or not. When I first started here, I had nearly thirty alleys in this ward. Today I’m down to nineteen. And we got better trucks today. Just the way things are packaged today. Plastic. You see a lot of plastic bottles, cardboard boxes.

  We try to give ’em twice-a-week service, but we can’t complete the ward twice a week. Maybe I can go four alleys over. If I had an alley Monday, I might go in that alley Friday. What happens over the weekend? It just lays there.

  After you dump your garbage in the hopper, the sweeper blade goes around to sweep it up, and the push blade pushes it in. This is where you get your sound. Does that sound bother you in the morning? (Laughs.) Sometimes it’s irritating to me. If someone comes up to you to talk, and the men are working in the back, and they press the lever, you can’t hear them. It’s aggravating but you get used to it. We come around seven-twenty. Not too many complaints. Usually you’re in the same alley the same day, once a week. The people know that you’re comin’ and it doesn’t bother them that much.

  Some people will throw, will literally throw garbage out of the window—right in the alley. We have finished an alley in the morning and that same afternoon it will look like it wasn’t even done. They might have a cardboard carton in the can and garbage all over the alley. People are just not takin’ care of it. You get some people that takes care of their property, they’ll come out and sweep around their cans. Other people just don’t care or maybe they don’t know any better.

  Some days it’s real nice. Other days, when you get off that truck you’re tired, that’s it! You say all you do is drive all day, but driving can be pretty tiresome—especially when the kids are out of school. They’ll run through a gangway into the alley. This is what you have to w
atch for. Sitting in that cab, you have a lot of blind spots around the truck. This is what gets you. You watch out that you don’t hit any of them.

  At times you get aggravated, like your truck breaks down and you get a junk as a replacement. This, believe me, you could take home with you. Otherwise, working here, if there’s something on your mind, you don’t hold anything in. You discuss anything with these guys. Golf, whatever. One of my laborers just bought a new home and I helped him move some of his small stuff. He’s helped me around my house, plumbing and painting.

  We’ve got spotters now. It’s new. (Laughs.) They’re riding around in unmarked cars. They’ll turn you in for stopping for coffee. I can’t see that. If you have a coffee break in the alley, it’s just using a little psychology. You’ll get more out of them. But if you’re watched continually, you’re gonna lay down. There’s definitely more watching today, because there was a lot of layin’ down on the job. Truthfully, I’d just as soon put in my eight hours a day as easy as possible. It’s hard enough comin’ to work. I got a good crew, we get along together, but we have our days.

  If you’re driving all day, you get tired. By the time you get home, fighting the traffic, you’d just like to relax a little bit. But there’s always something around the house. You can get home one night and you’ll find your kid threw something in the toilet and you gotta shut your mind and take the toilet apart. (Laughs.) My wife drives, so she does most of the shopping. That was my biggest complaint. So now this job is off my hands. I look forward to my weekends. I get in a little golf.

  People ask me what I do, I say, “I drive a garbage truck for the city.” They call you G-man, or, “How’s business, picking up?” Just the standard . . . Or sanitary engineer. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I put in my eight hours. We make a pretty good salary. I feel I earn my money. I can go any place I want. I conduct myself as a gentleman any place I go. My wife is happy, this is the big thing. She doesn’t look down at me. I think that’s more important than the white-collar guy looking down at me.