Working

by Studs Terkel

  I could care less. If the nurse gets there right away or next year, I don’t care. That’s a rotten attitude, it really is. God, I’d go nuts if I was in the hospital and someone treated me that way. What gets me so mad is: if I’m ever in the hospital, I’d be a typical patient. I’ll probably be worse than all of them. And yet I can’t stand them.

  But I don’t know, you get to like some of them. There was this old man, he died recently. He came in terrible from nursing homes and we got him really good care. He was bad news. Like he’d never eat because he thought he’d have to pay for it and he didn’t have the money. He was just stubborn. He’d do everything to get you. But you knew he was confused and senile. He went back to the nursing home and I saw him and he was all shriveled up, and you wouldn’t believe the sores on his body. I was so mad. I was going to write a note to the nursing home and really do something about it.

  I think what am I going to do when I get about seventy and depend on somebody. And what am I going to do if I’m laying in bed—a lot of times they aren’t conscious—you wonder, God, what am I going to do? I say, hey, when I reach seventy, here I go—I’m committing suicide. But I’m too chicken to commit suicide, no matter what treatment I get.

  I’m not the same as if they were conscious and I really couldn’t get away with it. I don’t treat a patient as well as if thev were with it. We had an elderly patient, she was eighty—she claimed she had a Ph.D.—and she was deaf. Aw, she was terrible, taking everything and throwing it at the wall, hitting me in the head with her spoon, as I was feeding her. I wasn’t as nice as I should have been. I was kinda having fun, which was pretty terrible. I knew I had to feed her and she’d spit it out. So I had fun. She was getting so mad I was getting a kick out of putting the food in her mouth. I remember thinking that night, God, that was pretty rotten. I never hit a patient, even though I got slugged a couple of times. But I could have been more gentle with her. Oh, I was terrible. The nurses see me as something different, as somebody really good with patients, when in fact I’m not. I put up a front. But they wouldn’t believe. Patients are always reporting me for my attitude, but the nurses don’t see that side of me.

  I do good work. A couple of times when I’ve been reported, it’s not for the care I’ve given, it’s what I say to them. And that’s not really nice. You’re supposed to be sympathetic. My attitude, it’s rotten. I stop and wonder why I don’t really care about people. I want to be accepted and them to think I’m okay, you know? It’s funny. Yet I don’t give anyone else the time of the day.

  “I think it’s something about Maryville. There was this rigid discipline. We had this one nun, but oh, I couldn’t stand her. If you cried, you were really bad news. She literally made everybody cry. She was always yelling and never paid attention to who she was hitting. I remember walking out the door with this girl and hearing her tell this nun to go to hell. The nun called me back and said, ”What’d she say?” Oh, I’m not gonna tell her. So she made me work for her from eight thirty in the morning until ten o‘clock at at night. I had to wash all the stairs, scrub ’em. I was done about four o‘clock, I did it pretty fast. I had a system of sweeping. I thought I showed her, hmm, only four o’clock and I’m through. She made me do it all over again.

  “She had to teach, take care of our dorm, keep the library, and be dean of our high school. You’re going to think this is strange, she was so tough, so brutal, I sort of admired her because she was good at her many jobs.”

  Has she been your model . . . ?

  “I know! Don’t mention! (Laughs.) She had me when I was three. I could never get rid of her. Every time I moved up, she was there. Where we ate and where our dorms was was quite a distance. When we were not even five years old, we had to go from where we slept to where we ate in single file and freezing weather and not say a word. Not touch the snow. You couldn’t drop your mitten. I remember a night where I was feeling around in the snow, so she punished everybody for it. She kept you in line. If somebody got out of line, she punished everybody. She had this big paddle and she had a strap in the other hand and, boy, that was bad news. She’d spank kids and hit ’em and they’d go to bed and everybody was crying. (Giggles.)

  “Someone dared me get out of line and go sneak to my bed. I was the one why everybody was getting punished. I faked I was asleep, so she said, ‘Cathleen Moran, get over here!’ And boy, do I remember! She beat me and I had to kneel and say the rosary a couple of hours. So everybody had this fear of her, always punching. She used to say she had these five brothers and every time you got out of line, you got punched. Her fist—her knuckles, they’re each her brother. Oh, she was a terror.

  “As I got into high school I didn’t see her as much. I’d be studying late and she’d come up. She’d be depressed. I never noticed that side of her. She started telling me things—how she’d hit someone and didn’t want to. She was like really a sensitive person. She really cared. And that’s—I remember understanding her more, but not liking her any more. I thought she was weak and I couldn’t understand it.”

  Before, even though you feared her and she beat you . . . ?

  “She was great. She was good in everything she does. It gave me the creeps to listen to her now. It’s like weak patients complaining and stuff like that. That’s how she was. I can’t put up with that and she wouldn’t put up with that with me. I know I’m just as weak as everybody else and I don’t like that. Some of the nurses are nice and care about patients, and I don’t really want to be bothered.”

  I don’t know any nurse’s aide who likes it. You say, “Boy, isn’t that rewarding that you’re doing something for humanity?” I say, “Don’t give me that, it’s a bunch of boloney.” I feel nothin’. I like it because I can watch the ball games in the afternoon.

  That’s why if I’m a nurse, I’d go into administrative work and I’d work in surgery. The only thing you have to deal with in surgery is who you work with. You don’t have to deal with the patient—like sympathize with them and say, “Gee, we couldn’t get all the cancer out,” and stuff like that. I like working in ICU71 because they’re all half-dead, and you can give a patient good care and not have to deal with them. I’d enjoy that. It’s terrible.

  You’re always saying it’s terrible.

  You feel kinda rotten when you see somebody else dealing with them . . .

  Your conscience bothers you?

  Um . . . rarely. After I leave the hospital I forget all about it. What gets me the most is that if I was in the hospital, I’d be a pain in the neck. I know I’m very weak and that’s why I don’t get involved with patients, because I’m just like them. A lot of nurses say, “God, it’s great that you’re not able to get involved and do your work well. It’s good that you’re not sympathetic, that you could care less.”

  There are a lot of good nurses who do feel something towards the patient. When someone dies they feel kinda: “Oh, so-and-so died.” So I say, “I’ll take them to the morgue.” I’ll get ’em wrapped up, because it doesn’t bother me. Usually when they die they crack all over and you have to get them cleaned up and tie their hands up and their feet and put a white sheet over their head, put them on a cart and take them to the morgue.

  That really gets me, though—the morgue. It’s down in the basement, isolated from everything. It’s a long hall. They got little dark lights and it’s a funny sound from the boiler room—mmmmmm (humming). That sometimes get me. It doesn’t make me afraid of death, though I am. It doesn’t give me the creeps. You open the freezer and see all dead bodies and everything seems meaningless. Couple years and I’ll be there and someone’s gonna take me down . . .

  Couple years . . . ?

  Well, you never know. God, when it’s my turn . . . Usually orderlies do it, because it’s tough getting them into this little box. When I go down, rarely do I think I’m putting a human being, someone with a life, into this freezer. They have jars of eyes and stuff and I find it interesting, and everybody’s screaming and running out.
For kicks, someone locked the door on me. But that doesn’t bother me, because I don’t get involved. There’s no fear if you’re never involved in something. I go in and look at the autopsies and stuff. Everybody’s saying, “Oh, God, I think if I was laying on that table, what if I—.” Then, boy, I got problems, because I start to think and it bugs me. I’m a very sensitive person, and if I start to think of myself as a patient, forget it. I don’t want no part of it.

  Do you ever get the feeling you’re like a machine?

  I never thought of myself in terms of a machine—though that’s what I am. I don’t have no feelings. I do, but somehow I don’t have them any more. I can’t explain. It’s kinda goofy. My brother just went into the service. I got along well with him. He was really good to me. He filled out forms for me. My mother said,“Aren’t you gonna miss him?” Well, I’ll miss him ’cause I’ll have to fill out all the forms myself. And because he was a good companion. But I never let myself think about a real feeling for him.

  If I daydream about him or anything, I find it a sign of weakness. Sometimes I think of the good times I had at Maryville. Sometimes I can’t even remember making a bed. I’ll know I’ve done something, but I can’t really think of when I done it.

  When I’m through at three-thirty. I’m usually watching the ball game. And then I’ll ride my bike for hours, along the lake, or anyplace that you haven’t got a million people in the way. I’ll read for a couple of hours, then I’ll ride back. I do a lot of reading. I like philosophy. It’s sort of like a struggle, what I’m going through. I love Jean-Paul Sartre. I read all his books. I try to find out about myself and relate it to the world around me. I know I can’t, because I don’t relate. I always get a negative attitude about myself. But I do feel quite capable of anything I do. I was going to go into physical education. But she said, “That’s for dummies.”

  Who said?

  The nun. But that’s dealing with people, too. You know what? I had no patience for someone who didn’t get it like this (snaps fingers), because I got it. That’s why I knew I couldn’t be a teacher. No matter what I’d do, I’d have the same attitude. And I’m trying to get rid of the attitude.

  I had to coach a team a couple of months ago. To me, when you’re going to do something, it’s not for fun. Nothing’s ever for fun. They wanted to have a good time and play. I said, “Have a good time and play when you’re practicing on your own, but when you’re in a tournament, it’s not for fun. You’re working.” You have to strive and be the best. Number one. But I don’t care if you lost, if you played a good game. If they have a rotten attitude and won, I tell ’em they’ve lost.

  Nurses tell me to go into sports because it’s something I enjoy. But it’s the same thing no matter what I do. I’d be detached. I’ve won trophies. I would walk up there and get the trophy and it was no big thing. Everybody’s saying, “Boy, you act like you’re mad about getting it.” I can’t stand when someone shows emotion, if someone’s excited. If I’m excited about something, I’ll keep it to myself, I repress it.

  One night, Christmas Eve, I was working and a patient had a colostomy and couldn’t accept surgery. He’s fighting off the drugs. He’s such a strong guy. We heard a loud crash and this guy had taken out his IVs, thrown it against the wall, taken the TV, thrown that against the wall, threw his tables outside the window. It was all a mess. And he had been tied down, leather restraints. Everybody was panicking. They called the police, and all the patients were crying. I thought I could deal with him and I wasn’t afraid of what he was up to. But I couldn’t deal with the patients crying. The nurse told me to quiet them down. I said, “I can’t be bothered.” Everybody was nervous and I just wasn’t.

  He wasn’t weak, he was fighting. He doesn’t know that he’s got strength then. I didn’t care that he was having problems. It didn’t bother me. It was a difficult task to get him settled and to straighten him out. And that I enjoyed. Because he wasn’t laying in bed, he was fighting.

  I love to work with 99s, emergencies, when patients are kicking the bucket and they’re trying to save ’em. You don’t have to deal with the patient, you deal with the work. You’re trying to save his life. Though I don’t think of it as a life, I think of it as a job.

  Do you care whether he lives or dies?

  No, I really don’t. It’s not that I won’t give him my care. My attitude doesn’t affect my work. If someone’s almost dead, I’ll spend hours putting the tube through their nose, suctioning out the stuff, so they’ll live. But I don’t care. But yet I know that’s not right. I’m just trying to figure it out . . .

  CRADLE TO THE GRAVE

  RUTH LINDSTROM

  She is nearing eighty. She came to America from Sweden in 1913 and immediately was engaged in housework at ten dollars a month. In 1918 she became a practical nurse. “I took training for baby care. How to give shots, take temperatures . . . I used to pick them up at the hospital and stay with them a week, two weeks, whatever they’d want. Two months, that’s average. I’ve stayed with one child for four years. Wages at times were seven dollars a week.”

  As she recollects, past and present intertwine.

  A baby nurse is one that changes diapers and loves ‘em dearly. Get up at all hours of the night to give ’em the bottle and change their pants. If the baby coughs or cries, you have to find out the need. I had my own room usually, but I slept in the same room with the baby. I would take full charge. It was twenty-four hours. I used to have one day a week off and I’d go home and see my own two little ones. It’s been so long I’ve almost forgotten what it was.

  I learned how to cope with things. I have never had to look for a job, because one customer recommends me to the other one. I have taken care of a lot of children in my day. I have pictures of four hundred children.

  In the morning, six o‘clock, they get their first bottle. You put them back in bed again. About eight, you pick ’im up, change his diaper, and give him his bath. Then he has another bottle. You put ‘im back in bed again. He sleeps until ten, eleven, twelve. You do the same thing again. That’s just a routine. Sometimes it’s eleven o’clock at night before you settle down. In the afternoon, you sometimes take ’em out in the buggy if the weather’s permissible, so they can get some fresh air.

  I usually do the family washing, the children’s washing and their bottles, and get all the formulas ready. The mother might be resting or she might have other children she looks after or she might go out shopping. Sometimes I take a nap when the kids take a nap.

  I worked for very wealthy families and for very poor families. I sometimes worked for nothing because they were so poor . . . I felt sorry for them. I slept on an army cot and fell out every time I turned around. (Laughs.) I once worked six weeks without pay. These people lost everything in the Depression, and they needed me. I didn’t get cash, but I got some lovely paintings. I worked for them sixteen years.

  When the mother comes home from the hospital she’s tired and nervous, high strung. She needs someone to rely on. Today a baby nurse gets twenty-five, thirty dollars a day. If they couldn’t afford it, I’d go for less. I worked for very, very high-grade rich people, too. Sometimes they’re more tight than middle-class. (Laughs.)

  Most of the time I go to the hospital and pick ‘em up—just born, about a week or ten days old. It’s always nice to see them grow up and get nice and round and fat and chubby and smiling at you. I’ve seen ’em learn how to walk and talk and help themself, and they run away from you when you try to catch ’em. (Laughs.)

  In one place, the baby was nine months old. They went on a trip for two weeks. When she came back, the baby wouldn’t go near her. He cried and he clung to me and he puts his arms around my neck when she talked to him. I said to her, “Don’t feel bad about it.” She said, “I’m happy because I know he had good loving.” He’s nineteen now.

  Another boy, when he came home, all the blood was drained out of him, he had leukemia and was very sick. I stayed up nineteen hours. I w
alked the room with him. He cried and I cried and she cried, too. But he grew up to be a very nice boy. They moved to California. One year I was there and he was seven. When he saw me, he put his arms around me. It’s so rewarding to find that. He’s forty-seven now. One family, I took care of her children and her grandchildren. The children of the very ones I baby nursed.

  Sometimes it’s really hard to leave ‘em, I tell you. I took care of two little girls, their mother passed away. Their father was all alone. The little girl was one year old and the older one was four. I stayed with them for two years. That was my hardest job to leave. That little girl, she stood there by the door and she pulled my skirt and she said, “Mommy, don’t leave me.” Oh, how that affects you! I have letters from ’em yet. Oh yes, you get very attached. They cry and they reach out their hands to you. You want to stay. That’s the worst, to leave them. That’s really hard.

  You’ve got to be careful how to treat them when they’re little. It’s a wonderful profession. It’s a responsible profession. I never worked in a place where they looked down on me, even people that was of means and had help. Sometimes they’d call me into the living room, “Sit down, let’s talk.” When I first came to this country, being a maid was a low caliber person. I never felt that way. I felt if you could be useful and do an honest job, that was not a disgrace.