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Working a seasonal job has been good for me. The obvious benefits go beyond the economic, although I’m not downplaying that one. As a struggling writer (aren’t we all?), financial issues are often the most common reason for the many who throw in the towel.
The real benefit is seeing firsthand what most American workers experience in the new economy touted by George Bush and his economic supply-side friends. Trickle-down economics doesn’t offer much more than a few crumbs from the table of the wealthy and privileged.
My seasonal call center job pays $10 and change, which is standard for this type of occupation in my area of the country. As our state has seen manufacturing jobs leave in droves, we have become a haven for companies wanting to locate their phone centers here in order to tap an able labor force willing to work for substandard wages. This phenomenon is not the fault of the workers—where does one go in a state where most jobs pay $8-$10 per hours? Most of the people I went through training with are working here as a second job. That means most of us are working 70-80 hours per week over this 6-week gig. It gives me a new appreciation of the term, "working poor."
Within a five minute walk from where I sit in my cubicle under artificial lighting and stale re-circulated air, thousands of shoe shop workers once toiled. Receiving a wage that allowed them to access part of the American Dream, these workers built this gritty working-class city of 40,000 into a community with character. Many of these French-Canadians took pride in their town. During the 1960’s and even early 1970’s, the downtown was filled with department stores and other locally-owned retail establishments. At one time, you could even ride the local bus line from my hometown 10 miles away.
When I was a boy of seven or eight, my grandmother used to take me on the bus with her and we’d go shopping. She’d take me to lunch at Woolworth’s where I’d have a grilled hot dog, french fries (we didn’t call them liberty fries then!!) and even an ice cream cone. I can still picture my Nana counting out change from her purse. With her peasant dress, large handbag that had everything, this fire-plug of a German immigrant provided her grandson with many memories that today’s kids will never experience.
I often express frustration at our media, for lacking the courage and drive to write stories about real Americans and their lives. What occurs to me as I battle the tiredness infusing my back and arms from burning the candle at both ends is that many journalists have achieved a level of comfort that prevents them from biting the hand providing it. A case in point is the fluff piece that my usually solid local paper carried about the call center where I work. There was little or nothing in the article that would force a reader to confront the reality of these jobs and how they ultimately do little to build the local economy. What they do provide is access to cheap labor for a local company that used to have more integrity. Still riding on the reputation of its founder, the flatlanders who now run the company offer empty corporate platitudes to their workers. While the article spoke of the “million dollar hours” that these phone centers ring up, there was no mention that the workers providing the modern day equivalent of assembly line labor are treated to tootsie rolls, candy bars and $35 Christmas bonuses.
A journalist with any integrity would have written something other than an article that was nothing more than PR copy that could have come directly from the company’s marketing department.
As a freelance writer, I often am denied the opportunity to write these types of hard-hitting pieces, primarily because I don’t have a journalism degree following my name. What I’m finding out, the further I go down this rabbit trail called writing is that journalism school doesn’t teach you how to write. What it does is teach you to become a subservient employee who rarely challenges the status quo set by the editors.
If journalism is ever going to become the hard-hitting, muckraking domain of men like H.L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair, Studs Terkel and others again, it needs to get out of the classroom and back into the remaining factories and sweat shops and see how real Americans live, work, and die.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Monday, December 06, 2004
Forgetting the tide
It's easy this time of year to get caught up in the day-to-day routines of work, family and shopping for Christmas.
For the past week, I've found it comforting to tune out the "world" and politics. I've welcomed the brief respite from the drumbeat of bad news and corporate power grabs. Whether one wants to ignore them or not however, the powerful never sleep.
President Bush just nominated a pro-agribusiness former governor to head up the department of Agriculture. As governor of Nebraska, Johanns worked persistently to undermine a law, passed by a citizen initiative in 1982, that protects family farmers in Nebraska by banning most corporate agriculture. President Bush, as he is want to do, claims one thing while knowing full well it is a bold-faced lie. About Johanns, Bush called him " faithful friend of America's farmers and ranchers". With friends like that......
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm reading Trudy Chambers Price's book, The Cows Are Out! Two Decades on a Maine Dairy Farm. It's men like Johanns who drove Trudy and her husband out of farming. They are the reason that in 1950, there were 4,950 dairy farms in Maine; today, there are less than 400! Just since 1989, almost 300 dairy farms have gone out of existence!! As these farms go out of production, so does the way of life that goes with it--a way of life that gave states like Maine their unique character.
When I look at people like Mike Johanns, George Bush, and the rest of his corporate marauders, I'm reminded of the beach when I was young. As a youngster, my sister and I would build elaborate sand castles that took hours to construct. No matter what we did, eventually, the tide rushed in--nothing we could do to divert the onrushing surf prevented it from pounding and flattening our handiwork. After a few passes of the surf, our castles were indistiguishable from the rest of the shoreline.
Corporate control is the powerful surf and the rest of us and our way of life is the sandcastle being pounded by the rush of sea.
For the past week, I've found it comforting to tune out the "world" and politics. I've welcomed the brief respite from the drumbeat of bad news and corporate power grabs. Whether one wants to ignore them or not however, the powerful never sleep.
President Bush just nominated a pro-agribusiness former governor to head up the department of Agriculture. As governor of Nebraska, Johanns worked persistently to undermine a law, passed by a citizen initiative in 1982, that protects family farmers in Nebraska by banning most corporate agriculture. President Bush, as he is want to do, claims one thing while knowing full well it is a bold-faced lie. About Johanns, Bush called him " faithful friend of America's farmers and ranchers". With friends like that......
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm reading Trudy Chambers Price's book, The Cows Are Out! Two Decades on a Maine Dairy Farm. It's men like Johanns who drove Trudy and her husband out of farming. They are the reason that in 1950, there were 4,950 dairy farms in Maine; today, there are less than 400! Just since 1989, almost 300 dairy farms have gone out of existence!! As these farms go out of production, so does the way of life that goes with it--a way of life that gave states like Maine their unique character.
When I look at people like Mike Johanns, George Bush, and the rest of his corporate marauders, I'm reminded of the beach when I was young. As a youngster, my sister and I would build elaborate sand castles that took hours to construct. No matter what we did, eventually, the tide rushed in--nothing we could do to divert the onrushing surf prevented it from pounding and flattening our handiwork. After a few passes of the surf, our castles were indistiguishable from the rest of the shoreline.
Corporate control is the powerful surf and the rest of us and our way of life is the sandcastle being pounded by the rush of sea.
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Christmas shopping excursion
I should have known better; I should have realized how much I loathe Christmas shopping. Instead, I decided to venture out on Saturday morning, of all days.
Since I am working for a still unnamed catalog retailer, one of my few perks of employment is a hefty employee discount on their merchandise. While much of what they sell falls outside my qualifying parameters for merchandise (American-made or made by workers that are paid a living wage), there are a few things that they carry that I could purchase.
Badly in need of some Christmas cards to send out to friends and family, as well as a gazetteer and a gift certificate, I bravely made my way to my seasonal employer’s retail empire. This shopping mecca draws tourists far and wide to the small coastal community which has been irreparably altered to cater to this retailer.
Parking was my first challenge, but I felt fortunate when I found a parking space about one half mile away from the store at 10 o’clock. From there I managed to dodge fellow shoppers as they did their damned well best to try to run me over in search of their own parking spot.
Once in the store, I was confronted with a maze of shopping "zombies"—people that have apparently lost their abilities to orient themselves to their surroundings. You’ll be able to tell them by the confused expression on their faces as they whirl around in place looking high and low for god knows what. One particular woman, going up the wrong side of the stairwell, managed to cause a major traffic jam. This middle-aged woman, god love her, was straining to gallantly negotiate the final five stair treads to the top. Once she reached the 2nd floor riser, the crowd blew past her, nearly sweeping her aside like a river breaking through a levee. I’m still puzzled why she didn’t take the elevator—while I commend her spunk, mixing in a little aerobic exercise into her shopping day, this stairwell during a shopping rush hour may not have been the most appropriate locale for her newfound fitness regimen.
Fortunately for me, the location of the cards and gazetteer were in the same department and amazingly, not heavily populated. I quickly gathered my items and dashed for the first floor registers. I was amazed that there were only three people in the queuing area waiting for a cashier. Before I knew it, my items were bagged, my gift certificate purchased and in less than 30 minutes, I was back out to the parking lot where my vacated spot was quickly snatched by a car sitting five deep in the developing waiting line.
I was now bitten by the Christmas shopping bug. Infused with newfound confidence that I could do this, I was off to the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance book sale and author signing at The Portland Public Market.
If one has to do any shopping, this is the place to do it. The patrons have a more relaxed pace. I envision that this is how people may have shopped when open air markets and similar venues were part and parcel of urban landscapes. While there has been a trend recently to bring back the public market concept, many are gentrified and dressed up and lack a certain gritty authenticity of the markets of days gone by. Yet, even in their yuppified state, these offer a welcome respite from the sterile environs of the local mall, filled with corporate Christmas cheer and numbing holiday muzak.
I had a wonderful conversation with genial Maine writer and poet, Richard Foerster. As someone given more to writing prose than poetry, I was interested in his thoughts on the difference between the two. Like many writers, he enjoyed discussing his craft and sharing insights that I know will prove invaluable to me as I continue my life as a writer. I purchased Double Going, a book of his poems about coming to terms with family and the dynamics involved with that. Foerster graciously signed my book, and I was off to visit the downstairs vendor area of the market. It was here that I met a sausage-maker from my home town of Lisbon Falls. We talked about his craft, small town life and my newly-made sauerkraut curing in my basement. I promised to stop by and drop off a sample in the next few weeks.
It was now time to dash home and grab my gear and lunch and head off to work my eight hours on the telephones. The evening went well and I even got to go home early because our call volumes were down.
Since I am working for a still unnamed catalog retailer, one of my few perks of employment is a hefty employee discount on their merchandise. While much of what they sell falls outside my qualifying parameters for merchandise (American-made or made by workers that are paid a living wage), there are a few things that they carry that I could purchase.
Badly in need of some Christmas cards to send out to friends and family, as well as a gazetteer and a gift certificate, I bravely made my way to my seasonal employer’s retail empire. This shopping mecca draws tourists far and wide to the small coastal community which has been irreparably altered to cater to this retailer.
Parking was my first challenge, but I felt fortunate when I found a parking space about one half mile away from the store at 10 o’clock. From there I managed to dodge fellow shoppers as they did their damned well best to try to run me over in search of their own parking spot.
Once in the store, I was confronted with a maze of shopping "zombies"—people that have apparently lost their abilities to orient themselves to their surroundings. You’ll be able to tell them by the confused expression on their faces as they whirl around in place looking high and low for god knows what. One particular woman, going up the wrong side of the stairwell, managed to cause a major traffic jam. This middle-aged woman, god love her, was straining to gallantly negotiate the final five stair treads to the top. Once she reached the 2nd floor riser, the crowd blew past her, nearly sweeping her aside like a river breaking through a levee. I’m still puzzled why she didn’t take the elevator—while I commend her spunk, mixing in a little aerobic exercise into her shopping day, this stairwell during a shopping rush hour may not have been the most appropriate locale for her newfound fitness regimen.
Fortunately for me, the location of the cards and gazetteer were in the same department and amazingly, not heavily populated. I quickly gathered my items and dashed for the first floor registers. I was amazed that there were only three people in the queuing area waiting for a cashier. Before I knew it, my items were bagged, my gift certificate purchased and in less than 30 minutes, I was back out to the parking lot where my vacated spot was quickly snatched by a car sitting five deep in the developing waiting line.
I was now bitten by the Christmas shopping bug. Infused with newfound confidence that I could do this, I was off to the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance book sale and author signing at The Portland Public Market.
If one has to do any shopping, this is the place to do it. The patrons have a more relaxed pace. I envision that this is how people may have shopped when open air markets and similar venues were part and parcel of urban landscapes. While there has been a trend recently to bring back the public market concept, many are gentrified and dressed up and lack a certain gritty authenticity of the markets of days gone by. Yet, even in their yuppified state, these offer a welcome respite from the sterile environs of the local mall, filled with corporate Christmas cheer and numbing holiday muzak.
I had a wonderful conversation with genial Maine writer and poet, Richard Foerster. As someone given more to writing prose than poetry, I was interested in his thoughts on the difference between the two. Like many writers, he enjoyed discussing his craft and sharing insights that I know will prove invaluable to me as I continue my life as a writer. I purchased Double Going, a book of his poems about coming to terms with family and the dynamics involved with that. Foerster graciously signed my book, and I was off to visit the downstairs vendor area of the market. It was here that I met a sausage-maker from my home town of Lisbon Falls. We talked about his craft, small town life and my newly-made sauerkraut curing in my basement. I promised to stop by and drop off a sample in the next few weeks.
It was now time to dash home and grab my gear and lunch and head off to work my eight hours on the telephones. The evening went well and I even got to go home early because our call volumes were down.
Friday, December 03, 2004
Small town America
I had my only day off yesterday that I’ll have for the next 10 days at my still to be unnamed catalog retailer where I’m working for Christmas. In the morning, I interviewed a former semi-pro and town team player from my former hometown, for my book, When Towns Had Teams.
I spent the morning with Stan Doughty, who played local baseball for 23 years. Doughty had been a tremendous player, who I got to see play when he was nearing the end of his playing career. Even at the age of 38, he was still a formidable hitter. Doughty was a high school teacher of mine at Lisbon High School, as well as being my athletic director for four years. Prior to my entering high school, he had coached the baseball team at Lisbon for 20 years. I remember advice he gave me when I was a 15 year old pitcher, playing for him during my first summer of American Legion baseball. I was a tall, lanky pitcher, but got the idea I could be cute with hitters and drop down on the side to righties. He told me that with my 6’4” height, I should come straight over the top. He obviously knew what he was talking about as I went on to win 20 games in my high school career with only one loss.
Each interview I’ve done has revealed new information about town team baseball. I’ve now spoken with over 20 various players from a by-gone era for my book. I feel very privileged that they’ve felt comfortable enough with me to open up and talk about an important, but often neglected part of their lives. I’m looking forward to being able to get this book out to people, as I think readers are going to be surprised and intrigued by the baseball that once existed in Maine’s various communities.
In the afternoon, my wife and I drove to the quaint little town of Damariscotta. This town, located on the Damariscotta River, which flows into the Atlantic, is bordered by the Great Salt Bay, a thriving wetland habitat that is unique to Maine. With its vibrant Main Street, including one of Maine’s best libraries and even a movie theater, the town is a great place to spend an afternoon enjoying a true small town. What’s nice about downtown is the number of locally-owned stores that this town possesses. One of the reasons for the vitality of some of the Midcoast downtowns like Bath, Damariscotta and Belfast is the lack of Wal-Mart stores in this area of the state. All three of these towns also have an old-fashioned department store that is owned by a Maine family. The Reny’s stores are fixtures in many of the more vibrant local downtown shopping areas. I am reminded of my youth when I go into one of the Reny’s stores, as department stores were part of the memories I have of growing up in the 1960’s and early 1970’s in Maine. The last few years, my wife and I have decided to forsake the malls and chain stores and have done our Christmas shopping in Bath, with its many great shops and stores, which also includes a Reny’s Department Store.
Probably the best part of my day was visiting Maine Coast Book Shop. With its welcoming, friendly atmosphere, large assortment of books, including many Maine writers, as well as a great café, it is one of the main attractions in downtown Damariscotta. An independent bookstore that’s been part of the downtown for over 30 years, the staff are readers and writers themselves. As I was perusing the Maine author’s section of the store, the store's manager asked if I needed assistance. I told her I was looking at Maine books to get some ideas of the various publishers publishing books in the state. I told her I was in the process of writing my first book. She happened to have her own book on the shelves in front of me. The Cows Are Out! Two Decades on a Maine Dairy Farm by Trudy Chambers Price is a wonderful book about her 23 years on a Maine dairy farm. Capturing the never-ending work involved in farming, as well as the simple pleasures of life, it’s a great book for anyone wanting to know about Maine outside of yuppie enclaves like Portland or shopping ghettos like the Maine Mall or Freeport.
Price was very interested in my book and gave me some welcome advice regarding publishing. She told me she has been very happy with her publisher, Islandport Press. This is Price’s first book and it has sold out its first printing of 2,500 books in less than a year. It’s set to go to a second printing, which is excellent for a regional book.
Last night, I spent a couple of hours reading from my newly purchased book and found it so poignant and evocative. Dairy farming, like fishing, logging and other rural economic lifelines, is dying out in Maine. Reading Price’s book made me realize the special nature of life in rural America and how it’s all being swallowed up by our hyper-consumerism that is propelled by the corporate machine.
While places like Damariscotta still exist, I’m going to take advantage of visits to them in order to maintain my sanity in an increasingly insane world. Since I still haven’t perfected my time machine, I’ll settle for the next best thing—visiting people and places unspoiled by box stores, malls and rampant commercialization.
I spent the morning with Stan Doughty, who played local baseball for 23 years. Doughty had been a tremendous player, who I got to see play when he was nearing the end of his playing career. Even at the age of 38, he was still a formidable hitter. Doughty was a high school teacher of mine at Lisbon High School, as well as being my athletic director for four years. Prior to my entering high school, he had coached the baseball team at Lisbon for 20 years. I remember advice he gave me when I was a 15 year old pitcher, playing for him during my first summer of American Legion baseball. I was a tall, lanky pitcher, but got the idea I could be cute with hitters and drop down on the side to righties. He told me that with my 6’4” height, I should come straight over the top. He obviously knew what he was talking about as I went on to win 20 games in my high school career with only one loss.
Each interview I’ve done has revealed new information about town team baseball. I’ve now spoken with over 20 various players from a by-gone era for my book. I feel very privileged that they’ve felt comfortable enough with me to open up and talk about an important, but often neglected part of their lives. I’m looking forward to being able to get this book out to people, as I think readers are going to be surprised and intrigued by the baseball that once existed in Maine’s various communities.
In the afternoon, my wife and I drove to the quaint little town of Damariscotta. This town, located on the Damariscotta River, which flows into the Atlantic, is bordered by the Great Salt Bay, a thriving wetland habitat that is unique to Maine. With its vibrant Main Street, including one of Maine’s best libraries and even a movie theater, the town is a great place to spend an afternoon enjoying a true small town. What’s nice about downtown is the number of locally-owned stores that this town possesses. One of the reasons for the vitality of some of the Midcoast downtowns like Bath, Damariscotta and Belfast is the lack of Wal-Mart stores in this area of the state. All three of these towns also have an old-fashioned department store that is owned by a Maine family. The Reny’s stores are fixtures in many of the more vibrant local downtown shopping areas. I am reminded of my youth when I go into one of the Reny’s stores, as department stores were part of the memories I have of growing up in the 1960’s and early 1970’s in Maine. The last few years, my wife and I have decided to forsake the malls and chain stores and have done our Christmas shopping in Bath, with its many great shops and stores, which also includes a Reny’s Department Store.
Probably the best part of my day was visiting Maine Coast Book Shop. With its welcoming, friendly atmosphere, large assortment of books, including many Maine writers, as well as a great café, it is one of the main attractions in downtown Damariscotta. An independent bookstore that’s been part of the downtown for over 30 years, the staff are readers and writers themselves. As I was perusing the Maine author’s section of the store, the store's manager asked if I needed assistance. I told her I was looking at Maine books to get some ideas of the various publishers publishing books in the state. I told her I was in the process of writing my first book. She happened to have her own book on the shelves in front of me. The Cows Are Out! Two Decades on a Maine Dairy Farm by Trudy Chambers Price is a wonderful book about her 23 years on a Maine dairy farm. Capturing the never-ending work involved in farming, as well as the simple pleasures of life, it’s a great book for anyone wanting to know about Maine outside of yuppie enclaves like Portland or shopping ghettos like the Maine Mall or Freeport.
Price was very interested in my book and gave me some welcome advice regarding publishing. She told me she has been very happy with her publisher, Islandport Press. This is Price’s first book and it has sold out its first printing of 2,500 books in less than a year. It’s set to go to a second printing, which is excellent for a regional book.
Last night, I spent a couple of hours reading from my newly purchased book and found it so poignant and evocative. Dairy farming, like fishing, logging and other rural economic lifelines, is dying out in Maine. Reading Price’s book made me realize the special nature of life in rural America and how it’s all being swallowed up by our hyper-consumerism that is propelled by the corporate machine.
While places like Damariscotta still exist, I’m going to take advantage of visits to them in order to maintain my sanity in an increasingly insane world. Since I still haven’t perfected my time machine, I’ll settle for the next best thing—visiting people and places unspoiled by box stores, malls and rampant commercialization.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Blogging here; blogging there
One of the problems of having two blogs is duplication. While most of what I'm writing about on Words Matter is different than what I write about at my website, occasionally there will be some overlap. Today is an example of that.
Last night, while driving home from my shift on the phones at an unnamed catalog retailer, I caught NPR's Marketplace segment on a visionary program instituted by a CEO. While I'm often critical of the business community in their lack of concern for people over profits, this segment illustrated a concept that I've held onto, despite being told it doesn't hold true any longer--that you can still treat people fairly and with respect, while being profitable.
If y'all would be so kind and scoot over to my blog at my website, I'd be forever grateful. That will save me from double-blogging on this subject.
Last night, while driving home from my shift on the phones at an unnamed catalog retailer, I caught NPR's Marketplace segment on a visionary program instituted by a CEO. While I'm often critical of the business community in their lack of concern for people over profits, this segment illustrated a concept that I've held onto, despite being told it doesn't hold true any longer--that you can still treat people fairly and with respect, while being profitable.
If y'all would be so kind and scoot over to my blog at my website, I'd be forever grateful. That will save me from double-blogging on this subject.
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