Hand to mouth Living in bootstrap America

Linda Tirado

Book - 2014

"I've been waiting for this book for a long time. Well, not this book, because I never imagined that the book I was waiting for would be so devastatingly smart and funny, so consistently entertaining and unflinchingly on target. In fact, I would like to have written it myself - if, that is, I had lived Linda Tirado's life and extracted all the hard lessons she has learned. I am the author of Nickel and Dimed, which tells the story of my own brief attempt, as a semi-undercover journalist, to survive on low-wage retail and service jobs. Tirado is the real thing." -from the foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed We in America have certain ideas of what it means to be poor. Lind...a Tirado, in her signature brutally honest yet personable voice, takes all of these preconceived notions and smashes them to bits. She articulates not only what it is to be working poor in America (yes, you can be poor and live in a house and have a job, even two), but what poverty is truly like-on all levels. In her thought-provoking voice, Tirado discusses how she went from lower-middle class, to sometimes middle class, to poor and everything in between, and in doing so reveals why "poor people don't always behave the way middle-class America thinks they should." --

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Subjects
Published
New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA) 2014.
Language
English
Main Author
Linda Tirado (-)
Physical Description
xxiv, 195 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9780399171987
  • Foreword
  • Introduction
  • 1. It Takes Money to Make Money
  • 2. You Get What You Pay For
  • 3. You Can't Pay a Doctor in Chickens Anymore
  • 4. I'm Not Angry So Much as I'm Really Tired
  • 5. I've Got Way Bigger Problems Than a Spinach Salad Can Solve
  • 6. This Part Is About Sex
  • 7. We Do Not Have Babies for Welfare Money
  • 8. Poverty Is Fucking Expensive
  • 9. Being Poor Isn't a Crime-It Just Feels Like It
  • 10. An Open Letter to Rich People
  • Afterword
  • Acknowledgments
Review by New York Times Review

THE FACTORY MANAGER of the Landmark Plastic Company in Akron, Ohio, once told me that he was so concerned about high turnover among workers that he began holding exit interviews to find out why they were leaving. The answers surprised him. It wasn't the meager pay, the noise, the mind-numbing assembly lines or the mist of plastic dust in the air. Instead, most employees complained "that they didn't feel needed, necessary or wanted," the manager reported, and were treated like "just another body." Linda Tirado will not be amazed to read this little anecdote, because the craving for personal dignity is a force that drives her caustic commentary, "Hand to Mouth." In the low-wage jobs where she has worked, bosses don't ask subordinates what they think. Humiliation is the rule. "Poor people" are dehumanized by "rich people" wielding contempt and hypocritical moral judgments across a stark divide. The society she portrays is bipolar, with practically nobody between wealth and destitution. This is a caricature, of course, but if you go along with her, as you do with a political cartoonist or a stand-up comedian, you will learn a lot about life at the bottom of America. She puts her anger to good use. Few working poor have the luxury of indignation. Enervated by swing shifts, cash shortfalls and too little sleep, they are badgered by the American creed that anyone who works hard can prosper, and many internalize the belief that those who don't prosper are themselves to blame. Not Tirado. She is refreshingly infuriated. She acknowledges her faults, but she hones a constructive resentment to cut through her chronic depression, sharpen her wit and tune her X-ray vision into the disparities of power and money. She maps the chain reactions that lead families from one setback to another. It's rare to hear directly from the poor. Usually their voices are filtered through journalists or activists. So Tirado's raw clarity is startling. It's nice to imagine her ranting to a class of stunned M.B.A. candidates who are preparing to employ people like her; they would learn how denying dignity corrodes attitudes toward work and authority. In her world, medical practitioners are condescending and preachy, caseworkers are cruelly imperious, government systems are Kafkaesque and the downward spiral at the workplace is defeating. "I wouldn't even mind the degradations of my work life so much if the privileged and powerful were honest about it," she writes. "Instead, we're told to work harder and be grateful we have jobs, food and a roof over our heads.... We are. But in exchange for all that work we're doing, and all our miserable work conditions, we're not allowed to demand anything in return. No sense of accomplishment, or respect from above or job security. We are expected not to feel entitled to these things." Some workers have to ask permission to use the bathroom. Some are searched as they leave for home. Tirado was expected to change shifts on such short notice in one part-time position that she couldn't hold a second job. "The result of all of this? I just give up caring about work," she writes. "I lose the energy, the bounce, the willingness. I'll perform as directed, but no more than that. I've rarely had a boss who gave me any indication that he valued me more highly than my uniform - we were that interchangeable - so I don't go out of my way for my bosses either. The problem I have isn't just being undervalued - it's that it feels as though people go out of their way to make sure you know how useless you are." Mental engagement seems unwelcome by management. "Nobody is interested in our thoughts, opinions or the contributions we might be able to make - they want robots." Yet customers are annoyed when workers "zombie out to survive," she notes. "Next time you see someone being 'sullen' or 'rude,' try being nice to them. It's likely you'll be the first person to do so in hours. Alternatively, ask them an intelligent question. I used to come alive when someone legitimately wanted to know what I'd recommend." Stress over money and the exhaustion of working multiple jobs aren't "great for higher cognitive activity," Tirado notes, leaving her hungry for intellectual stimulation. "I stopped thinking in higher concepts, gradually. I feel stupid when I realize how long it's been since I thought about anything beyond what I had to get through to keep everything moving along: no philosophy, no music, no literature. We know we're not at capacity, and it rankles." There are coping mechanisms. Some like booze and drugs. She likes sex and smoking. "The chemical rush of sex is a great way to forget about your problems for a little while," she says, and "sex is completely free." Smoking is harmful, she concedes, but "it's a stimulant. When I am too tired to walk one more step, I can smoke and go for another hour.... I feel a little better, just for a minute." As for the self-righteous rich, "You guys look pretty ridiculous talking about our drug and alcohol use while swanky rehab centers are doing a thriving business," Tirado writes in an "open letter to rich people" toward the end of her book. She delights in busting stereotypes of the poor with sassy, profane invective, and humor that sometimes works. It would be fun to watch her debate Representative Paul Ryan, who leads the Republicans' campaign to blame the victims of poverty. She does her own stereotyping, though - of the "rich" as a vast class of nonpoor with titanium strollers, tutors for their 3-year-olds and opinions that seem straight out of Fox News. So much obscenity laces the book that it won't be assigned by high school teachers worried about prudish parents, and that's a loss. Her favorite adjectives and adverbs may fit into locker-room conversation, but in print, after many repetitions, they read like casual substitutes for a well-crafted phrase. Tirado's credibility would have been helped by a coherent paragraph or two of autobiography instead of the disjointed fragments scattered throughout the text. Once assembled, they form a typical mosaic of someone moving in and out of poverty - falling from a middle-class childhood, dropping out of college, doing at least one stint as a manager of a fast-food restaurant and receiving belated family help to buy a house, but also depending at times on food stamps and Medicaid as her husband, an Iraq veteran, failed to get a promised V.A. stipend. After an online essay she wrote went viral last year and she raised over $60,000 on the web, conservative pundits seized on bits of her story to accuse her of not being truly poor. Not perpetually poor would be more accurate, but that doesn't disqualify her as a participant-observer. Stepping back at times gives her perspective for acute insights and pleas for empathy. "There are poor and working-class people everywhere, guys," she writes in her afterword. "You can just have a conversation with one, like a real human being. Give it a try. You'll like it." 'It feels as though people go out of their way to make sure you know how useless you are/ DAVID K. SHIPLER is the author of "The Working Poor: Invisible in America." His latest book, "Freedom of Speech: Mightier Than the Sword," will be published in the spring.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 21, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Tirado tells it like it is to be poor as are millions of Americans and it's devastating. Sometimes she uses rough language, but her restraint is remarkable, given the life she describes. As an often part-time worker with no benefits, she rarely has the medical and dental benefits many people take for granted, so her teeth are bad, her health shaky, and she is often forced to walk to the one, two, or three jobs she holds down. Here, as for the many poor in the U.S., her efforts are not to make ends meet but to decide which bill not to pay and when to find time to sleep. Tirado isn't seeking pity, though her story, the story of so many like her, is downright piteous. Companies cut hours to avoid paying benefits, those paid dimes more than the minimum wage aren't counted as minimum-wage workers, and the social workers tasked with assisting those who need help are also often underpaid and overworked. That Tirado hasn't yet collapsed is testament to her courage and ability to endure the nearly unbearable consequences of hard luck, hard times, and bad laws. Enthralling and horrifying, this should be required reading for policymakers.--Kinney, Eloise Copyright 2014 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this gripping memoir, Tirado, author of the online essay "Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, Poverty Thoughts," stands before us, her bad habits (swearing, smoking) and bad decisions fully on display, to say that even with the best-laid plans, poverty can happen to anyone. When red tape and a summer storm left her and her husband without a home and with nearly nothing to their names, the couple slid into the demoralizing treadmill that is poverty in America. With critical insight and palpable fury, Tirado tears down common assumptions and superior attitudes about the working poor, from entitlement issues to finance management, and rounds it out with some hard truths about the lack of opportunities for mobility, from the inability to survive an unpaid internship to the full-body impact of commuting an hour or more every day on foot. Articulate, insightful, and saturated with life experience, Tirado's story is not unlike millions of others in America, but her strong voice has the opportunity to bring that story to new ears. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Review by Library Journal Review

Tirado has spent her adult life as part of that working poor and initially gained widespread media attention for her defiant justification of smoking, which provides a relatively cheap high. She explains why so many poor people don't vote (because the polls are not convenient and you're tired after two eight-hour shifts), describes what it's like to face a long walk home because your car broke down and buses don't run to your neighborhood, and explains that many poor people don't seek medical attention because they don't have insurance and don't have time to find or travel to free clinics. The message is that being poor is hard work and that you have to be smart to survive in poverty. Her story is primarily descriptive, and she frequently qualifies her remarks by saying that she speaks only from her own experience and does not talk for others. She makes some prescriptive recommendations, both political and procedural, and reminds listeners to treat poor people with courtesy and dignity. VERDICT Recommended for listeners who are concerned about the plight of the poor in America. ["Readers of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed and online followers of Tirado may find the author's debut book of interest," read the review of the Amy Einhorn: Putnam hc, LJ 10/1/14.]-Nann Blaine Hilyard, formerly with Zion-Benton P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A challenged mom on welfare gets personal. Having once lived in a weekly motel, Tirado responded to an Internet thread about what some perceive as poor people's questionable choices. Her raw, defeatist perspective went viral and fuels much of this book's emotional reflections on "trying to get back to the starting line" after years subsisting at the poverty level. Resisting the temptation to cast blame on capitalism or random stratification, Tirado attributes her situation to "a mix of my own decisions and some seriously bad luck" and describes the freak rainstorm that flooded and destroyed the contents of her apartment while she was pregnant. Once evicted, things spiraled downward. To live, Tirado embarked on a physically exhaustive, "soul-killing" three-job routine requiring her to shuttle (for miles on foot) from one low-wage, part-time job to the next. The jobs she did qualify for were undercompensated and harmful: a fry cook at a fast-food restaurant or tending bar for a boss who expected sexual favors in exchange for prime shifts. As someone who has lived in the trenches of desperation, Tirado explains that being poor is difficult not just in attempting to scrape by, but also in processing the cultural perception and resultant condescension and degradation from unsympathetic onlookers. Her tone oscillates from educative and resilient, when discussing access to preventive medical care and discount food, to heatedly defensive, as when justifying a poor person's bad work attitude as a "survival mechanism" or the moral compass of someone who is penniless yet smokes, drinks and drives uninsured. Tirado's raw reportage offers solidarity for those on the front lines of hardship yet issues a cautionary forewarning to the critical: "Poverty is a potential outcome for all of us." Outspoken and vindictive, Tirado embodies the cyclical vortex of today's struggle to survive. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.