December 15, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Books on the poor, we will always have with us
A while back I made a qualified recommendation of David Shipler's The Working Poor in the course of (unqualified-ly) telling you to go read Jason DeParle's American Dream right now. Steven Malanga has a rather harsher take on it in his review of books about the working poor.
Mr Malanga's review is pretty one sided, but it makes some important points. In particular, it scores on Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, which I thought offered occasional insight into the lives of the working poor, but found almost unreadable because of its dripping, venomous contempt for the middle class (and its paternalistic contempt for her working class co-workers, whom she repeatedly implies are too stupid or deluded to understand that THEY'RE BEING BRUTALLY EXPLOITED AND THEIR LIVES ARE WORTHLESS!). There was also too much pseudo-intellectual Freudian interpretation of perfectly ordinary practices, supposedly showing the subtle, cruel underbelly of employers. Wal-Mart's pre-employment tests aren't just an attempt to protect the store from thieves and erratic workers, or even a useless and idiotic ritual designed by managers who ought to know better; they're a plot to make the worker feel powerless and dominated by The Oppressor. Merry Maids doesn't have people scrub the floor on their hands and knees because that gets the floor cleaner (she quotes an "expert" who says it doesn't); it's because nasty middle class women like to see their house cleaners in a submissive posture.
(Here, she happens to have entered on two of my areas of expertise: floor cleaning, and women who employ house cleaners. Though Ms Ehrenreich claims to be a house cleaner of old repute, she is clearly deficient in her floor knowlege; no one who has ever scrubbed their floor on their hands and knees would seriously entertain the idea that one can do just as good a job with a mop--there's simply no serious comparison. My mother is both a knee-scrubber, and an employer of cleaning professionals. The cleaning lady does her floors with a mop. But when my mother cleans, it's with a bucket and a sponge.)
Malanga's review is justifiably scathing. I urge you to check it out right now.
Posted by Jane Galt at December 15, 2004 11:00 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksJane Galt wrote:
>Though Ms Ehrenreich claims to be a house cleaner
> of old repute, she is clearly deficient in her floor
> knowlege; no one who has ever scrubbed their floor
> on their hands and knees would seriously entertain
> the idea that one can do just as good a job with
> a mop--there's simply no serious comparison.
Is this some kind of "girl thing"?
As a single guy who's scrubbed more than one floor in his life, even briefly professionally in my mipspent youth, I've always found results more satisfactory both in terms of comfort and results, to use (depending on the floor):
A mop, or a stiff brush with a long handle like a mop, or (best) an electro-mechanical device that does the heavy scrubbing. I'll admit to occasional squating or kneeling to use a paint scraper tool on dessicated lasagne or the like. But that's the exception, not the rule.
I note that commercial janitorial (as opposed to "maid") services typically opt for the electromechanical contrivances, and we can see the sparkling results in most well maintained commercial establishments.
I've never understood the proclivity to choose backache, sore knees and wimpy soap when Gawd gave us electricity, motors, durable synthetic brushes, and TSP.
I loved this assertion, from one of Ehrenreich's previous works...
"There is nothing ennobling about being forced to please an employer to feed one's children".
That someone this obtuse is in possession of a degree from an intitution of higher learning says everything one needs to know about the education establishment. Unless one advocates the economic and political ethics of Ghenghis Khan, there really is no getting around the paradigm of pleasing somebody to get what one needs. One better find it enobling to please somebody, in order to get the material goods that one needs, unless one wishes to consign the human race to either constant misery or hideous violence, if not both.
It is laughable that this person adopts a superior tone towards any organism that functions at a higher level than a house pet. Wait, that really isn't true...house pets, even cats, understand at some level that they must provide something that is valued by human beings. I apologize to all the Rovers and Tabbys for the slander.
As one who has done his share of floor scrubbing, I agree that hands and knees is the superior method, hands down! :)
Machine scrubbers work just as well on linoleum tile floors, but it has to be done just right. First, use mop and cleaning solution to remove surface dirt. Second, use cleaning solution with brush on machine to remove most of the old wax. Third, use very coarse steel wool, like a steel Tuffy, on the bottom of the machine brush. Using three of them at the same time balances the spinning machine brush. This removes what wax wasn't removed from the first washing step. Fourth, use cleaning solution and mop to clean up any residue remaining. Fifth, use clean water and clean mop to rinse. Now, and only now, can you apply a fresh coat of wax. After wax dries, buff with machine buffer.
(Can you tell I was once a Marine assigned to sea duty?)
I would never use a machine to clean hardwood floors.
Well, shoot. If Ehrenreich was going to disparage an effective way of doing a household chore, why couldn't she choose de-cat-hairing a velveteen sofa? I could do something with that information.
The Malanga review is something else. I second Jane's recommendation.
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