Man At Work

Day Labor Stories, Part 1

originally published June 13, 2007

First, I will ask the rhetorical question, “What is a man with a master’s degree doing up at 4:30 a.m. to prepare to sell his labor at the local labor pool?” The answer is, “What you would be doing if you had to.” This is a reality in America today, and the streets of downtown Athens, GA are no different.

Athens is a town renowned for the intensity of its music culture, as well as the fact that it is home to the University of Georgia, and, as such, styles itself as sophisticated, cosmopolitan and hip. But beyond the gleam of good-looking college kids bopping around town with cell phones glued to their heads, the shadow of poverty clings to the streets of Athens. All that it takes to confirm this statement is a little time at the outdoor seating area of any coffee shop or bar, during which a panhandler will most certainly hit you up for change or a cigarette. The Classic City hosts classic poverty, and much of this poverty is black.

The Labor Pool

At 5:30 a.m., I was at the Pool. Already there were a few cars in the lot. Walking into the unobtrusive one-story building, which looked like a dilapidated one-time dry-cleaning store, I was struck by the plain grimness of it. The walls were aged, chipped, irregular cement block, painted in two broad stripes of blue and white. Informational signs cluttered sections of the wall, explaining payroll policy, defining acceptable on-the-job behavior, and reminding us of the simple logic of the enterprise: “Work Today, Get Paid Today.”

I was groggy, but was getting my sea legs as the iced coffee began to kick in. Having filled out the requisite paperwork the day before, as well as having taken (and passed!) the “are you a violent, dishonest, shiftless, drug-crazed bum?” computerized questionnaire, I took my seat among about 20 other nodding desperadoes, waiting for an assignment. It was clear that gathered here was a good sample of the poorest of Athens’ working poor: mainly black men, but also some whites, ages from approximately 25 to 65, dressed for industrial labor and, for the most part, not yet fully awake.

As dawn broke, the activity in the room began to increase. A few sporadic conversations began. Men got up from their chairs to smoke a cigarette outside, or just moved about to wake themselves up for the day. I heard loud gangster rap from a car stereo and conversation from the outside of the building. I stepped out to see what was going on. Parked close in upon the building, a couple of men sat in a ‘70s LTD, its doors flung open. A couple of others leaned against the wall. The smell of pot was thick in the air. I stood out there for a minute or two, just to see whether there would be any interesting talk. But the talk seemed to stop when I showed up, so I returned inside.

Waiting Game

The dispatcher was a white woman who addressed the men, many of whom she seemed to already know, with a brusque familiarity, an odd blend of hostility and charm. I noticed her scolding people for infractions such as walking off a job early or failing to cooperate with a foreman. Sometimes she fielded questions about payroll discrepancies. I tried to have as little reason to talk with her as possible.

Jobs began to be dispatched and the level of energy in the room once again bumped up a notch. Clearly those receiving assignments were pleased to have beaten the waiting game. In labor pools, it is not uncommon for people to languish two or three hours in a room, waiting for a job that may never materialize. The process of waiting, and the immense wasting of people’s time, is among the commonest and most costly features of being poor. In another labor pool earlier in the week, I spent two and a half hours waiting, along with a couple of other people, and finally left for the day, while they remained, as silent and sullen as they were upon arrival.

A man got up to turn on a small TV set. A chase scene was underway. This was some kind of futuristic James Bond thriller, featuring a sexy, expressionless female combatant with blue hair displaying certain superhuman, perhaps cybernetically enhanced powers. The program’s garishly modern metallic sheen, broadcasting into the washed-out emptiness of our room, made for an appalling contrast.

After our heroine had single-handedly dispatched about a dozen marauding thugs atop a skyscraper (having applied a combination of martial arts and death rays) it was time to laugh. The man sitting to my right found the show as ridiculous as I did. We started talking. He looked to be in his 60s. I noticed a set of drum sticks jutting from his backpack. He was a working musician, and this was his day gig. At once, my sense of alienation lessened. I told him I was a musician, and we traded numbers. I asked him whether he knew a certain singer. He told me he’d done a show with her the night before. What a coincidence!

Before long, his name was called and he got up to get his work ticket. Soon after, I was assigned to another job. I would be joining a crew of four others. We would shovel and rake Georgia red clay within concrete planting areas, which would later receive grass and shrubbery, decoratively setting off the parking lot of a revamped Eastside shopping center. It was the kind of landscaping touch meant to brighten the shopping experience: little hints of nature budding up among the droves of SUVs.

The job would not start for an hour: a blessed reprieve! I could go to some coffee shop, down some more life-giving caffeine, and play a few songs before plunging into the deep end.

Edmund J. Smith

To be continued…