Reaching a Tipping Point

Desperation came to a Subway sandwich today in my small inland city.

The lady in the pink T-shirt was blond and thin and she was yelling.

“I’ve been out in the streets,” she loudly announced to everyone. “I can’t do it anymore.”

The pace of her diatribe was frenetic and mostly directed at two very young Subway Sandwich employees who stared back in disbelief. A man owed her money, she said. She needed a job, she said. She hated politicians and blamed the president for ruining the country, she said. She vowed never to vote again.

As she spoke, one of the workers, a young man no older than 21 reached into the employee tip jar and offered her $2. There was not much in the jar though he may have gotten more through electronic credit/debit card tips.

That brought the lady in pink’s polemic to a brief halt.

“No,” she said. “You’re a kid. I’m old enough to be your mother. I’ll earn it myself.”

I held back tears. After she had gone I pulled out a few quarters and handed them to the young man. I told him admired his gesture.

I suggested maybe she was ill, maybe not. Maybe she was serious, maybe not. What I did know was how she felt. Only recently had I found a job that offered just a couple of hours a day at minimum wage. It wasn’t near enough to survive but I was fortunate to have it, I told him.

“Maybe,” he answered. “But she filled out a job application and she got a quiz given on the back correct so she’s very smart.”

That woman’s words and her actions weigh heavily on me most of the day. The general sense is that things are improving but in my small segment of the world, some of us are sliding backwards.

I had never seen the woman in pink before she burst into the tiny Subway tucked away in a non-descript commercial center and hidden behind auto body shops.

But hers is far from the only tale of woe I’ve heard over the last few weeks.

So far:

·      A relative was laid off

·      A friend was laid off

·      Another friend is facing eviction

·      Another relative found herself desperately short of what she needed to make a home payment

·      Another relative was forced to quit her job and give up meager earnings because the cost of daycare for her two children became too much.

·      Yet another friend is struggling to find full-time work after being laid off earlier this year

Then there is me.

It’s hard to see beyond my own world. Perhaps there are other places where things are going better. But I’m not sure. The unemployment rate in California is 7.3 percent*. In San Bernardino County it’s 8.2 percent*. In Riverside County the rate is 9.2 percent*. In Orange County, where I was born and raised but left because I could not (and cannot) afford rents, it’s 5.4 percent*.

While the lady in pink shook a fist at politicians, I shake my head at corporations. I shake my fist at their protectors, celebrities, elected officials and political activists alike. I’m angry with anyone who says these corporations owe us nothing and that they are not obligated to help anyone, to employ anyone.

They owe me nothing personally. But they owe this country greatly. Some of them have polluted this land, bankrupted smaller business trading in once high paying experienced positions for minimum wage jobs.

Why can’t Walmart or McDonald’s pay their employees? In McDonald’s case, I have to ask myself if it’s because there is a McDonald’s every mile and a half in my region. They have designed a world where their restaurant jobs are the most prevalent. That’s a lot of employees. And when the goal is feed investors piles of money, is it any wonder the salaries are so low.

Where the rest of us land, only the creator knows. I just hope the resolution comes soon enough to save me and my loved ones … and the lady in pink.

(* August 2014 State Statistics.)