This bit of memoir… has a lot in it. Content warning for capitalism and… I wish this were a lie… auto-erotic bestiality.
The first time I ever asked for a raise, I was immediately fired.
I got the job through a reference from my older sister’s friend. Babysitting, but this one was going to be 40 hours a week, all summer long. $1.50 an hour, which wasn’t the going rate in 1985 (one of my friends got $5 an hour for babysitting her own siblings!) but was more than I’d ever made before since I charged $1 an hour to the various people I babysat for. I was prim and attentive through the interview, and relieved when they agreed to hire me.
There were four kids, all under ten, one in diapers, three dogs, and a pet racoon named Rocky. The house was pure chaos and full of fleas, and I spent the first day just chasing after the kids, righting the messes they made. I kept having to come back to the crying baby, and it felt like there were eighty kids.
When the parents got home, I thought they’d be delighted to find the house in the same state they left it. No, they stared, aghast, like they had never seen such a mess. “There are dishes in the sink.”
“Yes, I made the kids spaghetti-o’s for lunch.”
Then an angry shout from the mom, “This place is a mess!”
It looked exactly how it was when I got there? What was she seeing? “I… I picked up after the kids.”
“No, we agreed you would CLEAN while you watched the kids. I expect the house CLEANER than you found it.” She gestured at a basket of laundry I hadn’t even considered touching. Had I really said I’d keep house?
“It’s just… the kids, it’s all I can do to keep up with them!”
“Kick them out of the house while you clean.”
I said okay, and I would.
The family used those white Correlle glass dishes, the kind with a line of green flowers on them. The thing was, the outsides of the bowls and the backs of the dishes were caked with grime to a uniform orange-brown. I’d never seen anything like it. They only ever cleaned their insides. I was horrified and scrubbed most of the next day to get them back to looking like civilized dishes, dutifully kicking the kids out so I could do this, though of course I still had the baby.
The darn kids would NOT stay outside.
The kids then showed me that they had trained the raccoon to fellate himself if they assisted by curling his body in their arms. The raccoon seemed quite happy with this, but I was horrified and chased them away from him and pulled Rocky off himself.
It was exhausting, but I managed to put away the laundry, pick up the living room, and keep the children (mostly) away from Rocky. When the couple returned, I proudly showed them the clean sink, the dishes of the day and those from previous days all done. The response?
“Look at this backyard! Toys everywhere! What are we paying you for?”
The husband insisted on driving me home, even though my house was only a block away and I begged every time for him to let me walk. He didn’t touch me or anything, but there was something about him that made me deeply uncomfortable. I hated every second of being in the car with him, like the air was oily. I admit this might just have been me, not being used to being alone with a strange man in a car. They didn’t care that I walked to their house every dawn?
So then I had to mind the backyard and the house and the dishes and the laundry and the baby and the raccoon and the dogs. Though the house was marginally cleaner than it had been, every day, I was told it wasn’t good enough.
After the week, I was exhausted. I hoped for a big check, because they’d been late home almost every day, and I’d been early every morning.
The husband handed me a check for $50 as I exited his car Friday, which was a lot of money for me and would be going straight into my college fund. Still, I had a hard time believing it was worth all the work. Especially when it should have been at least $60. I don’t remember why it was short, something about how they’d make it up in the next check, or perhaps because I hadn’t cleaned enough.
I begged my sister Grace to come and endure the struggle with me. I asked the couple if it was okay if my sister alternated days with me. They agreed easily, and Grace liked the whole “money” thing. We started alternating days, Grace and I. The couple didn’t mind. We would split the money, and this way one of us could recover while the other got exhausted.
One day, the kids gushed to their parents about Grace drawing their pictures. (A clever ploy learned from our father to keep kids quiet for a minute or two.)
“Can you draw a ballerina?” The mother asked. The lone daughter was a big ballerina fan. Grace quickly sketched two ballerinas, one alone, one with a male partner.
“We’ll pay you $20 to paint that on our daughter’s bedroom walls! The couple here, the single one there.” Another high school kid, a boy, was going to be painting the Ninja Turtles in the boys’ room. (I suspect they were going to pay him more.)
Grace was very excited to have her first paid art commission. The next day, she came in the afternoon while I was working and started drawing on the walls. At least this made the two oldest kids fascinated, and they watched (bothered) Grace throughout her work, so I finally got the upstairs vacuumed.
Three to four weeks passed, the ballerinas took shape, and though things were getting easier with Grace helping and the house being in a better starting condition due to our cleaning, the smaller-than-expected checks and stilted, creepy rides home continued. And “easier” was still “harder than all my previous babysitting jobs, combined.” I wanted desperately to quit. So did Grace.
“Don’t quit,” our best friend said, “ask for a raise. You deserve it. You’ve been doing a lot, and they have to know they’re under-paying you. I get two dollars for babysitting Scotty, and that’s just one kid.”
Yeah, I thought. I should ask for a raise. I had another babysitting gig by this time, that was much lighter, two well-behaved, older kids, and that lady also paid $1.50 an hour. When I cleaned for her, it was also $1.50 an hour, when she was home to watch the kids! Surely the heavier work load was worth $2 an hour? What was fifty cents? And despite the squalor, these people weren’t poor. They had a fancy entertainment system and air-conditioning. Both parents worked (obviously) and they had a very shiny new truck.
Grace and I talked it over, and agreed a raise was needed, but Grace was afraid to ask.
The next time the parents came home, I asked for the raise. “If you don’t mind, considering how much work is involved, which is more than I anticipated when I agreed to this job, I’d like a raise to two dollars an hour, for me and for Grace.”
The response … was not what I expected at all. I figured either a yes or a no, gosh, we can’t afford it. Instead the mother gasped in horror, “How DARE YOU. After EVERYTHING we did for you!”
Did… for me?? “Um… I mean, it’s okay if it’s a no, I just thought I’d ask.”
“My husband saw a dress in the store, did you know that? A NEW dress, expensive, and he was going to buy it for you! But now, forget it. We don’t need an UNGRATEFUL person like you. You people! You’re what’s wrong with this country.”
I felt a stab of want. I loved dresses, and never got new ones. But also… us people? We lived a block apart! I was alarmed at this sudden implication that I was not the same as them, that I was hired out of charity?
“Your sister can come back and finish the painting,” she added.
The children were devastated, suddenly sweet, rushing to hug me. “Noooo! We love Grace and Marie! They’re the best babysitters ever!”
They had to be pulled off, and were chastised to “Go to your rooms!” but they huddled together on the stairs, watching.
“I’d like to walk home,” I said, as the husband headed to the door.
He looked to his wife, who said, “You SHOULD. You don’t deserve a ride.”
I hid my smile as I held my head high and walked out the door. It was my first time being fired, but it felt like being released from prison.
When I got home, I was worried about breaking the news to Grace. I’d lost her a job! Possibly jeopardized her first paid art commission. It was almost finished, too! “I’m so sorry,” I said. “But you can finish the ballerinas?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m sad… but also relieved? I’m not going back and finishing that mural.”
They never gave her the $20. They never “made up” the short checks, nor did they pay for the days worked that week before the firing. I felt guilty, mortified. We really needed that money, for food and for the college fund.
But, the summer went on, and we babysat other kids who did not have raccoons and I got another cleaning gig for a woman with asthma whose house was immaculate and all I had to do was vacuum and dust twice a week, for $2 an hour (HA!) I read paperbacks and rode my bike to the beach and ultimately, all that job did was teach me that you do not owe your employer more than you are willing to give. No matter what you do, they will feel entitled to more.
