60 Words, 120 Degrees
Gusts of hot wind swept up the block as I opened the door and stepped into a bath of air-conditioning. The placard at 611 S. Catalina bore the names of companies you might think existed only in the Yellow Pages: Links & Loops, Metrocon Co., Prime Consulting, Weddings in Mexico—the hidden cogs in California’s economy.
Trusting the number over the name, I walked into #405—Portobello Plus Management—15 minutes before the end of an open call for interviews at “Y General Repairs.” Across the room, a woman in her thirties smiled at me over a vase of bamboo shoots and a generic corporate calendar of countryside photographs sitting on her desk. I was applying to work as a ‘roofing helper,’ but I felt suddenly underdressed. “Dont worry, ” she said, assuring me I’d found the right company. “You won’t be dressed nicely while you’re working.”
The suite was a large box with peach-colored walls staffed by an eclectic group who shuffled about carrying printers and arguing about photocopying charges in varied accents. It seemed like the place had come together in the same time frame and logistical hubbub as a campaign office, only without the same resources or unity of purpose.
Before me, a wire-thin woman criss-crossed the mismatched stripes of carpet with the expressiveness and measured steps of a wind-up doll. After a few minutes, I was called into a back room with two refrigerators and a microwave where there was an open seat across from a humongous man with white hair. I took it and looked back at the open door where a print-out sign called “Attention All Employees: No one here is fortunate enough to have a maid or their wife working here so clean up after yourself if you use the refrigerator, sink, or microwave.”
The gentleman who brought me in sat at the end of the table looking over my application with a furrowed brow. With his black hair slicked back and shirtsleeves rolled up, Narin looked like a Bollywood Robert Deniro. For several minutes, no one spoke. Then Narin looked up from the papers and said “Do you have any experience roofing in the United States?” I had included on my application the only actual roofing experience I had—somewhat inflated at that—of putting a roof several rooms of the farmhouse where I lived in Reunion Island last year.
“I’ve only worked with corrugated steel,” I said. “No tar paper, but the skills are the same—hammering something high up while you’re afraid you’re going to fall off.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “24 gauge?”
“Yes.” (What’s 24 gauge?) “I’m a bit confused about the company,” I told him.
“Yes.” I get this all the time, he seemed to say. “We are a property management company. We manage 75 properties in the area—we have over forty handymens. Air-conditioning guys, electrical, plumber, whatnot.
“You know what your work will be? Carrying materials, washing the roof, sweeping the roof for the roofing guy to do the job. Carrying trash out without making mess in hallway, wearing those plastic shoes not to mess the carpet. Four, five stories up.” Narin looked out a window to his right—-“Now, probably 120 degrees up there. Can you handle that?”
I didn’t say no.
“What kind of car do you drive?”
“I don’t have a car; I drive a moped,” I said, though most of the time I drive a bike.
Narin wrote “moped” at the top of the page on the back of my application.
“How far out do you guys work?” I asked.
“Fifty, sixty miles,” he said. “Lancaster, Palmdale. You going to take your moped out there?”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said.
“What happens if you need to get stuff at home Depot? What if the guy is on vacation?” Then, “How much you expect to be paid?”
Here in Los Angeles, I thought aloud, was a chance at unskilled, sweaty, backbreaking work: in a national hub for the unemployed and undocumented, the kind of labor for which millions around the country make less than minimum wage. “Nine bucks an hour?” I ventured—a dollar over California’s hourly minimum.
“I like you,” Narin shot back. “You are good to communicate. You are, get to the point. You have other skills? Can you use a computer?”
“Sure. I can use a computer.”
“How fast can you type?”
“60 words per minute,” I said proudly.
“OK” he said. “Give me some time to look this over.”
