Working: What We Do All Day (2023) s01e01 Episode Script
Service Jobs
1
- Hey.
- [receptionist] Morning, President Obama.
- How are you?
- [Obama] I'm doing great.
- Everything been going all right? Hey.
- [worker] Morning.
Morning.
- What's up?
- [office man] What's going on, sir?
[Obama] This has now been my office
for about six years.
Amos basically runs my life.
One of the interesting things
about being President
is you learn to give your life over
to 20-year-olds.
[Obama chuckles]
This is right after I think
my poll numbers started going down.
I was walking on water
and then I fall through the water.
One of my favorites,
a spear that the ancient Hawaiians
used to protect the king.
The Secret Service gave that to me,
mounted, as a birthday present.
The turntable, I've been known
to play my music loud in here,
which I tried not to do in the Oval Office
out of a sense of propriety.
A bunch of other doodads and knickknacks.
Stuff that reminds me
of my work and my own journey.
[exhales]
Okay.
["Sinnerman" by Nina Simone playing]
[Obama] Sometime in college,
I came across this book
called Working by Studs Terkel.
Oh, sinnerman ♪
Where you gonna run to? ♪
[Obama] Which was a chronicle
of people from every walk of life,
and what it was like for them to work.
[Studs Terkel] There is no one way
to begin, it's arbitrary.
But you want to find
that quintessential truth.
The essence of a truth.
[Obama] It was the first time
anyone had really bothered
to ask ordinary people directly,
what work was like for them.
[Terkel] You feel that you're fairly paid?
[worker 1] Uh, I'm underpaid,
but it beats not having a job at all.
[Obama] This is about the time when I
became interested in trying to figure out
what kind of work I was going to do.
All on that day ♪
[worker 2] We tire, we sweat,
we have hangovers.
We have feelings, emotions,
and we're not about to be
placed in the category of a machine.
[Obama] It was the 1970s.
A new era of automation,
global competition,
and offshore manufacturing.
Go to the Devil, the Lord said ♪
[Obama] These huge forces
being felt in people's lives.
With the new profits-obsessed
corporate culture starting to take hold.
I cried, power ♪
[man] It's all about this.
Power ♪
[Obama] Fifty years later, we're in
another moment of explosive change.
Artificial intelligence.
Remote work.
Spiraling inequality.
Well, I run to the river ♪
[Obama] It can be hard
to make sense of where we are,
and where we're going.
What if we pick up Studs' project
for this new moment?
What if we take
three very different places
and three very different industries?
Home care,
tech,
and hospitality.
What if people we might
never ordinarily meet
invited us into their lives,
and told us about their ambitions?
What if we started at the bottom
and worked our way up?
Up come power ♪
Power, Lord ♪
From the service entrance,
all the way to the C-suite.
Power ♪
[Obama] What would it tell us
about how we're connected?
About our own place in the world?
Power, Lord ♪
[automated voice] Stand clear
of the closing doors, please.
["Woman" by Karen O & Danger Mouse plays]
- [Elba] Hi, good morning.
- Morning.
[George] Hi, Elba.
Good morning, George.
Good morning, Catarina.
Can I have my uniform, please?
I'm a woman. what you see ♪
Thank you.
I'm a woman. what you see ♪
I'm a woman. what you see ♪
What you see
Ain't what I be ♪
I'm a woman, I'm a woman
Hey, hey, hey ♪
[manager] Good morning, everyone.
Happy Friday.
[workers] Good morning.
[manager] Today, we have 28 arrivals,
we have 11 checkouts.
VIPs who are arriving today,
we have the mother of the bride
who's getting married this weekend.
The guests in 1612 mentioned that
they didn't sleep as well as they wanted
because they felt
that the mattress was too hard.
So, we found a very soft mattress
and replaced it.
535 prefers non-feathered bedding.
So, last night, they switched
all the pillows and the duvet
to non-feathered alternatives.
That's it for today.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
I'll see you on Monday.
[Elba] Morning, housekeeping.
[unlocks]
Morning, housekeeping.
[doorbell ringing]
Morning, housekeeping.
Good morning, housekeeping.
Morning, housekeeping.
[Elba] I've worked here
at the Pierre for almost 22 years.
When I came here
from the Dominican Republic,
at the beginning it was very hard.
I didn't even talk in English,
it was only Spanish.
[Elba, in Spanish] I didn't know
how to use the vacuum cleaner.
My arms were always bruised.
Because I didn't have any experience.
My daughter actually asked
if they were hitting me.
I told her, "No, it's just from working."
"They aren't mistreating me."
[in English] I wanted to cry.
But you know what?
I didn't have time to clean my tears.
[in Spanish] It usually takes me
30 or 40 minutes to clean each room.
[in English] Fifteen single room,
every day.
Sometimes if you are walking the hallway
and you say, "Good morning,"
people don't respond.
But, you know, I don't pay attention.
They have money.
They dress better than me.
But, you know, they are no better than me.
[doorbell rings]
Morning, housekeeping.
[school bell rings]
[drumming]
[singing along radio] Be my best friend
She's a real bad ♪
Oh!
[singing along] On the dance floor
She had two, three drinks ♪
Now she twerkin'
She throw it out ♪
[Randi sighs]
I'm hanging together by two strings.
I'm not young, but I'm not old.
I have all the time,
but I'm running out of time. [chuckles]
It's time to hunker down and get a sense
of what I'm gonna be doing in life.
In a rural area, it's hard to get work.
You want a job,
but you don't want a job that pays you
little money and works you to the bone.
You work 80 hours a week
and still get paid below minimum.
Or what you think you should get paid.
I thought about going
and working at a car plant,
but I wanted to wake up every day
with some sense of meaning.
And I want to help people.
This job is gonna be new beginning.
I'm always nervous about new beginnings.
[atmospheric music playing]
Hi, Miss Randi, I'm Stephanie Jenkins,
HR Assist with At Home Care.
- We're glad to have you on board
- Thank you for having me.
[Stephanie] We see that you're new
in the home care field.
So, we welcome you to our family.
When we do it, we do it right.
I want to make sure
this is what you want to do.
You deal with the elderly and disabled.
Yes, ma'am.
I feel as though it's not really a job.
Why would you say that?
Because one day it's going to be you.
That's true.
[Randi] You can't look at it like a job.
You gotta look at it, like,
how you want to be cared for.
[Stephanie] You still see it as a job,
but get paid.
You get paid to do it.
[Stephanie] You get paid to do your job.
I'm gonna tell you your duties.
Cook, clean the kitchen.
You run errands for the client.
Bathing, shaving, shampoo hair, vacuum.
We sweep.
Some are bedridden.
Some you may have to turn.
You may have to change diapers.
Medicaid is how we get paid.
So you have to have
a nationwide background check.
You have to have CPR, first aid.
We can call you in any time
to do a drug test.
You being a beginner,
you'll start out at $9 an hour.
Are you satisfied with that?
[playful music]
[woman] I would like
to welcome you to our team.
We are looking for people
who are committed
to providing an excellent service
to our clients.
Wash your hands frequently
where there's fluid.
Urine. Stool. Sputum.
Listen to prompt.
Supply key.
In, out.
[voices echoing] The same.
How it's gonna look.
Basically, what this is saying
They have the whole team files.
The whole thing.
You go into your client's
You must change the status
Right down
this plan for each seat.
Stay alert and be prepared
for the unexpected.
and you are done for the day.
At the bottom where you see clock-out,
you will press clock-out.
["Cha Cha Cha d'amour"
by Dean Martin playing]
It looks crazy downtown,
like, absolutely crazy.
It's completely red.
I've never seen it that red downtown.
Cha cha cha d'amour ♪
Take this song to my lover ♪
Shoo, shoo, little bird ♪
- [phone chimes]
- [Carmen] Yay, finally.
My first drop-off will be
the Chipotle order.
Four minutes away.
Cha cha cha d'amour ♪
Take this song to my lover ♪
[honking]
Back up, fool.
Be careful.
Cha cha cha d'amour ♪
[phone chimes]
No, no, no.
Not another delivery. Whew.
Shoo, shoo, little bird ♪
Wait, hold up.
He's really one minute down the street.
Nobody goes into detail about
what it's really gonna be like
after you walk across that stage
and get your diploma.
And you just end up finding out,
like, "Oh, I gotta go to work."
Tell her of my love ♪
[Carmen] Okay, now
we're downtown, the strip.
Very Pittsburgh, right here.
Yeah, I'm gonna just pull to the side.
And I just wait.
You open the Uber Driver app.
So, when you're ready to go,
you just hit go.
[phone chimes]
Okay, it says delivery for $16.61
includes expected tip.
They say that,
sometimes you don't get a tip.
Also, you don't have their address,
so it's not like you can have an idea
of how far you're gonna go.
It would be nice
if you got at least minimum wage
for being in your car and out for this.
You know, a guaranteed $7.50 an hour.
But they don't do that.
The east side is the busiest neighborhood,
with the tech companies.
There are robotics labs
and things like that.
Aurora has some type of,
like, self-driving car.
Google took over one of Pittsburgh's
most popular Black neighborhoods.
Okay, they're bougie.
Hopefully they give me a tip
with all this bougieness.
Thank you so much.
- [man] You're welcome. Have a lovely day.
- You too.
[Carmen] Oh, Lord.
I have a degree in dentistry,
but I hurt my knee.
Even though I tried to go back
after surgery, it just hurt too much.
I made $30 or more an hour.
Now I have to find a way to make
as much as I did from that one job
from multiple other ones.
Can be hard,
especially as a single mom.
Where is the house number? Like, how do?
This is where it told me to go.
Okay.
Thank you, Google Maps.
If it weren't for
Google Maps satellite pictures
I don't know how people survived.
My main goal is to become
a professional makeup artist.
Having side hustles
helps fund my makeup business.
[rain pattering]
My dream life would be doing makeup for,
like, movie sets or celebrities.
Living in a really busy, warm place.
I want to see palm trees.
Like, sounds corny, but
people actually live like that so
$11.26. I made $6.73 from two trips.
That's all I have today.
[blues music playing]
[Obama] For some, it's a first job,
or a stepping stone
on the way to something else.
But for a lot of folks,
service jobs are just work.
Today, almost half of Americans
work in low-wage service jobs.
Jobs like home care,
cleaning services, and deliveries.
They're sometimes called,
"low-skilled jobs."
But only someone who's never actually
done the work would ever believe that.
These jobs are exhausting.
They wear you down
physically and emotionally.
They put you in unpredictable,
often messy,
and sometimes dangerous situations.
It's the invisible work
that the rest of us heavily rely on,
but tend to take for granted.
If you're looking for work, the good news
is these jobs aren't hard to find.
But they probably don't give you
health care benefits, or 401k,
or much basic security,
let alone hope for something more.
And, bottom line, the pay is low.
You're lucky to make $30,000 a year.
It's not much to live on,
no matter where you are.
If you factor in caring for a family,
or paying off debt,
the jobs are more like a treadmill
than a foothold.
[gentle music playing]
[girl laughing]
[Randi chuckling]
[Randi] Let's have dinner outside.
- Hey, Lei.
- [Lei] Hello.
- Hey. Who that is?
- Hey.
[chuckling]
You doing okay?
Everything's in the bag.
- All right.
- All right.
Bye, love.
Bye-bye, sunshine. Bye-bye.
[gentle music continues]
I have the worst phone ever.
It goes dead so fast.
This is my first day.
I hope I can really just settle my nerves.
- Hi, my name is Randi.
- [client] Hi.
- [Randi] Nice to meet you.
- [client] Nice meeting you.
[Pat] We're here to do your cleaning.
We're gonna do the normal procedure to
what we do, the house cleaning and stuff,
and that's what she's gonna start on.
I want to make sure
she knows how to clock in.
Lord Jesus.
And she'll be with you two hours, 'cause
she's five times a week, times two, right?
It's her first time working.
[Randi] Can I have another phone?
This one's not working.
- [Pat] You got your charger here?
- Shit.
My head's spinning.
I don't know how they wake up
with a dead phone,
but they wake up with a dead phone.
You clocking in, baby?
Go to your form.
[Randi] My forms.
[Pat] You didn't do it right.
The first thing you do
is put your odometer reading in.
- Mm-hmm.
- That's what you hadn't done. Look.
- The odometer, on the dash
- On the dashboard.
The very first thing you do when
you got out the car That's okay.
[automated voice]
Please key in your employee ID.
Zero, zero, zero. Your birthday.
And your last four.
[Randi] Say it again, I'm sorry.
Come on, calm down. We got this.
- You have successfully clocked in.
- I did it!
Yes, you did it.
All right, everybody's nervous
on the first day.
- [Randi chuckles]
- [Pat] See you later.
[whispering] I'm doing so bad.
- Want me to sit with you?
- Sit down.
[Randi giggles]
You're watching my show.
I like that dress Louise has got on.
[client] Yeah. I like them
big old dresses too.
- Them silk, long dusters, Mama calls them.
- Mm-hmm.
[Randi] Tell me a bit about yourself.
[client] Old.
You're not old.
I'm 74.
That's not old.
Shit.
[Randi laughs]
What you do every day?
- [client] I don't do enough.
- Sit down and watch TV.
[client] And drink some red wine.
- [Randi laughs] I know that, right?
- [chuckles]
[Randi] You ever been married?
[client] Never wanted a husband.
- [Randi] You know Whoopi Goldberg?
- Mm-hmm.
Asked her why she never had a husband.
She said she don't want
nobody in her house.
I heard that.
[chuckles]
["The Ambush" by Mark Orton playing]
[client] Now, that mustard green
put a ton of bottom on it.
[Randi] Yeah, we make pickles.
Like bread and butter pickles.
[client] Yeah, I love them.
Bring me a jar.
- [Randi] I surely will.
- [client] I'll pay you for 'em.
You ain't gotta pay me.
We don't sell them,
we just give them away.
I got into this to help people.
I wanna be a nurse.
[client] I went to school
for that and quit.
I did too. That's why I ended up
in welding school.
Mm-hmm.
[Randi] Welding was a plan B.
It's time for me to go with my plan A.
The thing you gotta think about is
if your mom got in this state,
you'd want somebody to take care of her.
[client] People be treated bad
in convalescence homes.
Sure do.
I ain't gonna throw away my mama.
She don't throw me away.
No, they didn't throw you away!
Mm-hmm.
Randi Williams, personal care provider.
- [automated voice] Press two to clock out.
- [beep]
You have successfully clocked out.
I'mma be back tomorrow.
- [client] I'll be here. Thank you.
- All right.
[Randi] I liked it.
It was a little bumpy at first.
But it ended up being smooth.
Well, you get to meet new people,
and hear new stories when
you're sitting with the elder people.
It's rewarding.
I used to work at a chicken plant.
Deboning chicken thighs.
And it'd be cold, and frozen,
and you'd be wet.
It was horrifying.
But you made good money.
$15 an hour.
Down here, that's a lot of money.
Now, I can finally say that
I'm doing what I want to do,
and not trying to please
nobody or anything.
I want my daughter to know early on,
if you want to do it, do it.
[Obama] What makes a good job good?
Is it the paycheck?
The schedule?
The stability?
It's all of that.
And one more thing too.
A good job is one
where you feel seen and valued,
where you might have a chance to grow.
Here's a quick case study.
It's 1980, and you're a janitor at Kodak,
one of the preeminent tech companies
of the day.
You're a full-time employee.
You get health care
and four paid weeks of vacation a year.
Money to help cover tuition
for college part-time.
A bonus every March.
Maybe a mentor to help guide you.
And you get invited to
the annual company picnic.
As you may have guessed,
this isn't a hypothetical janitor.
This is Gail Evans.
Here she is.
She started cleaning offices at Kodak,
but eventually became the chief
technology officer of the whole company.
Sure, she is a one-in-a-million story,
but it only happened because
her job offered her the chance
to be part of a broader community.
To build something.
Now, let's look at a janitor today.
You clean at the headquarters of one of
the preeminent tech companies of the day.
You work at the company,
but you don't work for the company.
You're typically hired by a contractor
for about minimum wage,
with no real benefits
and no paid time off.
And because you're working long hours
when no one else is there,
you don't have any real contact
with other employees.
You're invisible.
And instead of one job,
you probably need two, or three,
to make ends meet.
[Carmen] I'd say all my bills
are the most expensive ones
because there's not any
that I can choose to not pay.
Everything I have is needed to be
a regular, 21st century human being.
So, basically, I have my rent.
It's 500.
My light bill used to be 200,
but I brought it down to $70.
Which I'm really, really happy.
My car insurance.
My phone bill is $60.
Food, I would say $200,
every two weeks to a month.
And that's squeezing it.
The jobs that I'm doing right now
are Uber Eats.
At first you think,
"I'm gonna get so much money,
doing all these deliveries."
Then you go out there
and you're like, "Oh, accident here,
person crossing the street slow
right here."
"Oh, the food's not done."
And it's just, like, it all adds up
to hours of your day wasted.
I realized that you can't make enough.
And Home Health Tech,
my makeup business, like a wedding,
I could make, like,
five to a thousand in one day.
Like, my talent earned, like,
a thousand dollars in one day.
Like, so, I like doing makeup.
It makes me happy and um, I make money.
My jobs combined
created enough stability to where
you know every month
you're going to be good.
But if you don't go hustle,
like, your money gets low.
And, I don't know,
there's, like, on social media
everybody makes it seem like
their life is so, like bomb.
And you're just like,
"What am I doing wrong?"
A good job would be
somewhere where you're happy
and you still have time to be a person.
Where I can actually enjoy life.
[alarm ringing]
[water running]
Coffee for you.
Give me a kiss.
["Address Unknown"
by The Ink Spots playing]
Address unknown ♪
Not even a trace of you ♪
[Elba] Morning, housekeeping.
Oh what I'd give ♪
[Elba, in Spanish] A lot of my coworkers
have back problems, or knee problems.
Me, thank God, I don't have any pains.
[in English] The girls left
some jewelry here.
Send security to put the jewelry
inside the box.
I should have known ♪
You don't want to say what you're thinking
about the person.
I say, no matter how dirty the room is,
it's my job.
You know, people leave
five dollars, ten dollars.
I had a room last week He left $50.
You know, I was surprised. [chuckles]
You feel happy when you see
the other girls appreciate it.
But I don't work for tips, you know.
[in Spanish]
I don't worry too much about money
because I know I can count on my paycheck.
And each month, I make
[in English] like, 4,000.
You have to be a member of the union here.
But it's good, they work very hard for us.
Address unknown ♪
[in Spanish] I like doing the bed most.
Because it's the most visible part.
To think that you
Would never be hard to find? ♪
I like making other people comfortable.
to the ends of the earth ♪
For example,
if a guest has an insulin pen,x
I'll leave them extra water.
Because I know that
diabetics need extra water.
Address unknown ♪
The details are really important.
And I'm a details person.
[in English] Thank you, Father,
for the food you have presented before us.
And Lord, bless this food.
Friendship. It's all about friendship.
- Thank you, Lord. Amen.
- [all] Amen.
Let us eat.
[woman, in Spanish] Let's really dig in!
[Jorge, in English] Let's go!
[Angela, in Spanish] Elba, thank you.
- Thank you, Elba.
- Thank you.
[in English] She wakes up five o'clock,
six o'clock in the morning to cook.
- What about me?
- Because when you share, you care.
[chuckling]
[Jorge] Yeah.
[Joan] Even though they give us
the cafeteria, we like over here.
There is a place, you know,
a better suite for us to eat,
but we come here,
just a little more comfortable, I guess.
- Yeah, we feel more comfortable here.
- Yeah.
[Joan] This is a good job, a good job.
It's a good job to all of us,
just do what you got to do.
And that's it.
Right now, that's what you want. Security.
You don't want to rock the boat, okay?
You want to stay nice and steady.
No waves.
That's why people accumulate
years and years and everything.
[Jorge] I've been here
working for 25 years.
[in Spanish] I used to pick tomatoes.
That's really hard work
because you're in a position
like this all day,
for eight or nine hours in the sun.
And I only made $3.35 an hour.
[Angela] I used to have a job
cutting fruit.
Box after box after box.
All day cutting fruit.
Until I came here.
[Joan] At this job, you make good money.
I remember when they told me how much
money you're going to make, they said $15.
- Oh my God.
- [laughter]
I was so shocked.
I signed the paper so fast.
I didn't know nothing.
Didn't know how to make the bed.
I'd go home, I'd make my bed.
I tried to make my bed the same way.
You know, 'cause I said,
"I need this job. I need this money."
I'm sure that most of us,
including myself, has their savings.
Tell the truth, I have no savings.
- I'm not lying.
- No.
[Rosaura] My boiler broke.
So my credit cards are
all the way to the top.
And I hope I will continue working.
They will not give us layoffs.
But who knows?
They have one hotel that
you don't need people on the front desk.
They have you register by yourself,
and they give you
Then they have a machine,
that they put Get your luggage.
- Yeah, it's nothing like a human.
- Yes.
[Beverly] Everything looks so good.
You know what time we're gonna?
- How you doing?
- [Louis] You gonna have something to eat?
- [Beverly] What's up? How are you?
- [Louis] What's in here?
All the money's in here?
He always does that. Stop it.
Leave my pocketbook.
I gotta watch you.
So, how's everybody?
We're talking about what'd happen
if they replace you with a machine.
With a robot.
That's why we got unions.
[laughter]
[Beverly] Not that easy to take us out,
that's the reason why we need the union.
Look at the other hotels
that did close for good.
There are a lot of places
where there is no union.
- Those people walk away with nothing.
- [Elba] Yeah.
[Beverly] We have to stick together.
Ain't nothing gonna close in here.
Management is management,
but union is union.
["Fire" by Black Pumas playing]
[Obama] How did we get here?
Let's look back at a little history.
A hundred years ago,
factory jobs were pretty bad.
Ten or eleven-hour shifts
in miserable conditions
for a few dollars a day.
If you got injured, or sick, tough luck.
You were out on the street.
Then, in the depths of the Depression,
Franklin Roosevelt pushed through
new protections for workers.
I pledge myself to a new deal
for the American people.
[Obama] The New Deal, which included
the 40-hour workweek,
a new minimum wage,
social security,
and the right to unionize.
At the time, by the way,
a conservative Supreme Court tried to
block these changes from taking effect,
saying it encroached on the freedom
of owners to do what they wanted.
Factory work was still hard,
but the jobs were better.
So much better
that they became the foundation
of the most robust middle class
in the history of the world.
But there was a catch.
If you were a domestic or farmworker,
the protections didn't apply to you.
Southern lawmakers wrote these workers,
most of whom were women
and people of color,
out of the New Deal.
It reinforced a deeply held bias
that some work is inherently worth less
because of the kinds of people who do it.
Service workers today
are the direct descendants of that legacy.
A lucky few work in union shops
like the Pierre,
but with most domestic care jobs
or in the gig economy,
you're still on your own.
Let's be blunt.
There's always someone at the top of
the ladder and someone at the bottom.
That's especially true with capitalism,
and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.
But as a society, we do get to decide
what life looks like for working people.
We can make those jobs better,
or we can make them worse.
We can give people more dignity or less.
Those are choices we make.
[Adaria coos]
You have to get dressed, Adaria.
You are my sunshine ♪
My only sunshine ♪
Where you going? Come back here.
Don't take your socks off.
- [Adaria coos]
- [Randi] Put the blanket under.
- [Randi's son] Mama?
- [Randi] Okay.
Be quiet.
Every day I get up, I get her ready.
And then we go drop off at the babysitter.
And then I can go
to my different patients in the day.
It's a lot.
[Anna Laura]
Randi does the bulk of everything.
I'm not that mobile. And move a lot.
She does all the moving and shaking.
[Randi] Come here.
[Anna Laura] Let me put Adaria down.
[Randi] Mama always wanted me
to be a productive citizen.
And a nice young lady.
[Anna Laura] Oh, yes. Knowledge is power.
And I wanted her to go through school
and do her work the correct way.
When she was a little girl,
she saw the movie Legally Blonde.
And Randi said,
"Mom, I want to be a lawyer one day,
and I'm going to Harvard School of Law."
But when she went to high school,
she made straight hundreds on everything,
and she was encouraged
to go into the nursing field.
And this is where she's landed.
I want her to live her life
the way she feels she wants to live it.
If she wants to go backpacking
in the Himalayan Mountains,
just please wear a safety jacket, but go.
We gotta do your ABCs.
A, B, C, D
[Jocelyn] I don't really like honey,
but that might be good in this oatmeal.
It's good if you don't wanna
put a lot of sugar in it.
Did you know Randi quit her job
at Home Care?
You didn't know she worked there?
I didn't either.
Yeah, I'm gonna have,
like, five W-2s this year.
McDonald's, community college,
solar panels, At Home Care.
Be careful, honey.
You'll run out of fingers.
- [Tay Tay] So what changed, like?
- [Randi] I loved working with patients.
[Jocelyn] Aw.
[Randi] I couldn't take care of my child
and do the job at the same time.
My schedule was from 8:00 to 2:00,
but at the last minute,
they'll call me, like,
"You gotta stay
'til nine o'clock at night."
And I would go,
"Okay, who's gonna get my baby?"
Everything's got to be catered around
doing what I gotta do for my child.
You don't want a job where you
catch H-E-double hockey sticks every day.
No.
You want to be at peace when you go.
But I'm playing on dibbling
and dabbling in different endeavors.
That's what I want to do.
Like owning my own businesses
and stuff. Yeah.
Me going out of state
and seeing other people,
they think because we talk slower
and have a "y'all" and a drawl,
they think we're just dumb.
I don't get that.
If you can read, you can look up
anything you need.
[Jocelyn] When I went to Missouri,
they were like,
"What kind of crops do you plant?"
I was like,
"I never planted a crop a day in my life."
There's nothing here, so you gotta
find something to do something.
We should have rec centers
where people can hang out.
Like, we should have a Starbucks.
We should have all that.
But we don't.
Sometimes we're working against ourselves.
That's why the economy
If you want chicken nuggets,
it will be $4.
- If you want a salad, it will be $13.
- $10.
Gender bias, racism, single motherhood.
[Randi] You gotta make it or break it.
Nothing in life is fair.
Hate to say it, but it's true.
[water running]
Brush your teeth.
In the back.
Keep your eyes closed.
Okay.
I am awake.
All right, good job.
- Ready?
- [Aubrey-Gabriella] Mm-hmm.
[Carmen] Aubrey-Gabriella,
put your coat on, please.
You have to go.
Your grandma's been blowing my phone up.
Bye, Mama. I love you.
Go ahead, baby.
I love you.
[door closes]
[Carmen] This is a nice neighborhood.
I was actually living in project housing.
One day I came home from school
and there was some type of shooting.
I was like, "This is not how
I pictured my life. I can't do this."
I just kind of took the reins on my life,
instead of getting overwhelmed
by my surroundings.
Which I could have succumbed to.
My friends and stuff, were always like,
"Can you do my makeup?"
Or, "Ceecee, your makeup looks so bomb."
"How do you do your eyebrows?"
Then I gave myself a booking link,
and um, that's how
my business really started.
It's doing good.
I just wish it was doing better.
I have a lot of ideas.
I just need help making them happen.
I just need a mentor, maybe.
An adviser or something.
A console A consultant. Something.
[laughs] Something.
It's just hard knowing where to start.
Being an entrepreneur, you have
to figure things out for yourself.
I'm just trying not to give up.
[camera shutter clicks]
I'll post that one.
[sizzling]
- [Francisco, in Spanish] What do you want?
- A beer.
[in English] Okay. Cheers.
Made in Mexico. Corona.
[Francisco, in Spanish]
We met on the number one train.
[both laughing]
I was on my way to work.
[in English]
And I said, "Oh, where do you work?"
He said, "Oh, I work at the Pierre Hotel."
[in Spanish] I started there in 1986.
I work in the cafeteria.
She told me
she always wanted to work in a hotel.
[Elba, in English] He said,
"Give me your phone number
and then I will call you
if I get an application for you."
Very romantic, no?
Yeah.
[Francisco chuckles]
[Elba, in Spanish]
My life changed when my mother
brought me to the United States.
[in English] I was only 16 years old.
[in Spanish] When I turned 18,
my parents got me a job
in a factory
that made crystal decorations.
I made $3.35 an hour.
I was a single mom then.
So I was both mother and father.
[In English] You know, I think that
in this life, nothing is easy.
[in Spanish] You have to fight.
- [in English] Say hi.
- [Francisco] Say hi to the camera.
Hi, Lev.
His name is Levi. He is my first grandson.
[chuckles]
- [Elba, in Spanish] Is it good?
- [Francisco] Mm!
[indistinct chatter]
[Elba's daughter] Put it up there.
[Elba] Levi? Levi?
[in Spanish] I am proud of myself,
because I don't have to
depend on anyone else to survive.
But it's complicated.
Sometimes I give my children too much.
That makes them think
that everything is easy.
So I always tell them,
when you gain easily, you lose easily.
[in English] We have to say thank God
for this, uh, wonderful life
that we have here in America.
["Five-to-Four On"
by Freddie Philips playing]
[Randi] Adaria.
[Obama] Uh-oh.
We'll see how this turns out.
Is this where you shop?
- [Randi] Yeah.
- [Obama] Are you a good cook?
[Randi] To be Southern,
you have to know how to cook.
- You know how to cook.
- Do you?
I can cook a little bit.
A little bit.
It's been a long time since I cooked.
[Randi] Do you eat livers?
- Livers are not my favorite. I gotta say.
- You like gizzards?
I like gizzards more than liver.
Where are you working now?
I work for a private, adult-supervised
living home for the handicapped.
- Okay.
- Adult handicapped.
And those hours are a little
more flexible? Give you
Yeah. Monthly check's, like, $1,400.
- A month?
- Yeah.
- I can get by, but
- At the end of the month, it's tight.
It's tight.
You have moments when you feel
like you're not doing enough,
but it's like,
I had to do what I had to do.
Right.
There's something about that one
extra push that can take you further.
You gotta show your child,
the world's gonna get on your back.
You just gotta be able to
- You gotta tell 'em
- Carry on.
Carry it with a backpack.
You gotta carry it with a backpack.
[Obama] Do you have an idea in your mind
about what work should be?
Because some folks, my mother-in-law
And my grandmother.
You know, their attitude was
"I don't go to work to feel good,
or to get meaning or"
- [Randi] I pay my bills.
- "I go to work to pay my bills."
And I think younger folks,
I think our attitude
- Notice how I said "our attitude"?
- Mm-hmm.
You're as young as you feel, baby.
Especially with your generation,
I think sometimes people expect
that they should
feel fulfilled in their work.
That paying the bills isn't enough.
[Randi] I just want to be at home,
on my porch,
in my rocking chair.
My refrigerator's full.
My bills are paid. My child is cared for.
That's the dream.
- You'll find it.
- That's peace.
You feel like it's harder
for folks now than it used to be
to just do what you described?
- [Randi] Yes.
- [Obama] How come?
It's $6.15 for a box of cereal.
Because that's expensive.
I make $10 an hour.
- That's one hour of my paycheck gone.
- Yeah.
- And a couple of candies.
- And you can go through that pretty quick.
- [Randi] I got a question for you.
- Okay, go ahead.
Are you at peace?
Now?
Am I at peace?
You know, I actually am
Feel pretty good.
I've achieved most of the goals I set.
- My kids are kept.
- Mm-hmm.
- We got a nice house with a nice porch.
- Rocking chair.
- We got rocking chairs.
- Okay.
It has to do with more than just me.
I worry about the next generation.
That's my answer.
[gentle music playing]
[Randi] These are some nice houses.
[gasps] I love that house.
I love big old homes with columns.
They're so pretty.
I want, like, a garden.
I want pretty flowers.
And I want open windows
that let sunlight in.
I do want a healing home too.
It's something I made up in my head.
It's like a cottage,
it's gonna have three bedrooms,
and a greenhouse,
and a garden where I can grow
all my plants and herbs and stuff.
And I can have a a whirlpool
inside of my greenhouse.
I want a swing porch.
I have a lot of sick relatives.
So I want this home to be where I can
just let them heal within themselves,
and I can aid them.
Like, I want this whole house to be
nothing but peace and harmony.
Like, you go there, you forget everything,
your struggles and all that.
And you just relax
and you get healthy and you heal.
So that's why I call it the healing home.
That's the dream.
The American dream.
Good morning, housekeeping.
[Obama] What if the life you dream of
didn't seem quite so distant?
[Carmen]
Hello, I have a delivery for Nick.
[Obama] What if instead
of delivering food to a tech company,
you could get a job at one?
How would it change your life if,
instead of making nine bucks an hour,
you made 20?
Could you finally make that step up
to the middle class?
And stay there?
Good afternoon, Pierre Taj Hotel.
May I assist you?
[closing theme music playing]
- Hey.
- [receptionist] Morning, President Obama.
- How are you?
- [Obama] I'm doing great.
- Everything been going all right? Hey.
- [worker] Morning.
Morning.
- What's up?
- [office man] What's going on, sir?
[Obama] This has now been my office
for about six years.
Amos basically runs my life.
One of the interesting things
about being President
is you learn to give your life over
to 20-year-olds.
[Obama chuckles]
This is right after I think
my poll numbers started going down.
I was walking on water
and then I fall through the water.
One of my favorites,
a spear that the ancient Hawaiians
used to protect the king.
The Secret Service gave that to me,
mounted, as a birthday present.
The turntable, I've been known
to play my music loud in here,
which I tried not to do in the Oval Office
out of a sense of propriety.
A bunch of other doodads and knickknacks.
Stuff that reminds me
of my work and my own journey.
[exhales]
Okay.
["Sinnerman" by Nina Simone playing]
[Obama] Sometime in college,
I came across this book
called Working by Studs Terkel.
Oh, sinnerman ♪
Where you gonna run to? ♪
[Obama] Which was a chronicle
of people from every walk of life,
and what it was like for them to work.
[Studs Terkel] There is no one way
to begin, it's arbitrary.
But you want to find
that quintessential truth.
The essence of a truth.
[Obama] It was the first time
anyone had really bothered
to ask ordinary people directly,
what work was like for them.
[Terkel] You feel that you're fairly paid?
[worker 1] Uh, I'm underpaid,
but it beats not having a job at all.
[Obama] This is about the time when I
became interested in trying to figure out
what kind of work I was going to do.
All on that day ♪
[worker 2] We tire, we sweat,
we have hangovers.
We have feelings, emotions,
and we're not about to be
placed in the category of a machine.
[Obama] It was the 1970s.
A new era of automation,
global competition,
and offshore manufacturing.
Go to the Devil, the Lord said ♪
[Obama] These huge forces
being felt in people's lives.
With the new profits-obsessed
corporate culture starting to take hold.
I cried, power ♪
[man] It's all about this.
Power ♪
[Obama] Fifty years later, we're in
another moment of explosive change.
Artificial intelligence.
Remote work.
Spiraling inequality.
Well, I run to the river ♪
[Obama] It can be hard
to make sense of where we are,
and where we're going.
What if we pick up Studs' project
for this new moment?
What if we take
three very different places
and three very different industries?
Home care,
tech,
and hospitality.
What if people we might
never ordinarily meet
invited us into their lives,
and told us about their ambitions?
What if we started at the bottom
and worked our way up?
Up come power ♪
Power, Lord ♪
From the service entrance,
all the way to the C-suite.
Power ♪
[Obama] What would it tell us
about how we're connected?
About our own place in the world?
Power, Lord ♪
[automated voice] Stand clear
of the closing doors, please.
["Woman" by Karen O & Danger Mouse plays]
- [Elba] Hi, good morning.
- Morning.
[George] Hi, Elba.
Good morning, George.
Good morning, Catarina.
Can I have my uniform, please?
I'm a woman. what you see ♪
Thank you.
I'm a woman. what you see ♪
I'm a woman. what you see ♪
What you see
Ain't what I be ♪
I'm a woman, I'm a woman
Hey, hey, hey ♪
[manager] Good morning, everyone.
Happy Friday.
[workers] Good morning.
[manager] Today, we have 28 arrivals,
we have 11 checkouts.
VIPs who are arriving today,
we have the mother of the bride
who's getting married this weekend.
The guests in 1612 mentioned that
they didn't sleep as well as they wanted
because they felt
that the mattress was too hard.
So, we found a very soft mattress
and replaced it.
535 prefers non-feathered bedding.
So, last night, they switched
all the pillows and the duvet
to non-feathered alternatives.
That's it for today.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
I'll see you on Monday.
[Elba] Morning, housekeeping.
[unlocks]
Morning, housekeeping.
[doorbell ringing]
Morning, housekeeping.
Good morning, housekeeping.
Morning, housekeeping.
[Elba] I've worked here
at the Pierre for almost 22 years.
When I came here
from the Dominican Republic,
at the beginning it was very hard.
I didn't even talk in English,
it was only Spanish.
[Elba, in Spanish] I didn't know
how to use the vacuum cleaner.
My arms were always bruised.
Because I didn't have any experience.
My daughter actually asked
if they were hitting me.
I told her, "No, it's just from working."
"They aren't mistreating me."
[in English] I wanted to cry.
But you know what?
I didn't have time to clean my tears.
[in Spanish] It usually takes me
30 or 40 minutes to clean each room.
[in English] Fifteen single room,
every day.
Sometimes if you are walking the hallway
and you say, "Good morning,"
people don't respond.
But, you know, I don't pay attention.
They have money.
They dress better than me.
But, you know, they are no better than me.
[doorbell rings]
Morning, housekeeping.
[school bell rings]
[drumming]
[singing along radio] Be my best friend
She's a real bad ♪
Oh!
[singing along] On the dance floor
She had two, three drinks ♪
Now she twerkin'
She throw it out ♪
[Randi sighs]
I'm hanging together by two strings.
I'm not young, but I'm not old.
I have all the time,
but I'm running out of time. [chuckles]
It's time to hunker down and get a sense
of what I'm gonna be doing in life.
In a rural area, it's hard to get work.
You want a job,
but you don't want a job that pays you
little money and works you to the bone.
You work 80 hours a week
and still get paid below minimum.
Or what you think you should get paid.
I thought about going
and working at a car plant,
but I wanted to wake up every day
with some sense of meaning.
And I want to help people.
This job is gonna be new beginning.
I'm always nervous about new beginnings.
[atmospheric music playing]
Hi, Miss Randi, I'm Stephanie Jenkins,
HR Assist with At Home Care.
- We're glad to have you on board
- Thank you for having me.
[Stephanie] We see that you're new
in the home care field.
So, we welcome you to our family.
When we do it, we do it right.
I want to make sure
this is what you want to do.
You deal with the elderly and disabled.
Yes, ma'am.
I feel as though it's not really a job.
Why would you say that?
Because one day it's going to be you.
That's true.
[Randi] You can't look at it like a job.
You gotta look at it, like,
how you want to be cared for.
[Stephanie] You still see it as a job,
but get paid.
You get paid to do it.
[Stephanie] You get paid to do your job.
I'm gonna tell you your duties.
Cook, clean the kitchen.
You run errands for the client.
Bathing, shaving, shampoo hair, vacuum.
We sweep.
Some are bedridden.
Some you may have to turn.
You may have to change diapers.
Medicaid is how we get paid.
So you have to have
a nationwide background check.
You have to have CPR, first aid.
We can call you in any time
to do a drug test.
You being a beginner,
you'll start out at $9 an hour.
Are you satisfied with that?
[playful music]
[woman] I would like
to welcome you to our team.
We are looking for people
who are committed
to providing an excellent service
to our clients.
Wash your hands frequently
where there's fluid.
Urine. Stool. Sputum.
Listen to prompt.
Supply key.
In, out.
[voices echoing] The same.
How it's gonna look.
Basically, what this is saying
They have the whole team files.
The whole thing.
You go into your client's
You must change the status
Right down
this plan for each seat.
Stay alert and be prepared
for the unexpected.
and you are done for the day.
At the bottom where you see clock-out,
you will press clock-out.
["Cha Cha Cha d'amour"
by Dean Martin playing]
It looks crazy downtown,
like, absolutely crazy.
It's completely red.
I've never seen it that red downtown.
Cha cha cha d'amour ♪
Take this song to my lover ♪
Shoo, shoo, little bird ♪
- [phone chimes]
- [Carmen] Yay, finally.
My first drop-off will be
the Chipotle order.
Four minutes away.
Cha cha cha d'amour ♪
Take this song to my lover ♪
[honking]
Back up, fool.
Be careful.
Cha cha cha d'amour ♪
[phone chimes]
No, no, no.
Not another delivery. Whew.
Shoo, shoo, little bird ♪
Wait, hold up.
He's really one minute down the street.
Nobody goes into detail about
what it's really gonna be like
after you walk across that stage
and get your diploma.
And you just end up finding out,
like, "Oh, I gotta go to work."
Tell her of my love ♪
[Carmen] Okay, now
we're downtown, the strip.
Very Pittsburgh, right here.
Yeah, I'm gonna just pull to the side.
And I just wait.
You open the Uber Driver app.
So, when you're ready to go,
you just hit go.
[phone chimes]
Okay, it says delivery for $16.61
includes expected tip.
They say that,
sometimes you don't get a tip.
Also, you don't have their address,
so it's not like you can have an idea
of how far you're gonna go.
It would be nice
if you got at least minimum wage
for being in your car and out for this.
You know, a guaranteed $7.50 an hour.
But they don't do that.
The east side is the busiest neighborhood,
with the tech companies.
There are robotics labs
and things like that.
Aurora has some type of,
like, self-driving car.
Google took over one of Pittsburgh's
most popular Black neighborhoods.
Okay, they're bougie.
Hopefully they give me a tip
with all this bougieness.
Thank you so much.
- [man] You're welcome. Have a lovely day.
- You too.
[Carmen] Oh, Lord.
I have a degree in dentistry,
but I hurt my knee.
Even though I tried to go back
after surgery, it just hurt too much.
I made $30 or more an hour.
Now I have to find a way to make
as much as I did from that one job
from multiple other ones.
Can be hard,
especially as a single mom.
Where is the house number? Like, how do?
This is where it told me to go.
Okay.
Thank you, Google Maps.
If it weren't for
Google Maps satellite pictures
I don't know how people survived.
My main goal is to become
a professional makeup artist.
Having side hustles
helps fund my makeup business.
[rain pattering]
My dream life would be doing makeup for,
like, movie sets or celebrities.
Living in a really busy, warm place.
I want to see palm trees.
Like, sounds corny, but
people actually live like that so
$11.26. I made $6.73 from two trips.
That's all I have today.
[blues music playing]
[Obama] For some, it's a first job,
or a stepping stone
on the way to something else.
But for a lot of folks,
service jobs are just work.
Today, almost half of Americans
work in low-wage service jobs.
Jobs like home care,
cleaning services, and deliveries.
They're sometimes called,
"low-skilled jobs."
But only someone who's never actually
done the work would ever believe that.
These jobs are exhausting.
They wear you down
physically and emotionally.
They put you in unpredictable,
often messy,
and sometimes dangerous situations.
It's the invisible work
that the rest of us heavily rely on,
but tend to take for granted.
If you're looking for work, the good news
is these jobs aren't hard to find.
But they probably don't give you
health care benefits, or 401k,
or much basic security,
let alone hope for something more.
And, bottom line, the pay is low.
You're lucky to make $30,000 a year.
It's not much to live on,
no matter where you are.
If you factor in caring for a family,
or paying off debt,
the jobs are more like a treadmill
than a foothold.
[gentle music playing]
[girl laughing]
[Randi chuckling]
[Randi] Let's have dinner outside.
- Hey, Lei.
- [Lei] Hello.
- Hey. Who that is?
- Hey.
[chuckling]
You doing okay?
Everything's in the bag.
- All right.
- All right.
Bye, love.
Bye-bye, sunshine. Bye-bye.
[gentle music continues]
I have the worst phone ever.
It goes dead so fast.
This is my first day.
I hope I can really just settle my nerves.
- Hi, my name is Randi.
- [client] Hi.
- [Randi] Nice to meet you.
- [client] Nice meeting you.
[Pat] We're here to do your cleaning.
We're gonna do the normal procedure to
what we do, the house cleaning and stuff,
and that's what she's gonna start on.
I want to make sure
she knows how to clock in.
Lord Jesus.
And she'll be with you two hours, 'cause
she's five times a week, times two, right?
It's her first time working.
[Randi] Can I have another phone?
This one's not working.
- [Pat] You got your charger here?
- Shit.
My head's spinning.
I don't know how they wake up
with a dead phone,
but they wake up with a dead phone.
You clocking in, baby?
Go to your form.
[Randi] My forms.
[Pat] You didn't do it right.
The first thing you do
is put your odometer reading in.
- Mm-hmm.
- That's what you hadn't done. Look.
- The odometer, on the dash
- On the dashboard.
The very first thing you do when
you got out the car That's okay.
[automated voice]
Please key in your employee ID.
Zero, zero, zero. Your birthday.
And your last four.
[Randi] Say it again, I'm sorry.
Come on, calm down. We got this.
- You have successfully clocked in.
- I did it!
Yes, you did it.
All right, everybody's nervous
on the first day.
- [Randi chuckles]
- [Pat] See you later.
[whispering] I'm doing so bad.
- Want me to sit with you?
- Sit down.
[Randi giggles]
You're watching my show.
I like that dress Louise has got on.
[client] Yeah. I like them
big old dresses too.
- Them silk, long dusters, Mama calls them.
- Mm-hmm.
[Randi] Tell me a bit about yourself.
[client] Old.
You're not old.
I'm 74.
That's not old.
Shit.
[Randi laughs]
What you do every day?
- [client] I don't do enough.
- Sit down and watch TV.
[client] And drink some red wine.
- [Randi laughs] I know that, right?
- [chuckles]
[Randi] You ever been married?
[client] Never wanted a husband.
- [Randi] You know Whoopi Goldberg?
- Mm-hmm.
Asked her why she never had a husband.
She said she don't want
nobody in her house.
I heard that.
[chuckles]
["The Ambush" by Mark Orton playing]
[client] Now, that mustard green
put a ton of bottom on it.
[Randi] Yeah, we make pickles.
Like bread and butter pickles.
[client] Yeah, I love them.
Bring me a jar.
- [Randi] I surely will.
- [client] I'll pay you for 'em.
You ain't gotta pay me.
We don't sell them,
we just give them away.
I got into this to help people.
I wanna be a nurse.
[client] I went to school
for that and quit.
I did too. That's why I ended up
in welding school.
Mm-hmm.
[Randi] Welding was a plan B.
It's time for me to go with my plan A.
The thing you gotta think about is
if your mom got in this state,
you'd want somebody to take care of her.
[client] People be treated bad
in convalescence homes.
Sure do.
I ain't gonna throw away my mama.
She don't throw me away.
No, they didn't throw you away!
Mm-hmm.
Randi Williams, personal care provider.
- [automated voice] Press two to clock out.
- [beep]
You have successfully clocked out.
I'mma be back tomorrow.
- [client] I'll be here. Thank you.
- All right.
[Randi] I liked it.
It was a little bumpy at first.
But it ended up being smooth.
Well, you get to meet new people,
and hear new stories when
you're sitting with the elder people.
It's rewarding.
I used to work at a chicken plant.
Deboning chicken thighs.
And it'd be cold, and frozen,
and you'd be wet.
It was horrifying.
But you made good money.
$15 an hour.
Down here, that's a lot of money.
Now, I can finally say that
I'm doing what I want to do,
and not trying to please
nobody or anything.
I want my daughter to know early on,
if you want to do it, do it.
[Obama] What makes a good job good?
Is it the paycheck?
The schedule?
The stability?
It's all of that.
And one more thing too.
A good job is one
where you feel seen and valued,
where you might have a chance to grow.
Here's a quick case study.
It's 1980, and you're a janitor at Kodak,
one of the preeminent tech companies
of the day.
You're a full-time employee.
You get health care
and four paid weeks of vacation a year.
Money to help cover tuition
for college part-time.
A bonus every March.
Maybe a mentor to help guide you.
And you get invited to
the annual company picnic.
As you may have guessed,
this isn't a hypothetical janitor.
This is Gail Evans.
Here she is.
She started cleaning offices at Kodak,
but eventually became the chief
technology officer of the whole company.
Sure, she is a one-in-a-million story,
but it only happened because
her job offered her the chance
to be part of a broader community.
To build something.
Now, let's look at a janitor today.
You clean at the headquarters of one of
the preeminent tech companies of the day.
You work at the company,
but you don't work for the company.
You're typically hired by a contractor
for about minimum wage,
with no real benefits
and no paid time off.
And because you're working long hours
when no one else is there,
you don't have any real contact
with other employees.
You're invisible.
And instead of one job,
you probably need two, or three,
to make ends meet.
[Carmen] I'd say all my bills
are the most expensive ones
because there's not any
that I can choose to not pay.
Everything I have is needed to be
a regular, 21st century human being.
So, basically, I have my rent.
It's 500.
My light bill used to be 200,
but I brought it down to $70.
Which I'm really, really happy.
My car insurance.
My phone bill is $60.
Food, I would say $200,
every two weeks to a month.
And that's squeezing it.
The jobs that I'm doing right now
are Uber Eats.
At first you think,
"I'm gonna get so much money,
doing all these deliveries."
Then you go out there
and you're like, "Oh, accident here,
person crossing the street slow
right here."
"Oh, the food's not done."
And it's just, like, it all adds up
to hours of your day wasted.
I realized that you can't make enough.
And Home Health Tech,
my makeup business, like a wedding,
I could make, like,
five to a thousand in one day.
Like, my talent earned, like,
a thousand dollars in one day.
Like, so, I like doing makeup.
It makes me happy and um, I make money.
My jobs combined
created enough stability to where
you know every month
you're going to be good.
But if you don't go hustle,
like, your money gets low.
And, I don't know,
there's, like, on social media
everybody makes it seem like
their life is so, like bomb.
And you're just like,
"What am I doing wrong?"
A good job would be
somewhere where you're happy
and you still have time to be a person.
Where I can actually enjoy life.
[alarm ringing]
[water running]
Coffee for you.
Give me a kiss.
["Address Unknown"
by The Ink Spots playing]
Address unknown ♪
Not even a trace of you ♪
[Elba] Morning, housekeeping.
Oh what I'd give ♪
[Elba, in Spanish] A lot of my coworkers
have back problems, or knee problems.
Me, thank God, I don't have any pains.
[in English] The girls left
some jewelry here.
Send security to put the jewelry
inside the box.
I should have known ♪
You don't want to say what you're thinking
about the person.
I say, no matter how dirty the room is,
it's my job.
You know, people leave
five dollars, ten dollars.
I had a room last week He left $50.
You know, I was surprised. [chuckles]
You feel happy when you see
the other girls appreciate it.
But I don't work for tips, you know.
[in Spanish]
I don't worry too much about money
because I know I can count on my paycheck.
And each month, I make
[in English] like, 4,000.
You have to be a member of the union here.
But it's good, they work very hard for us.
Address unknown ♪
[in Spanish] I like doing the bed most.
Because it's the most visible part.
To think that you
Would never be hard to find? ♪
I like making other people comfortable.
to the ends of the earth ♪
For example,
if a guest has an insulin pen,x
I'll leave them extra water.
Because I know that
diabetics need extra water.
Address unknown ♪
The details are really important.
And I'm a details person.
[in English] Thank you, Father,
for the food you have presented before us.
And Lord, bless this food.
Friendship. It's all about friendship.
- Thank you, Lord. Amen.
- [all] Amen.
Let us eat.
[woman, in Spanish] Let's really dig in!
[Jorge, in English] Let's go!
[Angela, in Spanish] Elba, thank you.
- Thank you, Elba.
- Thank you.
[in English] She wakes up five o'clock,
six o'clock in the morning to cook.
- What about me?
- Because when you share, you care.
[chuckling]
[Jorge] Yeah.
[Joan] Even though they give us
the cafeteria, we like over here.
There is a place, you know,
a better suite for us to eat,
but we come here,
just a little more comfortable, I guess.
- Yeah, we feel more comfortable here.
- Yeah.
[Joan] This is a good job, a good job.
It's a good job to all of us,
just do what you got to do.
And that's it.
Right now, that's what you want. Security.
You don't want to rock the boat, okay?
You want to stay nice and steady.
No waves.
That's why people accumulate
years and years and everything.
[Jorge] I've been here
working for 25 years.
[in Spanish] I used to pick tomatoes.
That's really hard work
because you're in a position
like this all day,
for eight or nine hours in the sun.
And I only made $3.35 an hour.
[Angela] I used to have a job
cutting fruit.
Box after box after box.
All day cutting fruit.
Until I came here.
[Joan] At this job, you make good money.
I remember when they told me how much
money you're going to make, they said $15.
- Oh my God.
- [laughter]
I was so shocked.
I signed the paper so fast.
I didn't know nothing.
Didn't know how to make the bed.
I'd go home, I'd make my bed.
I tried to make my bed the same way.
You know, 'cause I said,
"I need this job. I need this money."
I'm sure that most of us,
including myself, has their savings.
Tell the truth, I have no savings.
- I'm not lying.
- No.
[Rosaura] My boiler broke.
So my credit cards are
all the way to the top.
And I hope I will continue working.
They will not give us layoffs.
But who knows?
They have one hotel that
you don't need people on the front desk.
They have you register by yourself,
and they give you
Then they have a machine,
that they put Get your luggage.
- Yeah, it's nothing like a human.
- Yes.
[Beverly] Everything looks so good.
You know what time we're gonna?
- How you doing?
- [Louis] You gonna have something to eat?
- [Beverly] What's up? How are you?
- [Louis] What's in here?
All the money's in here?
He always does that. Stop it.
Leave my pocketbook.
I gotta watch you.
So, how's everybody?
We're talking about what'd happen
if they replace you with a machine.
With a robot.
That's why we got unions.
[laughter]
[Beverly] Not that easy to take us out,
that's the reason why we need the union.
Look at the other hotels
that did close for good.
There are a lot of places
where there is no union.
- Those people walk away with nothing.
- [Elba] Yeah.
[Beverly] We have to stick together.
Ain't nothing gonna close in here.
Management is management,
but union is union.
["Fire" by Black Pumas playing]
[Obama] How did we get here?
Let's look back at a little history.
A hundred years ago,
factory jobs were pretty bad.
Ten or eleven-hour shifts
in miserable conditions
for a few dollars a day.
If you got injured, or sick, tough luck.
You were out on the street.
Then, in the depths of the Depression,
Franklin Roosevelt pushed through
new protections for workers.
I pledge myself to a new deal
for the American people.
[Obama] The New Deal, which included
the 40-hour workweek,
a new minimum wage,
social security,
and the right to unionize.
At the time, by the way,
a conservative Supreme Court tried to
block these changes from taking effect,
saying it encroached on the freedom
of owners to do what they wanted.
Factory work was still hard,
but the jobs were better.
So much better
that they became the foundation
of the most robust middle class
in the history of the world.
But there was a catch.
If you were a domestic or farmworker,
the protections didn't apply to you.
Southern lawmakers wrote these workers,
most of whom were women
and people of color,
out of the New Deal.
It reinforced a deeply held bias
that some work is inherently worth less
because of the kinds of people who do it.
Service workers today
are the direct descendants of that legacy.
A lucky few work in union shops
like the Pierre,
but with most domestic care jobs
or in the gig economy,
you're still on your own.
Let's be blunt.
There's always someone at the top of
the ladder and someone at the bottom.
That's especially true with capitalism,
and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.
But as a society, we do get to decide
what life looks like for working people.
We can make those jobs better,
or we can make them worse.
We can give people more dignity or less.
Those are choices we make.
[Adaria coos]
You have to get dressed, Adaria.
You are my sunshine ♪
My only sunshine ♪
Where you going? Come back here.
Don't take your socks off.
- [Adaria coos]
- [Randi] Put the blanket under.
- [Randi's son] Mama?
- [Randi] Okay.
Be quiet.
Every day I get up, I get her ready.
And then we go drop off at the babysitter.
And then I can go
to my different patients in the day.
It's a lot.
[Anna Laura]
Randi does the bulk of everything.
I'm not that mobile. And move a lot.
She does all the moving and shaking.
[Randi] Come here.
[Anna Laura] Let me put Adaria down.
[Randi] Mama always wanted me
to be a productive citizen.
And a nice young lady.
[Anna Laura] Oh, yes. Knowledge is power.
And I wanted her to go through school
and do her work the correct way.
When she was a little girl,
she saw the movie Legally Blonde.
And Randi said,
"Mom, I want to be a lawyer one day,
and I'm going to Harvard School of Law."
But when she went to high school,
she made straight hundreds on everything,
and she was encouraged
to go into the nursing field.
And this is where she's landed.
I want her to live her life
the way she feels she wants to live it.
If she wants to go backpacking
in the Himalayan Mountains,
just please wear a safety jacket, but go.
We gotta do your ABCs.
A, B, C, D
[Jocelyn] I don't really like honey,
but that might be good in this oatmeal.
It's good if you don't wanna
put a lot of sugar in it.
Did you know Randi quit her job
at Home Care?
You didn't know she worked there?
I didn't either.
Yeah, I'm gonna have,
like, five W-2s this year.
McDonald's, community college,
solar panels, At Home Care.
Be careful, honey.
You'll run out of fingers.
- [Tay Tay] So what changed, like?
- [Randi] I loved working with patients.
[Jocelyn] Aw.
[Randi] I couldn't take care of my child
and do the job at the same time.
My schedule was from 8:00 to 2:00,
but at the last minute,
they'll call me, like,
"You gotta stay
'til nine o'clock at night."
And I would go,
"Okay, who's gonna get my baby?"
Everything's got to be catered around
doing what I gotta do for my child.
You don't want a job where you
catch H-E-double hockey sticks every day.
No.
You want to be at peace when you go.
But I'm playing on dibbling
and dabbling in different endeavors.
That's what I want to do.
Like owning my own businesses
and stuff. Yeah.
Me going out of state
and seeing other people,
they think because we talk slower
and have a "y'all" and a drawl,
they think we're just dumb.
I don't get that.
If you can read, you can look up
anything you need.
[Jocelyn] When I went to Missouri,
they were like,
"What kind of crops do you plant?"
I was like,
"I never planted a crop a day in my life."
There's nothing here, so you gotta
find something to do something.
We should have rec centers
where people can hang out.
Like, we should have a Starbucks.
We should have all that.
But we don't.
Sometimes we're working against ourselves.
That's why the economy
If you want chicken nuggets,
it will be $4.
- If you want a salad, it will be $13.
- $10.
Gender bias, racism, single motherhood.
[Randi] You gotta make it or break it.
Nothing in life is fair.
Hate to say it, but it's true.
[water running]
Brush your teeth.
In the back.
Keep your eyes closed.
Okay.
I am awake.
All right, good job.
- Ready?
- [Aubrey-Gabriella] Mm-hmm.
[Carmen] Aubrey-Gabriella,
put your coat on, please.
You have to go.
Your grandma's been blowing my phone up.
Bye, Mama. I love you.
Go ahead, baby.
I love you.
[door closes]
[Carmen] This is a nice neighborhood.
I was actually living in project housing.
One day I came home from school
and there was some type of shooting.
I was like, "This is not how
I pictured my life. I can't do this."
I just kind of took the reins on my life,
instead of getting overwhelmed
by my surroundings.
Which I could have succumbed to.
My friends and stuff, were always like,
"Can you do my makeup?"
Or, "Ceecee, your makeup looks so bomb."
"How do you do your eyebrows?"
Then I gave myself a booking link,
and um, that's how
my business really started.
It's doing good.
I just wish it was doing better.
I have a lot of ideas.
I just need help making them happen.
I just need a mentor, maybe.
An adviser or something.
A console A consultant. Something.
[laughs] Something.
It's just hard knowing where to start.
Being an entrepreneur, you have
to figure things out for yourself.
I'm just trying not to give up.
[camera shutter clicks]
I'll post that one.
[sizzling]
- [Francisco, in Spanish] What do you want?
- A beer.
[in English] Okay. Cheers.
Made in Mexico. Corona.
[Francisco, in Spanish]
We met on the number one train.
[both laughing]
I was on my way to work.
[in English]
And I said, "Oh, where do you work?"
He said, "Oh, I work at the Pierre Hotel."
[in Spanish] I started there in 1986.
I work in the cafeteria.
She told me
she always wanted to work in a hotel.
[Elba, in English] He said,
"Give me your phone number
and then I will call you
if I get an application for you."
Very romantic, no?
Yeah.
[Francisco chuckles]
[Elba, in Spanish]
My life changed when my mother
brought me to the United States.
[in English] I was only 16 years old.
[in Spanish] When I turned 18,
my parents got me a job
in a factory
that made crystal decorations.
I made $3.35 an hour.
I was a single mom then.
So I was both mother and father.
[In English] You know, I think that
in this life, nothing is easy.
[in Spanish] You have to fight.
- [in English] Say hi.
- [Francisco] Say hi to the camera.
Hi, Lev.
His name is Levi. He is my first grandson.
[chuckles]
- [Elba, in Spanish] Is it good?
- [Francisco] Mm!
[indistinct chatter]
[Elba's daughter] Put it up there.
[Elba] Levi? Levi?
[in Spanish] I am proud of myself,
because I don't have to
depend on anyone else to survive.
But it's complicated.
Sometimes I give my children too much.
That makes them think
that everything is easy.
So I always tell them,
when you gain easily, you lose easily.
[in English] We have to say thank God
for this, uh, wonderful life
that we have here in America.
["Five-to-Four On"
by Freddie Philips playing]
[Randi] Adaria.
[Obama] Uh-oh.
We'll see how this turns out.
Is this where you shop?
- [Randi] Yeah.
- [Obama] Are you a good cook?
[Randi] To be Southern,
you have to know how to cook.
- You know how to cook.
- Do you?
I can cook a little bit.
A little bit.
It's been a long time since I cooked.
[Randi] Do you eat livers?
- Livers are not my favorite. I gotta say.
- You like gizzards?
I like gizzards more than liver.
Where are you working now?
I work for a private, adult-supervised
living home for the handicapped.
- Okay.
- Adult handicapped.
And those hours are a little
more flexible? Give you
Yeah. Monthly check's, like, $1,400.
- A month?
- Yeah.
- I can get by, but
- At the end of the month, it's tight.
It's tight.
You have moments when you feel
like you're not doing enough,
but it's like,
I had to do what I had to do.
Right.
There's something about that one
extra push that can take you further.
You gotta show your child,
the world's gonna get on your back.
You just gotta be able to
- You gotta tell 'em
- Carry on.
Carry it with a backpack.
You gotta carry it with a backpack.
[Obama] Do you have an idea in your mind
about what work should be?
Because some folks, my mother-in-law
And my grandmother.
You know, their attitude was
"I don't go to work to feel good,
or to get meaning or"
- [Randi] I pay my bills.
- "I go to work to pay my bills."
And I think younger folks,
I think our attitude
- Notice how I said "our attitude"?
- Mm-hmm.
You're as young as you feel, baby.
Especially with your generation,
I think sometimes people expect
that they should
feel fulfilled in their work.
That paying the bills isn't enough.
[Randi] I just want to be at home,
on my porch,
in my rocking chair.
My refrigerator's full.
My bills are paid. My child is cared for.
That's the dream.
- You'll find it.
- That's peace.
You feel like it's harder
for folks now than it used to be
to just do what you described?
- [Randi] Yes.
- [Obama] How come?
It's $6.15 for a box of cereal.
Because that's expensive.
I make $10 an hour.
- That's one hour of my paycheck gone.
- Yeah.
- And a couple of candies.
- And you can go through that pretty quick.
- [Randi] I got a question for you.
- Okay, go ahead.
Are you at peace?
Now?
Am I at peace?
You know, I actually am
Feel pretty good.
I've achieved most of the goals I set.
- My kids are kept.
- Mm-hmm.
- We got a nice house with a nice porch.
- Rocking chair.
- We got rocking chairs.
- Okay.
It has to do with more than just me.
I worry about the next generation.
That's my answer.
[gentle music playing]
[Randi] These are some nice houses.
[gasps] I love that house.
I love big old homes with columns.
They're so pretty.
I want, like, a garden.
I want pretty flowers.
And I want open windows
that let sunlight in.
I do want a healing home too.
It's something I made up in my head.
It's like a cottage,
it's gonna have three bedrooms,
and a greenhouse,
and a garden where I can grow
all my plants and herbs and stuff.
And I can have a a whirlpool
inside of my greenhouse.
I want a swing porch.
I have a lot of sick relatives.
So I want this home to be where I can
just let them heal within themselves,
and I can aid them.
Like, I want this whole house to be
nothing but peace and harmony.
Like, you go there, you forget everything,
your struggles and all that.
And you just relax
and you get healthy and you heal.
So that's why I call it the healing home.
That's the dream.
The American dream.
Good morning, housekeeping.
[Obama] What if the life you dream of
didn't seem quite so distant?
[Carmen]
Hello, I have a delivery for Nick.
[Obama] What if instead
of delivering food to a tech company,
you could get a job at one?
How would it change your life if,
instead of making nine bucks an hour,
you made 20?
Could you finally make that step up
to the middle class?
And stay there?
Good afternoon, Pierre Taj Hotel.
May I assist you?
[closing theme music playing]