Working: What We Do All Day (2023) s01e02 Episode Script
The Middle
1
Ms. Watts!
- Yeah?
- I have your lunch.
Thank you.
I want you to check on it to make sure
it, uh it meets your approval.
- Oh, wow.
- Okay, that looks pretty good.
- Yes, it does.
- So, you got the catfish.
- Yes, sir.
- And hot sauce.
Okay, I'm ready.
- The good news about my lunch deliveries?
- Mm-hmm.
- You don't need to tip.
- Thank you.
- Ms. Monroe!
- Yes?
Here is your lunch.
- My favorite.
- You got the fish?
- How long you been working here?
- Almost 10 years.
- Ain't you an alderman?
- Yes, my second term.
- Second term. You got re-elected.
- Right.
My name is Barack Obama,
- and I'm your lunch delivery person.
- Really?
Is it Ms. Bailey?
Yes, Mr. President.
How are you?
- I'm doing great.
- Make sure that is what you ordered.
It's presidential, so I'm sure
it was what I wanted.
- How you doing?
- All right.
Who are these
lovely young ladies on the screen?
That's my daughter, Shandria.
She's the valedictorian
of her high school.
She's got a good outlook on the world.
She's a comer.
You must be doing something right.
- I am.
- When not working, what do you like?
Go shopping.
Store to store?
- I love shoes.
- Shoes?
- I'm gonna let you get to lunch.
- Thank you.
Thank you.
We ain't gonna make it, Pop.
We just ain't gonna make it.
We got 30 bucks between us,
and bills to total over $200.
We ain't gonna make it.
Growing up, I knew what
the middle class looked like.
I saw it on TV.
Look at this here. He's loading her up.
Working people,
and their struggles around work,
were part of the culture.
Let's get it on.
These were families who weren't poor,
but they weren't rich either.
They were somewhere in the middle.
What did you do wrong that you need $500?
It's just, uh,
for something for the house.
We putting in a swimming pool?
Meanwhile,
popular culture portrayed rich people
as these oddball outliers.
Action!
They were always a little weird.
Then I remember in the 1980s.
Everything started to shift.
All of a sudden,
there was this new sense that money
was the only thing that mattered.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
Dallas.
Seen my daddy around here?
There was a fascination
with how rich some people were.
This corresponded with the boom years
on Wall Street.
The point is, ladies and gentlemen,
that greed,
for lack of a better word,
is good.
It wasn't enough
to make an honest living.
You had to go out there
and make a million bucks.
You had to kill 'em.
As that spirit
began to permeate the culture,
the middle class
started to vanish before our eyes.
By the '90s, you'd watch
a show like Friends and think,
how do these guys have these apartments?
Depictions of middle-class work
were disappearing too.
you made that kinda money.
Except for cop shows,
suddenly everybody
was a doctor or a lawyer.
It's ironic, because most people
are still somewhere in the middle.
But what does middle-class life
on the job actually look like these days?
Okay, papi.
I got a long day today.
- See you later. Be safe.
- Okay, papi.
Call me when you get there.
Don't forget to text me.
How are you, Horace?
Good morning, the Pierre A Taj Hotel,
how may I assist you?
Thank you.
I'll transfer you to the concierge.
Have a wonderful day.
We are the main focus of the hotel.
Every call comes straight to us.
So they depend on us to make sure that
these calls go to the right extensions.
Good morning, Pierre A Taj Hotel,
may I assist you?
When it comes to wooing a guest,
I'm going to woo 'em.
'Cause when you have the Pierre Hotel,
it's like, "Wow."
Right across the street
from Central Park. That's amazing.
Good morning, the Pierre A Taj Hotel,
may I assist you?
Thank you.
Good morning,
this is your 10:15 a.m. wake-up call.
Good morning, Pierre A Taj Hotel.
Absolutely.
You have a wonderful day.
- You want room service?
- I used to clean rooms.
Housekeeping is very hard.
Then I heard there was a vacancy
for this department,
so I applied.
I've been in this room, like, 21.
She's been here, like, 23.
Or 24 years, Doris?
Twenty-six.
How may I help you?
Can you send
a hairdryer up to room 833?
She has a birthday coming.
What you gonna do on your birthday?
Drink.
Drink?
What will you be drinking?
Champagne.
- Champagne?
- That's exactly what I'm saying.
Good morning, Pierre A Taj.
How may I assist you?
Hear about famous people.
We don't get to see nothing up here.
Like, the Met Gala.
I would like to see it.
The most exciting guest? Muhammad Ali.
That's the part I like about the job.
The people you talk to.
Good morning, the Pierre A Taj Hotel.
May I assist you?
We're not allowed to tell our guests "no."
You always have to come with
a better way of phrasing it
without using the word "no."
I had a guest call me a bitch.
I said, "Okay." And I hung up on my phone.
He called back again, and I got him.
I said, "It's you?"
The board does not control me.
I control the board.
Yes, I do.
So, most of the hotels,
there's not an operator no more.
But at the end of the day, we were able
to keep this department open.
You can't just close a department
without notifying the union.
And we really are needed.
Like, we have one guest.
He's in his eighties. He's famous.
Hi, good morning,
Pierre A Taj Hotel, can I assist you?
And he's tough.
One time, he asked me
to order egg foo young.
And the restaurant didn't have it anymore.
So, I called him and I said,
"They don't have it."
He hung the phone up on me.
Next day, he'll be like,
"Beverly, I was so mean to you.
I'm so sorry."
I say, "That's okay."
You don't make them feel bad,
you just listen.
Good morning, the Pierre A Taj Hotel,
may I assist you?
Morning.
Oh, the buzzin' of the bees
And the cigarette trees ♪
The soda water fountain ♪
Where the lemonade springs
And the bluebird sings ♪
In that Big Rock Candy Mountain ♪
I work at a company called Aurora,
which specializes
in self-driving vehicles.
And I've worked here
for about three years.
I'm not on salary, I'm an hourly employee.
the land of milk and honey ♪
From a perspective of, like,
high to low positions in the company,
I'm somewhere in the middle.
And he won't need any money ♪
The buzzin' of the bees
And the cigarette trees ♪
The soda water fountain ♪
Where the lemonade springs
And the bluebird sings ♪
In that Big Rock Candy Mountain ♪
I'm on a team called
motion planning operations.
We're not necessarily
looking for roadkill
My job entails me, like,
finding cases of good driving,
and then we leverage their driving
to create a better Aurora driver.
It can be, like, we need 300 examples
of merging onto the highway,
which isn't the most exciting thing,
but if that's what the need is,
I gotta do it.
Compared to other jobs I've had,
fast food, retail,
I get free food.
And I can work remotely.
And I work with cool people,
who are mostly smarter than me.
My actual passion in life is music.
This job is the money supply
for my real passion.
So, I feel extremely lucky
to have this job.
Big Rock Candy Mountain ♪
Good morning, ladies.
Can you hear me?
Nice to see
everybody this morning.
We're gonna start off with a prayer.
Dear Lord, we want to thank you
for allowing us
to do our very best toward our clients.
- Acting in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
- Amen.
I'm Sheila Robinson,
I'm a regional director over at Walthall,
Pike, Lincoln,
Lawrence, Jeff Davis,
Copiah, and Simpson counties.
We have, like, 170 clients.
The biggest problem we have
is a shortage of employees.
Hiring people and getting them to stay.
We're kinda short-staffed.
We had a young lady on yesterday
and she quit on yesterday.
So, other than that,
we run into problems here and there,
but it's nothing that we can't fix
or get taken care of.
It's your responsibility.
We're dealing with vulnerable population.
Old people,
people that use diapers, walkers.
We don't need clients calling up here,
telling us that the worker didn't show up.
Stay on top of the people
that you're supervising,
because if they're happy
with At Home Care, they're not going.
When they leave, I know that we've failed.
Tracy was trying
to get clarity on that person
that was coming in for the interview.
Okay. Well, let me get with Tracy
and see did she hear from Ms. Pat.
All right, thank you. Bye.
So, how many hours we gotta cover,
Candance, that we don't have covered?
Miss Sandra is seven,
Miss Bobby is five times six,
and Miss Audrey's seven times four.
And this all has to start on Monday?
Yes.
- And it's Friday.
- Mm-hmm.
So, we got four clients we have to cover.
At least you don't have nobody
She went there and that
dog bit her. She cannot go back.
No, no, no.
What happened with Sandra Hill?
She never came back
because of the pay.
What shift you gonna be
working at Walmart?
We don't want to have somebody like that.
She's not going to be able
to work when we need her work.
But we know people need multiple jobs
to make it sometimes.
I started out
a clinical supervisor.
I didn't have any experience,
and I worked my butt off.
Now, I supervise roughly 100 people.
What has happened here?
I had a lady leave a client house.
The GPS shows where she was.
She was not there.
- That's not her signature.
- No, uh-uh.
I don't like that.
They're vulnerable adults,
and I feel like it's taking advantage.
I will go pay her a visit,
and that way, she can't avoid me.
I don't scold people, and,
you know, beat them up. You know.
I always try to keep the mentality of,
I want 'em to come back.
I don't wanna run anybody off.
We're gonna eat lunch.
This the right one?
They wrote my name on it.
That looks good.
Lunch is not lunch.
As long as you stay here,
you gotta answer the phone
and everything on your lunch break.
My grandfather spent all day
making cold calls selling life insurance.
A job he mostly hated.
My grandmother would come home
so drained from working at a bank,
that all she could do
was take off her girdle
and pour herself a stiff drink.
But at the end of the day,
they were decent jobs
that paid for a house,
a car,
and the occasional vacation.
A middle-class life.
It's a simple vision, but a powerful one.
It's also a great
Maybe the great American idea.
That idea is actually
as old as the Founders.
It was born from the spirit of revolution,
the notion that America
wouldn't be England,
a land of kings and peasants.
In America, there would be
a middle ground between rich and poor.
It's easy to overlook
just how radical this idea was.
These days, it's easy to assume
that the existence
of the middle class is a given.
But it's actually
a wild historical anomaly.
A blip.
So who is middle class today?
It can be a hard question to answer.
Depending on where you live,
and which economist you listen to,
you can make $30,000, or $230,000 a year,
and be considered middle class.
Clearly, income is only part of the story.
When we talk about the middle-class dream,
we're talking about more than numbers.
We're talking about
a certain kind of life,
with a certain amount
of economic security.
And that middle-class neighborhood life
that boomer parents love to remember?
It's no longer what it was.
They got fish fry Fridays
happening now?
I love a good fish fry.
They do. Fish fry Fridays
around here, during Lent,
they're the best.
- That's when the perogies go on sale.
- The haluski.
The haluski.
We're in fourth ward right now.
This is where your father grew up.
And this is your father's street,
Walnut Street.
'Til Chris and I got married,
that's where I lived with my parents.
I loved my neighborhood.
I still say I had
the best childhood in the world.
We had two big maple trees
and hedges in the front.
My father would pitch
every night to my brother,
and listen to Pirate Baseball.
Everybody was in the same class, I'd say.
And just about everybody
worked in the mill.
This was our honeymoon cottage,
on the left.
Chris and I bought that house.
We paid $29,500.
All we had to worry about
was $218.08 a month.
That was the mortgage payment.
As I've been telling Luke,
buy a house.
This used to be thriving
when I was a little girl.
Once they decided that
they were going to close the mill
This whole area,
there used to be 17,000 people
that worked at J&L.
And then when they built the mall,
it just wrecked the main street.
Made me cry, actually.
There's nothing
around here, really, still.
I mean, I have my family,
and that's cool, but, like,
everything else I do normally
on a day-to-day basis,
which involves music, and seeing people
that are interested in art,
there's just not a lot
offered around here.
There's a lot of stuff from a whole
apartment kind of jammed everywhere.
Mind the wires.
Uh, but this is
my little sister's old bedroom.
I recently went through a breakup, and
I moved back here while I'm house-hunting.
I make music here, temporarily.
Yeah, I can't see life without
making music, so, here I am.
Recently, I started a record label.
My goal is now,
I need to release more music.
I know that New York, LA,
are the places to go,
but I want to rep Pittsburgh.
I love living here.
Moving to some bigger city
just wouldn't feel right.
Most people I know have day jobs.
Music is always on the side.
I don't think I know a single person who
is able to have music work for them,
for money.
My family doesn't
doesn't get it.
And I never push them to be like,
"Oh, you gotta feel it!"
Seth or Luke,
you wanna come over and get this?
- Okay, sweetheart.
- Yeah.
- You made this bread last night?
- I made it last night.
And we have the cheese.
All right.
In the name of the Father,
Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
Bless us, O Lord, in these thy gifts which
we're about to receive from thy bounty,
through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
- Okay.
- Bon appétit.
- How's work going for you?
- Great.
We went to his
What was that? Family Day?
- Family Day.
- Family Day.
We got to take a ride in one. That was
my first ride in a self-driving car.
So, I mean, I'm interested to see
where that industry goes.
Are we gonna start flying soon?
Is that the next thing? Flying cars?
I work in collision repair.
I leave work at five o'clock, and I live
literally 57 seconds from my office.
So, I'm home and
I spend time with my family,
and I wake up and do it all over again.
So, I lead a very uh, simple life.
Which I'm thankful for.
Everything is just how I was raised.
- Luke hasn't crossed that bridge yet.
- Nope. I'm not there.
We said, "You're not gonna
be able to go into music."
"You have to find a day job."
"You'll never be able
to make a living in the arts."
The odds are in your favor
if you concentrate on science or math,
which is what I try to tell all my kids.
I guess we were always fearful
that, uh, it wasn't sustaining.
I think you have to
I think you need
encouragement to do these things.
We've done our part.
And as far as jobs in the future,
they'll figure it out, just like we did.
Good morning, Operator Beverly.
HTC! HTC!
Mama. You okay, Mama?
Come on, guys.
This is my bedroom.
This is where I relax.
Here comes my famous kitchen,
where all the cooking
and everything goes on.
And then we have the man cave.
This is where my husband likes to be
when he wants to talk about his Yankees.
Over here would be our closet.
My husband is the Jordan lover.
And I, myself,
am the Louis Vuitton lover.
I love Chanel.
So, the sneakers, the Chanel slippers,
which are so comfortable.
I love my slippers.
What's up, Mama?
I've been in the hotel, she's been
in the hotel for 30 years.
We moved in different circles.
Beverly is a very popular person at work.
She's the union delegate.
She's the shop steward for her department.
So they all go to her.
I'm more laid back.
I'm not that outgoing personality.
I do security.
So, as security, we have
to be a little standoffish.
That's the way I've always been.
But her, she's running here,
running there.
I see her all the time in the hotel.
Then we started sitting together.
At lunchtime with a group of people,
it wasn't just me and her.
You know, I was going through
a terrible situation.
My wife, she passed away.
- And Beverly's father also passed away.
- Mm-hmm.
For almost 15 years I stayed with
my dad, after my mother passed away.
He had dementia very bad,
and he didn't know
how to take care of himself.
I had to take care of him.
Bathing him, and It was just so much.
I was very depressed.
Until I started talking to Luis every day.
Talking about what we were going through.
Before you know it, I just started
seeing her in a different light.
I finally mustered up courage,
and I asked her to go out with me.
Before you knew it,
we were living together and married.
Husband and wife.
I think that's important.
Because we're in,
I guess, our golden years, they say.
So, I'm working nine more years
and I'm done.
And I'll get my pension, social security,
and my mortgage will be done that year.
What about your wife?
Oh, you'll be working there forever.
Forget about it.
I want to retire, but I can't sit still.
I don't know what I would do.
I had been with my husband
since I was 13 years old.
He was with the military
and he took care of us.
After my husband passed away,
I had to go to work.
I never had a light bill or anything
in my name.
Now, everything I got is in my name.
I did it all by myself.
- Good morning.
- Good morning.
- How are you ladies doing today?
- All right.
Good, y'all look cute.
I wanna welcome you
to our monthly meeting.
We're gonna start with a prayer, as usual.
Father God, as we go through this meeting,
open up our minds,
open up our ears,
so we can hear, so we can see.
- Amen.
- Amen.
I'm Barbara Tyler.
I have five clients.
I try to do the best I can for them
as I go into their homes,
because I think of their home as my home.
Hi, my name is Diane Brown.
I like being a CNA.
I mean, I take my clients places,
do stuff with them.
They wanna go fishing, we go fishing.
- Ms. Caroline?
- I have two clients.
I probably know 'em
better than their children do.
I treat them the way I would want
someone to treat my 73-year-old mother.
They love me, I love them.
Thank y'all.
Y'all have any questions for me?
Any comments for me?
You have some clients,
they need you to go to the drugstore
and the grocery store.
And you What you do? You go.
Well, I've been going.
Or is that wrong
for helping him out, or what?
No, there's absolutely
nothing wrong with that.
Sometimes we're all they have.
That's our goal,
is to take care of our clients.
Yesterday, I had to go in the country,
it was ten miles out.
And she asked me to go
back into town to get her a pizza.
And it was ten miles coming back here.
Then I had to go back
ten miles to take her pizza.
What I'm trying to ask,
is the GPS picking up all of that?
Honestly, all right,
we don't get paid for going out there,
coming back to the grocery store.
It don't seem fair,
it don't seem right,
because you're burning your gas.
Right now, with the economy,
even the food is fit to go up.
McDonald's and stuff.
Nine and ten dollars an hour.
It's bad when you are certified
and these fast food restaurants
are getting paid more than you.
Right.
How we supposed
to live and survive?
We have kids to take care of,
homes to take care of. All this.
- We worked all through COVID.
- And we haven't got a break yet.
We didn't get hazardous pay.
Some of us, and I was one of 'em,
got the COVID.
I did too.
But I still had to suck it up
and come back to work.
Even when you got the COVID,
you didn't get paid.
The labor board made that law.
December will be three years
that I've been with this company.
I have not got a raise.
I don't think that's fair.
Oh, my gosh.
- Mm. Okay.
- Not a nickel.
They look into it, but sometimes they get
back with us, and sometimes they don't.
I understand your frustrations.
I'm team you.
When I tell y'all
I'm gonna do something, I do it.
Yes. You do.
The response is not on me,
but if I say I'm going to do it, I do it.
- Right.
- That's true.
You're the main reason
I haven't left this company.
There've been other companies,
they said, "You wanna go with me?"
I said, "If Sheila and the rest of
them can't go, I won't go, sweetie."
You won't have Sheila. There's no
Sheila there, so stay where you are!
- Honey, I believe it.
- There's no Sheila!
I do all I can.
We're gonna do this gift card today and
a lucky somebody
will have lunch at McDonald's.
And the winner is
Margaret Brown.
Katina Cummings.
Oh!
Yay!
Thank you, Katina.
You all enjoy y'all lunch.
I know they're frustrated.
And I'm the person they take it out on,
and I'm cool with that.
This is Nicole.
Hey, Miss Nicole. How are you today?
- I'm fine, how are you?
- I'm just fine.
We just had our little meeting and, uh
I had some people
expressing their concerns about payments.
Margaret Brown is one of them
and she said as long as she's been here
she never had a raise.
- I told her that I would call you.
- I'll check on it.
Okay, do that
and get back with me, please.
All right.
Okay. So, basically,
I just did what I told them I would.
That's all I can do.
So I did my part.
I mean
Okay.
So, this was built in 1922, I think,
which is pretty standard.
For a lot of Pittsburgh houses,
this is, like, early 1900s.
"Four-bedroom house."
"One and a half bathrooms."
This is a really low lamp.
There's, like, multiple side porches.
So, this house is going for 400,000.
My price range is probably around
Uh 130,000, 150,000.
Of course, I'd love space.
But, as my dad keeps reminding me,
the more space you have,
the more you have to heat.
It's gonna eventually cost more.
With house buying, it's so funny.
I started with,
"Okay, no more than 100,000."
Then I see what's out there,
and it's like, "Ugh."
Can't even find a gutted house
for 100,000 at this point. So
I'm going up.
I think I'm Pittsburgh comfortable.
Um
I definitely make less than $100,000.
But, to me, I mean, I feel pretty
confident that I can pay my bills.
There were spots of water damage up there.
And that, to me, is like a step-up.
Here's one of the great ironies
of this moment we're living in.
The global economy has made a lot
of consumer goods a whole lot cheaper.
Today, most people can afford more
clothes, more electronics, more stuff
than their parents' generation ever could.
But try buying a house.
A new home used to cost
twice your annual income.
Now, it's more like six times.
Across the board,
the foundations of a middle-class life
are getting a lot harder to afford.
The cost of college
has almost tripled since 1980.
Childcare has gone up something like 200%.
Meanwhile, real wages for working people
have barely budged in decades.
While your TV may be getting bigger,
the life you can afford
might feel like it's getting smaller.
It's part of the reason why millennials
could be the first generation
to do less well than their parents.
Even if they aren't worse off,
chances are they feel that way.
WBGG Pittsburgh.
We're recording everything that's
going on around us with these cameras.
This is a prime route
for pedestrian collections.
See if we see
some fun jaywalking down here.
Oh, yeah, nice.
I really don't think
self-driving cars will, like,
forever replace
manual driving vehicles, ever.
I kind of hope
it does replace human drivers forever.
I'm so serious.
I tried it.
Lyft, Uber.
All this other gig stuff.
Those jobs are
not anything that anyone wants to do.
Lead her through the town ♪
Do you remember
how you found the job?
The job found me on LinkedIn.
They were like, "Do you want to quit
your dead-end customer service job
and stop getting yelled at
for eight hours a day?"
I'm like, "Yes."
I had a slight understanding
of tech in Pittsburgh.
Here are these well-paying jobs,
free lunches, a ton of snacks.
So, I was like,
"Yeah, dude, like, refer me."
I remember that first week looking around,
like, "This is a real job."
"They're gonna pay us to do this, right?"
Hourly. You know, overtime, annual bonus.
I'm able to support myself, my family.
The biggest thing
is the reasonable time off.
Because I come from retail,
and not being
"So why do you need two days off
in three months?"
In the call center job I had,
you were allowed five sick days a year.
As soon as you went over that,
they looked for a reason to fire you.
"Well, bye. I'm just gonna
go ahead and drive Lyft, Uber."
And I went bankrupt within a year.
Life happens, and there is no cushion.
I always still think,
"What if I lose this job?"
What do I need to do now
to make sure that I'm okay in that event?
I have that same feeling.
It's hard to find a job
making what I make now,
if you're not in the technology field.
Since I don't have an engineering degree,
I'd have to work, like,
two jobs to even get close.
If you work a terrible job
for a long time,
I don't know if it does a number
on your confidence or whatever,
but I've had to do a lot of unlearning of
bad habits since I started working here.
Trust issues, I guess.
That idea of, like,
a startup tech company being vulnerable
and any tiny little thing gets announced.
"We have a random meeting
with a lot of people on the team."
It causes me to freeze.
It's like, okay, I can go back to retail?
Yeah.
At the end of the day,
if you are given an opportunity
to do something more
of what you want to do,
that pays you a fair wage
It's like your mind unlocks.
I remember thinking, "Okay,
I can only get $25 worth of gas,
or else I can't get, uh,
groceries for the rest of the week."
But, like, now I just get gas.
Money does not bring happiness,
but it certainly does
provide the means to find it.
- Well said.
- You're right.
There's nothing here. No.
They got tuna fish.
Our hours are different, so we don't
always get to eat lunch together.
I was here 1990,
so she was here five years before me.
- And she came
- In 2010.
- 2010.
- Yeah.
Since then, we stick together.
We're sisters.
We work like a family here.
You will just work here
till you're 100 years old.
The union is good.
I was making $16 an hour as a pastry cook
at my last job, which wasn't bad.
When I started here, I started making
$19 and 90-some-odd cents.
So, thank God, in August of 2019,
I paid off my student loans.
Because of this job.
If it wasn't for this job,
I would have to take jobs just
because I'm trying to survive.
The union affords people
to be able to live.
Things changed so much.
I don't know if there will be
a union after we leave here.
The politicians and everybody's fighting
to get unions out.
Like Elon Musk.
He's one of the richest men in the world,
and he's trying to get rid of unions.
If there's no middle class,
you're taking out levels of society
that are needed to
uphold the top and pull up the bottom.
It's middle class that the burden is on.
It's us taking care
of those who have less than.
And it's those who are on top of us
that benefit from the work
that we do for them.
Not everybody's going to be an Elon Musk.
Not everybody wants to be.
But have it so that
wherever someone is in society,
they can be and do their best.
If we could just stop
the way we spend money.
Dresses, shoes,
because you always wanna look sexy.
You better stop.
That'll be a second.
Once they hit the hot water
it kills them.
- Cal.
- Get back, Cal.
Okay!
He knows it's hot.
- Come here.
- Hot.
- Hot.
- Yeah, it's hot.
- Oh, I dropped one.
- It's okay.
This was 31 pounds.
Before the season really comes in,
they be real expensive.
Did that stop us from eating them? No.
Hey. I'm talkin' to the baby.
Here. Hey, boo.
I'm the middle, and I'm the only girl.
And I work for At Home Care.
She has the most stressful
part of the job, I think.
It's not the elderly people,
it's dealing with the workers.
She always taught us to want to work
and have something of your own,
and not have to depend on me
or my dad, at the time.
- Here you go.
- He's actually my second child.
I had a stillborn son in 2017.
I don't know if that's what
makes him so special to everybody,
but he's most definitely special to her.
I want him to have a good life,
but also to be a productive citizen.
I don't want him to
just not have to do anything for it.
But it would be good
for him to have a little leeway.
Few privileges here and there.
- Me too.
- You too?
You know, she does what she can.
Like she says, she has to have
two jobs in order to make ends meet.
It's nothing like it used to be.
So, I know that I really have to work
to help provide that for him.
A good life is doing half of what you want
and everything that you need.
That's what I think is a good life.
They're good.
Luke.
Thank you for having me, man.
- You're welcome.
- I appreciate it.
So, you just bought this house.
- I did.
- Which is a pretty big leap.
Buying a house. That's, uh
You know, that's when
you know you're a grown-up.
- Yeah, and furniture. It's weird.
- Furniture.
It's very stressful.
So, what do we got here?
As cat residences go, this is
about as elaborate as I've ever seen.
This is primary living space?
- Yes.
- Or primary office space? Uh
I blend between the two,
and now I need to stay motivated. So
Yes. It's good advice.
I like I like the '70s.
It's an album. Part of For a remix.
- Smooth Tutors at the time. That's me.
- Very Smooth Tutors. I like the name.
My last band.
Can I take you to the basement
where the music is made?
- Please. Let's go.
- Baby.
That's the great thing
about your first house.
There's always a door that sticks.
- This is the room where it happens?
- This is where it happens.
Oh, now you're really an adult.
When you have the charcuterie.
- It's like, synths, Rhodes.
- Right.
Pre-amps to replace amps.
I've got a lot of guitar pedals.
There's a little bit
of a mad professor going on here.
It's good.
My life as a child
was a lot of, you know, just
- I'd be watching TV
- Jamming.
Just watching, playing guitar.
So, music was your love,
but was there a time
where suddenly you realized,
"Man, I can't be playing, I gotta work"?
Where there was a distinction
between work and play.
And something serious
versus something that you do just for fun.
I think I got my first job
when I was around 13.
So, work was always going to be happening.
But music was also
always going to be happening.
I never thought money and music
were gonna be able to work out.
I think it's a pretty common theme.
If music were my main job
I hate my main jobs.
Therefore, I'd hate music, so
I don't wanna make music my main job.
- My first job was Baskin-Robbins.
- Nice.
To this day,
I can't eat ice cream much.
- My first job, I was a pinsetter.
- Yeah.
- At a bowling alley.
- Bowling alley.
Moved into retail, then I ended up
landing in a titanium cleaning facility.
Just dealing with sulfuric acid every day.
We had a swing grinder
that hung from the ceiling.
It was the size of a motorcycle.
So, you got a string of jobs,
basically to finance your passion.
- Yeah.
- Uh
Is it at this point
you become interested in tech?
Absolutely. I think I was
on some job website,
and I saw that there was
an opening for a test driver.
- Yeah.
- With Uber self-driving.
So, I figured, okay, the money looks good.
I don't think I'll get it.
I'll throw in my resume
What happened with that job?
There was an accident
with an Uber self-driving car.
That directly affected me,
as far as driving. There was a pause.
And pretty much my whole team got let go.
It was always kind of cutthroat.
And I mean
You never felt like, "This is a family
and folks are looking out for me."
When someone says you're
in a family, usually that's a bad job.
You know, I never really try to rely on
something, you know, wholeheartedly.
I'm always kind of,
like, ready for it to fall through.
So, talk to me about
how you feel at Aurora now.
Middle-class job, you're not dealing
with solvents and hazardous chemicals.
You're able to buy your own home.
Yeah. Working for Aurora, I realized,
"Oh, okay, I can like
the people that I work with."
- Does it leave time for your music?
- I find time. I've always had to.
Yeah.
Should we listen to some music?
Turn some stuff on and
Has there been an evolution in your music
since the days of Smooth Tutors?
Absolutely. To start, I like
to find one sound. Let's start off
So, there's the dry, flute sound.
- Right.
- And I'll find a chord that I like.
And then I'll record that. So
Now that will loop.
- Okay.
- And then the sky's the limit.
- That's all still from that one chord.
- Yeah.
Then before you know it,
you've got a song emerging from that.
I got a jam coming. I can hear it.
My friend I've been working with,
his name is Bernard.
He, uh, he goes by Nardo Says.
- Nardo Says. Of course he does.
- Nardo Says.
I'm pretty different, you know ♪
I got a hell of a soul ♪
I just learned how to love it
As I keep getting old ♪
As the truth getting told
I observe and decode ♪
- So, this is just him singing.
- Yeah. Don't
All my production down here.
Off of essentially that.
Yeah. Let's listen to this for a second.
Shout out to the fans
For the seed that they sow ♪
It grew into a strong man
Hope you cried at the glow ♪
Nah' mean? ♪
Good afternoon,
the Pierre A Taj Hotel. May I assist you?
I'm going to transfer you to Francois now.
Have a wonderful day.
This is what I do.
Good afternoon, Pierre A Taj Hotel.
How may I assist you?
You would like a "do not disturb"
till you notify us?
Absolutely.
Good afternoon, Pierre A Taj Hotel.
May I assist you?
Good afternoon, Mr. Meldon.
I'm doing good. How are you feeling?
Oh, that's so wonderful.
Can I place you on a brief hold, please?
Thank you.
I understand what you're going through,
if you need anything,
if you need someone to talk to,
pick up your phone,
and just say, "Is Beverly there?"
I'm here.
Oh, we all need each other. Absolutely.
Do you think that's something
that you would be able to do?
Yes, ma'am.
A job in the middle will offer
at least the promise of stability.
But you probably wouldn't say
it was your life's calling.
What if you could
make your passion your work?
Could you still be unsatisfied,
even when you have it all?
What would you have to
sacrifice for your dream job?
Ms. Watts!
- Yeah?
- I have your lunch.
Thank you.
I want you to check on it to make sure
it, uh it meets your approval.
- Oh, wow.
- Okay, that looks pretty good.
- Yes, it does.
- So, you got the catfish.
- Yes, sir.
- And hot sauce.
Okay, I'm ready.
- The good news about my lunch deliveries?
- Mm-hmm.
- You don't need to tip.
- Thank you.
- Ms. Monroe!
- Yes?
Here is your lunch.
- My favorite.
- You got the fish?
- How long you been working here?
- Almost 10 years.
- Ain't you an alderman?
- Yes, my second term.
- Second term. You got re-elected.
- Right.
My name is Barack Obama,
- and I'm your lunch delivery person.
- Really?
Is it Ms. Bailey?
Yes, Mr. President.
How are you?
- I'm doing great.
- Make sure that is what you ordered.
It's presidential, so I'm sure
it was what I wanted.
- How you doing?
- All right.
Who are these
lovely young ladies on the screen?
That's my daughter, Shandria.
She's the valedictorian
of her high school.
She's got a good outlook on the world.
She's a comer.
You must be doing something right.
- I am.
- When not working, what do you like?
Go shopping.
Store to store?
- I love shoes.
- Shoes?
- I'm gonna let you get to lunch.
- Thank you.
Thank you.
We ain't gonna make it, Pop.
We just ain't gonna make it.
We got 30 bucks between us,
and bills to total over $200.
We ain't gonna make it.
Growing up, I knew what
the middle class looked like.
I saw it on TV.
Look at this here. He's loading her up.
Working people,
and their struggles around work,
were part of the culture.
Let's get it on.
These were families who weren't poor,
but they weren't rich either.
They were somewhere in the middle.
What did you do wrong that you need $500?
It's just, uh,
for something for the house.
We putting in a swimming pool?
Meanwhile,
popular culture portrayed rich people
as these oddball outliers.
Action!
They were always a little weird.
Then I remember in the 1980s.
Everything started to shift.
All of a sudden,
there was this new sense that money
was the only thing that mattered.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
Dallas.
Seen my daddy around here?
There was a fascination
with how rich some people were.
This corresponded with the boom years
on Wall Street.
The point is, ladies and gentlemen,
that greed,
for lack of a better word,
is good.
It wasn't enough
to make an honest living.
You had to go out there
and make a million bucks.
You had to kill 'em.
As that spirit
began to permeate the culture,
the middle class
started to vanish before our eyes.
By the '90s, you'd watch
a show like Friends and think,
how do these guys have these apartments?
Depictions of middle-class work
were disappearing too.
you made that kinda money.
Except for cop shows,
suddenly everybody
was a doctor or a lawyer.
It's ironic, because most people
are still somewhere in the middle.
But what does middle-class life
on the job actually look like these days?
Okay, papi.
I got a long day today.
- See you later. Be safe.
- Okay, papi.
Call me when you get there.
Don't forget to text me.
How are you, Horace?
Good morning, the Pierre A Taj Hotel,
how may I assist you?
Thank you.
I'll transfer you to the concierge.
Have a wonderful day.
We are the main focus of the hotel.
Every call comes straight to us.
So they depend on us to make sure that
these calls go to the right extensions.
Good morning, Pierre A Taj Hotel,
may I assist you?
When it comes to wooing a guest,
I'm going to woo 'em.
'Cause when you have the Pierre Hotel,
it's like, "Wow."
Right across the street
from Central Park. That's amazing.
Good morning, the Pierre A Taj Hotel,
may I assist you?
Thank you.
Good morning,
this is your 10:15 a.m. wake-up call.
Good morning, Pierre A Taj Hotel.
Absolutely.
You have a wonderful day.
- You want room service?
- I used to clean rooms.
Housekeeping is very hard.
Then I heard there was a vacancy
for this department,
so I applied.
I've been in this room, like, 21.
She's been here, like, 23.
Or 24 years, Doris?
Twenty-six.
How may I help you?
Can you send
a hairdryer up to room 833?
She has a birthday coming.
What you gonna do on your birthday?
Drink.
Drink?
What will you be drinking?
Champagne.
- Champagne?
- That's exactly what I'm saying.
Good morning, Pierre A Taj.
How may I assist you?
Hear about famous people.
We don't get to see nothing up here.
Like, the Met Gala.
I would like to see it.
The most exciting guest? Muhammad Ali.
That's the part I like about the job.
The people you talk to.
Good morning, the Pierre A Taj Hotel.
May I assist you?
We're not allowed to tell our guests "no."
You always have to come with
a better way of phrasing it
without using the word "no."
I had a guest call me a bitch.
I said, "Okay." And I hung up on my phone.
He called back again, and I got him.
I said, "It's you?"
The board does not control me.
I control the board.
Yes, I do.
So, most of the hotels,
there's not an operator no more.
But at the end of the day, we were able
to keep this department open.
You can't just close a department
without notifying the union.
And we really are needed.
Like, we have one guest.
He's in his eighties. He's famous.
Hi, good morning,
Pierre A Taj Hotel, can I assist you?
And he's tough.
One time, he asked me
to order egg foo young.
And the restaurant didn't have it anymore.
So, I called him and I said,
"They don't have it."
He hung the phone up on me.
Next day, he'll be like,
"Beverly, I was so mean to you.
I'm so sorry."
I say, "That's okay."
You don't make them feel bad,
you just listen.
Good morning, the Pierre A Taj Hotel,
may I assist you?
Morning.
Oh, the buzzin' of the bees
And the cigarette trees ♪
The soda water fountain ♪
Where the lemonade springs
And the bluebird sings ♪
In that Big Rock Candy Mountain ♪
I work at a company called Aurora,
which specializes
in self-driving vehicles.
And I've worked here
for about three years.
I'm not on salary, I'm an hourly employee.
the land of milk and honey ♪
From a perspective of, like,
high to low positions in the company,
I'm somewhere in the middle.
And he won't need any money ♪
The buzzin' of the bees
And the cigarette trees ♪
The soda water fountain ♪
Where the lemonade springs
And the bluebird sings ♪
In that Big Rock Candy Mountain ♪
I'm on a team called
motion planning operations.
We're not necessarily
looking for roadkill
My job entails me, like,
finding cases of good driving,
and then we leverage their driving
to create a better Aurora driver.
It can be, like, we need 300 examples
of merging onto the highway,
which isn't the most exciting thing,
but if that's what the need is,
I gotta do it.
Compared to other jobs I've had,
fast food, retail,
I get free food.
And I can work remotely.
And I work with cool people,
who are mostly smarter than me.
My actual passion in life is music.
This job is the money supply
for my real passion.
So, I feel extremely lucky
to have this job.
Big Rock Candy Mountain ♪
Good morning, ladies.
Can you hear me?
Nice to see
everybody this morning.
We're gonna start off with a prayer.
Dear Lord, we want to thank you
for allowing us
to do our very best toward our clients.
- Acting in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
- Amen.
I'm Sheila Robinson,
I'm a regional director over at Walthall,
Pike, Lincoln,
Lawrence, Jeff Davis,
Copiah, and Simpson counties.
We have, like, 170 clients.
The biggest problem we have
is a shortage of employees.
Hiring people and getting them to stay.
We're kinda short-staffed.
We had a young lady on yesterday
and she quit on yesterday.
So, other than that,
we run into problems here and there,
but it's nothing that we can't fix
or get taken care of.
It's your responsibility.
We're dealing with vulnerable population.
Old people,
people that use diapers, walkers.
We don't need clients calling up here,
telling us that the worker didn't show up.
Stay on top of the people
that you're supervising,
because if they're happy
with At Home Care, they're not going.
When they leave, I know that we've failed.
Tracy was trying
to get clarity on that person
that was coming in for the interview.
Okay. Well, let me get with Tracy
and see did she hear from Ms. Pat.
All right, thank you. Bye.
So, how many hours we gotta cover,
Candance, that we don't have covered?
Miss Sandra is seven,
Miss Bobby is five times six,
and Miss Audrey's seven times four.
And this all has to start on Monday?
Yes.
- And it's Friday.
- Mm-hmm.
So, we got four clients we have to cover.
At least you don't have nobody
She went there and that
dog bit her. She cannot go back.
No, no, no.
What happened with Sandra Hill?
She never came back
because of the pay.
What shift you gonna be
working at Walmart?
We don't want to have somebody like that.
She's not going to be able
to work when we need her work.
But we know people need multiple jobs
to make it sometimes.
I started out
a clinical supervisor.
I didn't have any experience,
and I worked my butt off.
Now, I supervise roughly 100 people.
What has happened here?
I had a lady leave a client house.
The GPS shows where she was.
She was not there.
- That's not her signature.
- No, uh-uh.
I don't like that.
They're vulnerable adults,
and I feel like it's taking advantage.
I will go pay her a visit,
and that way, she can't avoid me.
I don't scold people, and,
you know, beat them up. You know.
I always try to keep the mentality of,
I want 'em to come back.
I don't wanna run anybody off.
We're gonna eat lunch.
This the right one?
They wrote my name on it.
That looks good.
Lunch is not lunch.
As long as you stay here,
you gotta answer the phone
and everything on your lunch break.
My grandfather spent all day
making cold calls selling life insurance.
A job he mostly hated.
My grandmother would come home
so drained from working at a bank,
that all she could do
was take off her girdle
and pour herself a stiff drink.
But at the end of the day,
they were decent jobs
that paid for a house,
a car,
and the occasional vacation.
A middle-class life.
It's a simple vision, but a powerful one.
It's also a great
Maybe the great American idea.
That idea is actually
as old as the Founders.
It was born from the spirit of revolution,
the notion that America
wouldn't be England,
a land of kings and peasants.
In America, there would be
a middle ground between rich and poor.
It's easy to overlook
just how radical this idea was.
These days, it's easy to assume
that the existence
of the middle class is a given.
But it's actually
a wild historical anomaly.
A blip.
So who is middle class today?
It can be a hard question to answer.
Depending on where you live,
and which economist you listen to,
you can make $30,000, or $230,000 a year,
and be considered middle class.
Clearly, income is only part of the story.
When we talk about the middle-class dream,
we're talking about more than numbers.
We're talking about
a certain kind of life,
with a certain amount
of economic security.
And that middle-class neighborhood life
that boomer parents love to remember?
It's no longer what it was.
They got fish fry Fridays
happening now?
I love a good fish fry.
They do. Fish fry Fridays
around here, during Lent,
they're the best.
- That's when the perogies go on sale.
- The haluski.
The haluski.
We're in fourth ward right now.
This is where your father grew up.
And this is your father's street,
Walnut Street.
'Til Chris and I got married,
that's where I lived with my parents.
I loved my neighborhood.
I still say I had
the best childhood in the world.
We had two big maple trees
and hedges in the front.
My father would pitch
every night to my brother,
and listen to Pirate Baseball.
Everybody was in the same class, I'd say.
And just about everybody
worked in the mill.
This was our honeymoon cottage,
on the left.
Chris and I bought that house.
We paid $29,500.
All we had to worry about
was $218.08 a month.
That was the mortgage payment.
As I've been telling Luke,
buy a house.
This used to be thriving
when I was a little girl.
Once they decided that
they were going to close the mill
This whole area,
there used to be 17,000 people
that worked at J&L.
And then when they built the mall,
it just wrecked the main street.
Made me cry, actually.
There's nothing
around here, really, still.
I mean, I have my family,
and that's cool, but, like,
everything else I do normally
on a day-to-day basis,
which involves music, and seeing people
that are interested in art,
there's just not a lot
offered around here.
There's a lot of stuff from a whole
apartment kind of jammed everywhere.
Mind the wires.
Uh, but this is
my little sister's old bedroom.
I recently went through a breakup, and
I moved back here while I'm house-hunting.
I make music here, temporarily.
Yeah, I can't see life without
making music, so, here I am.
Recently, I started a record label.
My goal is now,
I need to release more music.
I know that New York, LA,
are the places to go,
but I want to rep Pittsburgh.
I love living here.
Moving to some bigger city
just wouldn't feel right.
Most people I know have day jobs.
Music is always on the side.
I don't think I know a single person who
is able to have music work for them,
for money.
My family doesn't
doesn't get it.
And I never push them to be like,
"Oh, you gotta feel it!"
Seth or Luke,
you wanna come over and get this?
- Okay, sweetheart.
- Yeah.
- You made this bread last night?
- I made it last night.
And we have the cheese.
All right.
In the name of the Father,
Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
Bless us, O Lord, in these thy gifts which
we're about to receive from thy bounty,
through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
- Okay.
- Bon appétit.
- How's work going for you?
- Great.
We went to his
What was that? Family Day?
- Family Day.
- Family Day.
We got to take a ride in one. That was
my first ride in a self-driving car.
So, I mean, I'm interested to see
where that industry goes.
Are we gonna start flying soon?
Is that the next thing? Flying cars?
I work in collision repair.
I leave work at five o'clock, and I live
literally 57 seconds from my office.
So, I'm home and
I spend time with my family,
and I wake up and do it all over again.
So, I lead a very uh, simple life.
Which I'm thankful for.
Everything is just how I was raised.
- Luke hasn't crossed that bridge yet.
- Nope. I'm not there.
We said, "You're not gonna
be able to go into music."
"You have to find a day job."
"You'll never be able
to make a living in the arts."
The odds are in your favor
if you concentrate on science or math,
which is what I try to tell all my kids.
I guess we were always fearful
that, uh, it wasn't sustaining.
I think you have to
I think you need
encouragement to do these things.
We've done our part.
And as far as jobs in the future,
they'll figure it out, just like we did.
Good morning, Operator Beverly.
HTC! HTC!
Mama. You okay, Mama?
Come on, guys.
This is my bedroom.
This is where I relax.
Here comes my famous kitchen,
where all the cooking
and everything goes on.
And then we have the man cave.
This is where my husband likes to be
when he wants to talk about his Yankees.
Over here would be our closet.
My husband is the Jordan lover.
And I, myself,
am the Louis Vuitton lover.
I love Chanel.
So, the sneakers, the Chanel slippers,
which are so comfortable.
I love my slippers.
What's up, Mama?
I've been in the hotel, she's been
in the hotel for 30 years.
We moved in different circles.
Beverly is a very popular person at work.
She's the union delegate.
She's the shop steward for her department.
So they all go to her.
I'm more laid back.
I'm not that outgoing personality.
I do security.
So, as security, we have
to be a little standoffish.
That's the way I've always been.
But her, she's running here,
running there.
I see her all the time in the hotel.
Then we started sitting together.
At lunchtime with a group of people,
it wasn't just me and her.
You know, I was going through
a terrible situation.
My wife, she passed away.
- And Beverly's father also passed away.
- Mm-hmm.
For almost 15 years I stayed with
my dad, after my mother passed away.
He had dementia very bad,
and he didn't know
how to take care of himself.
I had to take care of him.
Bathing him, and It was just so much.
I was very depressed.
Until I started talking to Luis every day.
Talking about what we were going through.
Before you know it, I just started
seeing her in a different light.
I finally mustered up courage,
and I asked her to go out with me.
Before you knew it,
we were living together and married.
Husband and wife.
I think that's important.
Because we're in,
I guess, our golden years, they say.
So, I'm working nine more years
and I'm done.
And I'll get my pension, social security,
and my mortgage will be done that year.
What about your wife?
Oh, you'll be working there forever.
Forget about it.
I want to retire, but I can't sit still.
I don't know what I would do.
I had been with my husband
since I was 13 years old.
He was with the military
and he took care of us.
After my husband passed away,
I had to go to work.
I never had a light bill or anything
in my name.
Now, everything I got is in my name.
I did it all by myself.
- Good morning.
- Good morning.
- How are you ladies doing today?
- All right.
Good, y'all look cute.
I wanna welcome you
to our monthly meeting.
We're gonna start with a prayer, as usual.
Father God, as we go through this meeting,
open up our minds,
open up our ears,
so we can hear, so we can see.
- Amen.
- Amen.
I'm Barbara Tyler.
I have five clients.
I try to do the best I can for them
as I go into their homes,
because I think of their home as my home.
Hi, my name is Diane Brown.
I like being a CNA.
I mean, I take my clients places,
do stuff with them.
They wanna go fishing, we go fishing.
- Ms. Caroline?
- I have two clients.
I probably know 'em
better than their children do.
I treat them the way I would want
someone to treat my 73-year-old mother.
They love me, I love them.
Thank y'all.
Y'all have any questions for me?
Any comments for me?
You have some clients,
they need you to go to the drugstore
and the grocery store.
And you What you do? You go.
Well, I've been going.
Or is that wrong
for helping him out, or what?
No, there's absolutely
nothing wrong with that.
Sometimes we're all they have.
That's our goal,
is to take care of our clients.
Yesterday, I had to go in the country,
it was ten miles out.
And she asked me to go
back into town to get her a pizza.
And it was ten miles coming back here.
Then I had to go back
ten miles to take her pizza.
What I'm trying to ask,
is the GPS picking up all of that?
Honestly, all right,
we don't get paid for going out there,
coming back to the grocery store.
It don't seem fair,
it don't seem right,
because you're burning your gas.
Right now, with the economy,
even the food is fit to go up.
McDonald's and stuff.
Nine and ten dollars an hour.
It's bad when you are certified
and these fast food restaurants
are getting paid more than you.
Right.
How we supposed
to live and survive?
We have kids to take care of,
homes to take care of. All this.
- We worked all through COVID.
- And we haven't got a break yet.
We didn't get hazardous pay.
Some of us, and I was one of 'em,
got the COVID.
I did too.
But I still had to suck it up
and come back to work.
Even when you got the COVID,
you didn't get paid.
The labor board made that law.
December will be three years
that I've been with this company.
I have not got a raise.
I don't think that's fair.
Oh, my gosh.
- Mm. Okay.
- Not a nickel.
They look into it, but sometimes they get
back with us, and sometimes they don't.
I understand your frustrations.
I'm team you.
When I tell y'all
I'm gonna do something, I do it.
Yes. You do.
The response is not on me,
but if I say I'm going to do it, I do it.
- Right.
- That's true.
You're the main reason
I haven't left this company.
There've been other companies,
they said, "You wanna go with me?"
I said, "If Sheila and the rest of
them can't go, I won't go, sweetie."
You won't have Sheila. There's no
Sheila there, so stay where you are!
- Honey, I believe it.
- There's no Sheila!
I do all I can.
We're gonna do this gift card today and
a lucky somebody
will have lunch at McDonald's.
And the winner is
Margaret Brown.
Katina Cummings.
Oh!
Yay!
Thank you, Katina.
You all enjoy y'all lunch.
I know they're frustrated.
And I'm the person they take it out on,
and I'm cool with that.
This is Nicole.
Hey, Miss Nicole. How are you today?
- I'm fine, how are you?
- I'm just fine.
We just had our little meeting and, uh
I had some people
expressing their concerns about payments.
Margaret Brown is one of them
and she said as long as she's been here
she never had a raise.
- I told her that I would call you.
- I'll check on it.
Okay, do that
and get back with me, please.
All right.
Okay. So, basically,
I just did what I told them I would.
That's all I can do.
So I did my part.
I mean
Okay.
So, this was built in 1922, I think,
which is pretty standard.
For a lot of Pittsburgh houses,
this is, like, early 1900s.
"Four-bedroom house."
"One and a half bathrooms."
This is a really low lamp.
There's, like, multiple side porches.
So, this house is going for 400,000.
My price range is probably around
Uh 130,000, 150,000.
Of course, I'd love space.
But, as my dad keeps reminding me,
the more space you have,
the more you have to heat.
It's gonna eventually cost more.
With house buying, it's so funny.
I started with,
"Okay, no more than 100,000."
Then I see what's out there,
and it's like, "Ugh."
Can't even find a gutted house
for 100,000 at this point. So
I'm going up.
I think I'm Pittsburgh comfortable.
Um
I definitely make less than $100,000.
But, to me, I mean, I feel pretty
confident that I can pay my bills.
There were spots of water damage up there.
And that, to me, is like a step-up.
Here's one of the great ironies
of this moment we're living in.
The global economy has made a lot
of consumer goods a whole lot cheaper.
Today, most people can afford more
clothes, more electronics, more stuff
than their parents' generation ever could.
But try buying a house.
A new home used to cost
twice your annual income.
Now, it's more like six times.
Across the board,
the foundations of a middle-class life
are getting a lot harder to afford.
The cost of college
has almost tripled since 1980.
Childcare has gone up something like 200%.
Meanwhile, real wages for working people
have barely budged in decades.
While your TV may be getting bigger,
the life you can afford
might feel like it's getting smaller.
It's part of the reason why millennials
could be the first generation
to do less well than their parents.
Even if they aren't worse off,
chances are they feel that way.
WBGG Pittsburgh.
We're recording everything that's
going on around us with these cameras.
This is a prime route
for pedestrian collections.
See if we see
some fun jaywalking down here.
Oh, yeah, nice.
I really don't think
self-driving cars will, like,
forever replace
manual driving vehicles, ever.
I kind of hope
it does replace human drivers forever.
I'm so serious.
I tried it.
Lyft, Uber.
All this other gig stuff.
Those jobs are
not anything that anyone wants to do.
Lead her through the town ♪
Do you remember
how you found the job?
The job found me on LinkedIn.
They were like, "Do you want to quit
your dead-end customer service job
and stop getting yelled at
for eight hours a day?"
I'm like, "Yes."
I had a slight understanding
of tech in Pittsburgh.
Here are these well-paying jobs,
free lunches, a ton of snacks.
So, I was like,
"Yeah, dude, like, refer me."
I remember that first week looking around,
like, "This is a real job."
"They're gonna pay us to do this, right?"
Hourly. You know, overtime, annual bonus.
I'm able to support myself, my family.
The biggest thing
is the reasonable time off.
Because I come from retail,
and not being
"So why do you need two days off
in three months?"
In the call center job I had,
you were allowed five sick days a year.
As soon as you went over that,
they looked for a reason to fire you.
"Well, bye. I'm just gonna
go ahead and drive Lyft, Uber."
And I went bankrupt within a year.
Life happens, and there is no cushion.
I always still think,
"What if I lose this job?"
What do I need to do now
to make sure that I'm okay in that event?
I have that same feeling.
It's hard to find a job
making what I make now,
if you're not in the technology field.
Since I don't have an engineering degree,
I'd have to work, like,
two jobs to even get close.
If you work a terrible job
for a long time,
I don't know if it does a number
on your confidence or whatever,
but I've had to do a lot of unlearning of
bad habits since I started working here.
Trust issues, I guess.
That idea of, like,
a startup tech company being vulnerable
and any tiny little thing gets announced.
"We have a random meeting
with a lot of people on the team."
It causes me to freeze.
It's like, okay, I can go back to retail?
Yeah.
At the end of the day,
if you are given an opportunity
to do something more
of what you want to do,
that pays you a fair wage
It's like your mind unlocks.
I remember thinking, "Okay,
I can only get $25 worth of gas,
or else I can't get, uh,
groceries for the rest of the week."
But, like, now I just get gas.
Money does not bring happiness,
but it certainly does
provide the means to find it.
- Well said.
- You're right.
There's nothing here. No.
They got tuna fish.
Our hours are different, so we don't
always get to eat lunch together.
I was here 1990,
so she was here five years before me.
- And she came
- In 2010.
- 2010.
- Yeah.
Since then, we stick together.
We're sisters.
We work like a family here.
You will just work here
till you're 100 years old.
The union is good.
I was making $16 an hour as a pastry cook
at my last job, which wasn't bad.
When I started here, I started making
$19 and 90-some-odd cents.
So, thank God, in August of 2019,
I paid off my student loans.
Because of this job.
If it wasn't for this job,
I would have to take jobs just
because I'm trying to survive.
The union affords people
to be able to live.
Things changed so much.
I don't know if there will be
a union after we leave here.
The politicians and everybody's fighting
to get unions out.
Like Elon Musk.
He's one of the richest men in the world,
and he's trying to get rid of unions.
If there's no middle class,
you're taking out levels of society
that are needed to
uphold the top and pull up the bottom.
It's middle class that the burden is on.
It's us taking care
of those who have less than.
And it's those who are on top of us
that benefit from the work
that we do for them.
Not everybody's going to be an Elon Musk.
Not everybody wants to be.
But have it so that
wherever someone is in society,
they can be and do their best.
If we could just stop
the way we spend money.
Dresses, shoes,
because you always wanna look sexy.
You better stop.
That'll be a second.
Once they hit the hot water
it kills them.
- Cal.
- Get back, Cal.
Okay!
He knows it's hot.
- Come here.
- Hot.
- Hot.
- Yeah, it's hot.
- Oh, I dropped one.
- It's okay.
This was 31 pounds.
Before the season really comes in,
they be real expensive.
Did that stop us from eating them? No.
Hey. I'm talkin' to the baby.
Here. Hey, boo.
I'm the middle, and I'm the only girl.
And I work for At Home Care.
She has the most stressful
part of the job, I think.
It's not the elderly people,
it's dealing with the workers.
She always taught us to want to work
and have something of your own,
and not have to depend on me
or my dad, at the time.
- Here you go.
- He's actually my second child.
I had a stillborn son in 2017.
I don't know if that's what
makes him so special to everybody,
but he's most definitely special to her.
I want him to have a good life,
but also to be a productive citizen.
I don't want him to
just not have to do anything for it.
But it would be good
for him to have a little leeway.
Few privileges here and there.
- Me too.
- You too?
You know, she does what she can.
Like she says, she has to have
two jobs in order to make ends meet.
It's nothing like it used to be.
So, I know that I really have to work
to help provide that for him.
A good life is doing half of what you want
and everything that you need.
That's what I think is a good life.
They're good.
Luke.
Thank you for having me, man.
- You're welcome.
- I appreciate it.
So, you just bought this house.
- I did.
- Which is a pretty big leap.
Buying a house. That's, uh
You know, that's when
you know you're a grown-up.
- Yeah, and furniture. It's weird.
- Furniture.
It's very stressful.
So, what do we got here?
As cat residences go, this is
about as elaborate as I've ever seen.
This is primary living space?
- Yes.
- Or primary office space? Uh
I blend between the two,
and now I need to stay motivated. So
Yes. It's good advice.
I like I like the '70s.
It's an album. Part of For a remix.
- Smooth Tutors at the time. That's me.
- Very Smooth Tutors. I like the name.
My last band.
Can I take you to the basement
where the music is made?
- Please. Let's go.
- Baby.
That's the great thing
about your first house.
There's always a door that sticks.
- This is the room where it happens?
- This is where it happens.
Oh, now you're really an adult.
When you have the charcuterie.
- It's like, synths, Rhodes.
- Right.
Pre-amps to replace amps.
I've got a lot of guitar pedals.
There's a little bit
of a mad professor going on here.
It's good.
My life as a child
was a lot of, you know, just
- I'd be watching TV
- Jamming.
Just watching, playing guitar.
So, music was your love,
but was there a time
where suddenly you realized,
"Man, I can't be playing, I gotta work"?
Where there was a distinction
between work and play.
And something serious
versus something that you do just for fun.
I think I got my first job
when I was around 13.
So, work was always going to be happening.
But music was also
always going to be happening.
I never thought money and music
were gonna be able to work out.
I think it's a pretty common theme.
If music were my main job
I hate my main jobs.
Therefore, I'd hate music, so
I don't wanna make music my main job.
- My first job was Baskin-Robbins.
- Nice.
To this day,
I can't eat ice cream much.
- My first job, I was a pinsetter.
- Yeah.
- At a bowling alley.
- Bowling alley.
Moved into retail, then I ended up
landing in a titanium cleaning facility.
Just dealing with sulfuric acid every day.
We had a swing grinder
that hung from the ceiling.
It was the size of a motorcycle.
So, you got a string of jobs,
basically to finance your passion.
- Yeah.
- Uh
Is it at this point
you become interested in tech?
Absolutely. I think I was
on some job website,
and I saw that there was
an opening for a test driver.
- Yeah.
- With Uber self-driving.
So, I figured, okay, the money looks good.
I don't think I'll get it.
I'll throw in my resume
What happened with that job?
There was an accident
with an Uber self-driving car.
That directly affected me,
as far as driving. There was a pause.
And pretty much my whole team got let go.
It was always kind of cutthroat.
And I mean
You never felt like, "This is a family
and folks are looking out for me."
When someone says you're
in a family, usually that's a bad job.
You know, I never really try to rely on
something, you know, wholeheartedly.
I'm always kind of,
like, ready for it to fall through.
So, talk to me about
how you feel at Aurora now.
Middle-class job, you're not dealing
with solvents and hazardous chemicals.
You're able to buy your own home.
Yeah. Working for Aurora, I realized,
"Oh, okay, I can like
the people that I work with."
- Does it leave time for your music?
- I find time. I've always had to.
Yeah.
Should we listen to some music?
Turn some stuff on and
Has there been an evolution in your music
since the days of Smooth Tutors?
Absolutely. To start, I like
to find one sound. Let's start off
So, there's the dry, flute sound.
- Right.
- And I'll find a chord that I like.
And then I'll record that. So
Now that will loop.
- Okay.
- And then the sky's the limit.
- That's all still from that one chord.
- Yeah.
Then before you know it,
you've got a song emerging from that.
I got a jam coming. I can hear it.
My friend I've been working with,
his name is Bernard.
He, uh, he goes by Nardo Says.
- Nardo Says. Of course he does.
- Nardo Says.
I'm pretty different, you know ♪
I got a hell of a soul ♪
I just learned how to love it
As I keep getting old ♪
As the truth getting told
I observe and decode ♪
- So, this is just him singing.
- Yeah. Don't
All my production down here.
Off of essentially that.
Yeah. Let's listen to this for a second.
Shout out to the fans
For the seed that they sow ♪
It grew into a strong man
Hope you cried at the glow ♪
Nah' mean? ♪
Good afternoon,
the Pierre A Taj Hotel. May I assist you?
I'm going to transfer you to Francois now.
Have a wonderful day.
This is what I do.
Good afternoon, Pierre A Taj Hotel.
How may I assist you?
You would like a "do not disturb"
till you notify us?
Absolutely.
Good afternoon, Pierre A Taj Hotel.
May I assist you?
Good afternoon, Mr. Meldon.
I'm doing good. How are you feeling?
Oh, that's so wonderful.
Can I place you on a brief hold, please?
Thank you.
I understand what you're going through,
if you need anything,
if you need someone to talk to,
pick up your phone,
and just say, "Is Beverly there?"
I'm here.
Oh, we all need each other. Absolutely.
Do you think that's something
that you would be able to do?
Yes, ma'am.
A job in the middle will offer
at least the promise of stability.
But you probably wouldn't say
it was your life's calling.
What if you could
make your passion your work?
Could you still be unsatisfied,
even when you have it all?
What would you have to
sacrifice for your dream job?