"Maid to Order"

In "Maid to Order" by Barbara Ehrenreich, 2000, she discusses in the first few paragraphs how the maids of Merry Maids are made to scrub floors on their hands and knees and wear knee pads that were origionally meant for sexual activities.  This in itself is very degrading.  First of all, it is very straining on a person's body to work an eight hour day on their hands and knees, especially since there are things called mops that are much easier on the body.  Second, the kneepads were meant for blow jobs and the fact that they may work for being on your hands and knees all the time, it is still degrading that they are technically using a kinky sex oriented object for their professional work.  Next, Barbara speaks about how people speak to their maids.  If someone is being paid to clean your house because you are too lazy or "busy" to do so yourself, you should be grateful and nice to them.  This means, not allowing your children to mess up everything the maid just cleaned up as soon as they get home, especially if the maid is still there.  Also, this means not completely ignoring your maid and getting in their way by sitting in the same room the maid is cleaning and checking mail and just watching your maid like a hawk.  It's rediculous, what will people expect next, for the maid to call them "master" and shine their shoes as they walk in aswell?  Some people are so rude and quite frankly I would not be able to be a maid because of it.  It is hard enough to check out groceries at Wal*Mart and be crabbed at, much less cleaning up pee and whatever else is staining a floor for minimum wage and still keep a smile on your face.