Socioeconomic strata

[flexagon]

I stopped this morning to talk to a guy who'd been spare-changing outside the gym all week. He didn't seem like the usual street type, and told me one day that he liked my outfit (which made me laugh -- the only feature of that outfit was its skin-tight nature).

So today I dug up some change and then sat down for a couple of minutes. His name is Matt. His story is that he broke the fingers on his left hand (seems legit, he has a new-looking splint on them and was perfectly articulate about this), and none of his three bosses will work him until the fingers are healed. So he gets to spare-change for a few weeks. He was clean, articulate, non self-pitying.

It makes me think thoughts about how much it must suck to be THAT dependent on one's entire body being functional to make a living. The brain is a safer thing to rely on, protected as it is inside a skull. Even my acro teachers can work when they're hurt (teaching, if not gigs) so long as they refrain from demoing things that bother the injury. I know that if my fingers were broken, Google would be happy to pay for a chording keyboard for me, and/or would accept my slower typing for a few weeks.

Comments

[ellenclaire.livejournal.com]

It's true - being dependent on your entire body being functional for work is, well, not exactly a scary thing, but it makes you think a lot about the types of non-work activities you do. (Because that "if not gigs" line in there? That's half my annual income you're talking about.)

I wonder what this guy did for a living - did you ask, and did he give you an answer?

[flexagon]

This actually puts you right about where I wanted someone in terms of a spectrum.... my income depends 0% on an injury on the order of breaking a few fingers, your income depends 50% on it, this guy's income depended 100%.

I think he must have been in construction. I wanted to ask more, and planned to do it the next time I saw him. I assumed that would be soon, but he must have moved on; he wasn't outside the gym any day this last week. Perhaps I've missed my chance. :-( Updates if I see him again, though!