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?

on relying on brains

[(Anonymous)]

My brain went bad for about a year about a year ago, along with a general debilitating physical weakness. I was slow to reason, everything was basically like i was working on low sleep and no food. I took up the ukulele because i was too stupid or weak to do everything I enjoy doing in my own time: read books, hike, play board games, etc.
I only survived at work because I was able to cover my ass enough by delegating everything. I could still coach people toward solving the problems, even when I couldn't solve them myself. I'm still working through credibility problems with folks who were relying on me during that time.
I never got a diagnosis (ergo, no option for time off for health reasons). Basically, the doctors said since I could still walk, talk, function like an average person, as far as they were concerned I was healthy. But I might've lost my job if we hadn't been so short staffed at work. I probably would've lost my job if i'd been at zillian. It went away when i got antibiotics for a suspected pid (which test turned out negative), so likely a stealth infection somewhere sapping my strength (though no blood test ever found anything), but who knows.
So, brains may be more safe from injury inside skulls, but mysterious things can go wrong with them that can't be fixed with a few weeks and a splint.

[a-kosmos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, jobs where you work more with your brain are a tremendous luxury. There is so much damage that can happen with physical labor over time. I hope things work out for him.

[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!

Re: on relying on brains

[flexagon]

You are right, of course (for the record, this is a friend, posting anonymously but I know who it is; they messaged me). Strange things CAN happen with brains, too. It feels/seems like the odds of that are lower than the odds of physical injury, but this may be a fallacious impression arising because the brain-strangeness is invisible.

At any rate, thanks for raising this point. Quite valid.