If you stop by some of the many stores around Princeton, you don’t see many student workers. Generally, we tend to opt for campus jobs that pay almost twice as much as anything else we might find around here. I, however, forgot that fact and found myself working in a little shop on Nassau Street for several months, a stint which ended less than a month ago. There, I met people I do not get to associate with in the Orange Bubble, including a short, quiet, 22-year-old Catholic man from Guatemala.
Eddy, as I shall call him, didn’t speak a word of English when he first arrived, but still worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week to clean and maintain the store and carry out other essential and exhausting tasks. Through our conversations, I found out that Eddy has a daughter, no more than two years old and the reason for his long hours and hard efforts. Every time I saw him scrubbing a tray, mopping the floor or hustling to the front of the store to bring supplies and then scurrying back to the kitchen, I couldn’t help but marvel at an energy that I and so many of my friends lack. While we are sleeping in at 11 a.m., Eddy is already at work, preparing for a long day; as we lay our heads down at midnight for a good night’s sleep, he is barely arriving home on his bike in the middle of winter. Once another hour has passed and he is finally ready to go to bed, he sets his alarm for another day’s worth of labor.
I see Eddy, and I wonder how much I deserve the life that I live. I listen to my own complaints and the complaints of those around me regarding classes, extracurriculars, deadlines and Bicker, and I am subsequently repulsed by the comparison with someone who has left everything he loves behind simply to find the means to pay for a life that is not even his own. Right now, I sit back on a comfy bed, writing this article; thousands of miles away from family, friends and the very daughter he is working so hard to provide for, my friend humbles me by his hard work. Every day, I am surrounded by loyal friends; in my head, I hear Eddy’s voice saying the most upsetting (and frighteningly melodramatic) statement I have heard in a long time: “I don’t know when I’ll ever see my friends again.”
I am far from a leading sociologist (if I were interested in sociology at all) and therefore only tentatively dare to qualify or provide commentary on Max Weber’s argument, based solely — and recklessly — on my observation of a single person. The typical American may still possess that work ethic that Weber claimed as ours, but it is only the kind that leads to rewards for oneself. On the other hand, there are those who work much harder, under the radar and without the result of the tangible. Eddy is but one of these, possessing a conviction unfamiliar and strange to others and myself. To him, I offer my respect, knowing full well that the work he performs will not come to fruition for him anytime soon.
Well, I suppose that isn’t completely true; in the last few weeks that I worked with Eddy, he was finally allowed to work only six days a week for the same salary, too.
Joey Barnett is a sophomore from Tulare, Calif. He can be reached at jbarnett@princeton.edu.
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