Scrubbing in Maine

The second place the author chose for her experiment was Maine. She chose this area because of the demographic inequality. To be more specific, she chose the area because it was filled with white people. White people held every job that down in Florida was held by minorities. She thought it would be easier for her to find a low paying job without worrying about being overrun by a minority population. To help her case, many television and radio stations held numerous advertisements offering “mother” shifts and begging people to try out for the job. So the hard part for her isn’t going to be finding a job.

She entered Portland with only $1,000 dollars and a few loose bills in her pockets. She decided to stay at the Motel 6, which was an alarming $59 a night, until she could find suitable accommodations for herself. This Motel 6 was a step up from what she was used to in Florida. She could walk next door to a Texaco station with a small convenience store attached. Or she could walk across the turnpike to a Pizza Hutt and a Shop-n-Save.

Her hunt for an apartment started in disarray. After picking up a newspaper she found out that there were no apartments in Portland. The only accommodations available in Portland were condos or “executive apartments” which were $1000 a month. The nearest apartments were thirty minutes away in Old Orchard beach and still were $500 a month. She then decides to look into a share an apartment in Old Orchard Beach with another woman, who cleans for a living. But the room is $65 a week and is smaller than the room she has at the motel. So she decides to give up on sharing.

After returning to Portland she decides to visit a place called the Blue haven Motel and for $120 a week she gets a bed/living area, a kitchen, linens included, and a T.V. that has cable. She quickly pays the security deposit and returns to the motel 6 to retrieve her stuff. So she now has a place to live.

Now that she has found suitable accommodations she begins her hunt for a job. Learning from her Key West experience she interviews for as many position as possible. She knows that even though an ad says help wanted doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a position available at this time. She decides that waitressing would be difficult with the tourist season ending and that clerical work would be impossible with the limited wardrobe. So she decides to look into a cleaning position. Any position will suffice; office, home, warehouse, etc. She then goes to Goodwill and Wal-Mart looking for jobs but finds no luck. She finally learns from all the job fairs that Portland is just another $7 an hour town.

On her fourth day in Portland she receives two phone calls. On telling her she has gotten a job for a nurse service on the weekends and another telling her she received a job for The Maids throughout the week. These positions pay close to $7 an hour, and to celebrate she eats dinner at Appleby’s for $11.95.