This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Maid" by Stephanie Land. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Is being a housekeeper an easy job? What were the hardships Stephanie Land faced working as a housekeeper?
When Stephanie Land was working as a housekeeper, she often got sick and made only minimum wage. However, she did have some positive moments while working on the job.
Read more about the struggles and the bright side of working as a housekeeper, as told by Land in Maid.
Working as a Housekeeper
When Land begins working as a housekeeper, she makes minimum wage. In 2009, Washington State’s minimum wage is $8.55 an hour. The company she ends up with doesn’t pay for travel time. Land sometimes spends up to two hours a day traveling from house to house. It takes her at least an hour of work every day just to pay for the gas to get there. Land is unable to survive on her income from the maid service, so she later takes on her own clients as well.
Land’s work is physically demanding. She works alone, and her employer has strict rules about how much time she has to clean each house—some houses must be cleaned in as little as three hours. Land rushes to finish cleaning in the allotted time. Some of the houses are truly filthy and disgusting, which makes her task even harder. She doesn’t get a lunch break.
Injuries and Illness
Land has multiple illnesses and injuries while working as a housekeeper. She injures her back moving furniture and has chronic back pain. Cleaning exacerbates a preexisting condition, causing a pinched nerve down her right arm that prevents her from gripping a sponge. She has to devise elaborate workarounds to scrub surfaces, and when she gets home at the end of a six-hour day, she can barely hold a plate or a grocery bag. She has lingering sinus infections as a result of her allergies to the pet hair, dust, and mold she encounters cleaning houses.
Although Mia is covered by Medicaid, Land makes too much money to receive it herself. Without health insurance, she can’t afford to see a doctor about her injuries, sickness, and pain, so she simply lives with them. She tries to rely on over-the-counter remedies, but they are expensive, so she has to ration them.
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Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Stephanie Land's "Maid" at Shortform .
Here's what you'll find in our full Maid summary :
- The true story of a single mother who struggled to make ends meet as a housekeeper
- A social commentary on the American “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality
- Background information, research, and statistics on the key themes in the memoir
