On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane

by Emily Guendelsberger

When she’s off the phone, Jess fills me in—while I was gone, Anthone’s abscessed tooth got so bad that it actually gave her a black eye. They’d gotten up early this morning to try to fix it, but it was harder to get at than the last one Anthone had. I wince. Abscessed teeth happen when bacteria get inside a tooth via an untreated cavity or crack and infect the supersensitive pulp and root, which is incredibly painful. As the tooth rots from the inside, a pocket of pus forms, putting more and more pressure on the dental nerves as it swells. An emergency root canal is a common treatment, because the infection can spread down into the jawbone, then into the blood and organs. An untreated abscess can kill you. “Wait, go back a second—are you saying…” I think of the straightened safety pin with mounting horror. “You mean you—you tried to fix it yourselves?” Yeah, says Jess. They’d managed to DIY the last one Anthone had, and it wasn’t that hard. “There’s the white thing—you know, the white swollen thing?—and you just stick it with a needle, and then she just spat the stuff all out, and then you have antibiotics so it doesn’t get infected.” This time they’d had more trouble getting to the abscess, though—the pocket of pus is higher up and farther back. After many failed attempts to drain it this morning, they’d had to give up. Jess drove them both to Convergys early instead of getting a ride with me because Anthone had a fever. “Holy fuck, you went to work like this?” I ask, hor...