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

by Emily Guendelsberger

“What goes into the price?” I ask. “The furniture is gorgeous, but… yeah, I could never afford any of this.” “Well, it’s how it’s constructed,” Douglas says. He indicates the sofa I’m sitting on. “This has a hardwood kiln-dried frame. The frame is corner-blocked, glued and screwed, eight-way hand-tied—that’s a coil that drops down into the frame of your furniture and is literally hand-tied off to the frame eight different ways with a heavy nylon. “The alternative is a sinuous coil, a continuous s that goes from front to back. It’s a lot less expensive to manufacture. But this”—he pats the sofa’s arm—“is how you get longevity. Eight-way hand-tied furniture is furniture you’ll always have. My parents have had their sofa for twenty years, and it looks brand-new. Or—may I show you a piece?” He shepherds me over to a wooden table whose surface is a complex inlaid mosaic. It’s breathtaking. So is the sticker price—$7,899. “Now, this is true furniture at its finest; you can feel it,” says Douglas, running his fingers over the seamless inlay with pride. “This is an honest-to-goodness piece of art.” He’s not wrong. But my last paycheck for two weeks of work at Convergys came to $525. If I saved every single penny—no food, no rent, no gas, no car payment—I’d have $7,899 in about four months.