Work and dignity

Text 1: A Letter from the Mill, by Hannah Crossley

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

Dear Cousin Martha, You wished to know how I like the mill, and whether it is as wicked as your Mr Platt says from the pulpit. It is not wicked, only loud. The noise of the looms is such that on my first day I thought I should go deaf, and the girls laughed to see me with my hands over my ears. Now I can talk to Sarah across two looms by the shape of her mouth alone, as all the old hands do, and I hardly hear the noise until I am outside in the evening and the quiet rings in my head like a bell.

The bell is our master more than Mr Hargreave is. It rings us in at half past five and rings us out at seven, and if we are a minute late at the gate the overlooker writes our names in his book and takes twopence from our wages. He fines us for talking, for singing, for opening a window, for being ill. There is a girl in our room who was fined for fainting. I will not pretend that this is pleasant, Martha. We are counted like bobbins.

But I must tell you the other side, for I think you pity me, and I do not wish to be pitied. On Saturday I am paid seven shillings, which are mine and nobody else’s, and I have bought a bonnet with green ribbons and sent four shillings home to Mother. On Sunday afternoons six of us walk out on the moor together and Sarah reads to us from a novel she has borrowed. At home I was a daughter who ate the bread. Here I am a woman who earns it. Tell Mr Platt that if this is wickedness, I think a good many girls would choose to be wicked.

Text 2: Red Numbers, by Megan Tolley

An original contemporary memoir.

My first proper job was in a call centre on a business park outside the ring road, answering complaints for an energy company. The building had no windows on our floor, so the only way to tell the weather was to look at people’s coats. We sat in rows of grey booths with headsets on, and a screen above the door showed, in red numbers, how many customers were waiting and how long they had waited. The numbers never went down. You could take a hundred calls and the screen would still be red.

Everything was measured. Our calls were recorded, our scripts were checked, and our toilet breaks were logged by the minute and discussed at monthly reviews. I was once marked down for saying ‘no worries’ instead of ‘certainly’. The customers, who could not see me and did not have to, said things to me they would never have said to a face. One man called me a parrot because I kept reading the same sentence. He was right. I had been told to.

And yet I do not look back on that year with only bitterness. The people in the booths around me were funny and generous and, in their way, defiant. We kept a secret league table of the rudest callers. We brought in cake on Fridays and hid it from the team leader. When a woman in her first week cried after a call, three people took off their headsets without asking permission and went to sit with her. The company treated us as numbers on a screen. We decided, quietly, not to treat each other that way.

‘Both writers show that their work robs them of their dignity.’

How far do you agree with this statement?

In your answer you should:

• discuss what we learn about the writers’ working conditions
• explain how far you agree that work robs both writers of their dignity
• compare the ways the writers present their experiences of work.

Support your response with quotations from Text 1 and Text 2.