the scene: mid-morning on a wednesday. the north end of the ground floor of our building. i sit at my open-cubicle desk next to the scan/print station, barcoding applications. my coworker stands at the station, waiting for a fax to come through before she can use the copy machine.

both are silent. the sky is darkly overcast and the climate system whirrs loudly.

after several moments, she declares: “i wish…”

pause.

“i wish i could use the system.”

i look up.

at the moment, our intranet is down. i am assuming she means “i wish i could do my work.” but she continues.

“i wish i could get something. everybody seems to get something out of it. when we’re just trying to get by on our own, you know. they get something for free. i wish i could get something.”

and now i know what she’s talking about. i take a breath and try to maintain a conversational tone.

“i actually grew up on welfare. and it’s pretty hard. there’s so much you have to keep up with. it’s much better when you can make it on your own and don’t need that help.”

pause.

“when i was little, we actually got our food from food banks. you know, stale cheese and cans of evaporated milk, that was all we had. it was more trouble. i like it much better when i can do things for myself and don’t have to rely on that stuff. struggling with all that. it’s not easy at all.”

silence.

her copies are finished and she returns to her desk. i go back to my applications.

***

edited to add: if you want more on the things poor people are put through to get a few crumbs worth of help, read this old post from kactus, a poor single disabled mother whose presence on the internet I miss very much. um… in fact (looking at my comment there), it looks like it was but a few days before I started this blog!