Hiring day laborers

[Tyler Durden]

Two weeks ago my house needed some yard work done. So my roommates and I did it but then didn't want to do the cleanup. We live in Arlington, VA where there is a heavy Hispanic/Latino population. So we drove to a nearby place where a lot of these men hang out waiting for day jobs. We got there and two guys sitting on the curb noticed what we were trying to do so we got out and talked to them. All the others swarmed our car within 15 seconds and we had like 15 of these guys talking fast and tugging on our arms all trying to get hired for the work. Luckily my roommate speaks fluent Spanish b/c his parents are Peruvian. Anyway we got two guys for one hour for a total of $40.

Then we went outside to take them back and they said they worked for more than an hour and wanted more money. So we gave them $50. They might have been ripping us off but it's alright b/c they're dirt poor and we were going to tip them anyway and situations like this really make you realize how much you have and what other ppl live like.

As an aside, what do ppl think about the ethical/moral repurcussions of what we did? I mean hiring illegal immigrants. Were we just exacerbating the problem?

Now whenever we have an issue in the house like "what's with all the dishes in the sink?" someone answers with "none of us want to clean all that, let's get some day workers." just as a joke. we all find it funny. well i do.