I guess I'm going Skye High

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

I see this reaction a lot, and I gotta say, it always makes me a little sad. Whenever the conversation of exploitation of labor comes up, inevitably someone finds themselves struggling with the guilt of “It is so important to me not to contribute to exploitation but I cannot do this thing myself and need someone else to do it for me, so how do I even approach that?”

Exploitation isn’t in the hiring of a service worker. Exploitation is in the respect you show them for their ability to perform the service you need from them.

I have been on a cleaning service staff before, and also been someone who hired a cleaning service, and I can tell you for sure that a lot of cleaning crews (especially worker owned ones) absolutely LOVE their clients and are genuinely happy to be able to make their lives better. The clients they don’t like? Those are the ones who disrespect the workers.

When I was involved with a cleaning service, we had everything from little old ladies living alone to McMasions with five cars as clients, and I can assure you that whenever there was someone who clearly hired us because they were overwhelmed or unable to keep their space clean, those were the households where you put a little more elbow grease in and did a deep clean even when it wasn’t paid for, because you could see how much these people were trying and struggling, and they were always so kind and generous and often embarrassed when talking to you about the job.

I only hired a service a couple if times in my life, but whenever I did, I worked with the same people as often as I could, tipped as well as I could afford, and tried to be the kind of client I would want to have, and that’s how I often ended up with my baseboards cleaned too, or my fridge scrubbed and organized or a restorative clean done in a high use room even when that wasn’t what I had scheduled or paid for.

I’ve heard the same thing from all manner of service workers over the years. Many of us like our jobs! We enjoy the work. It’s the customers that can do a number on you.

For scale reference, Eris is a pretty small hen, around 7lbs. Her spurs are less than an inch long. She's normally fine to walk around, I can go pick her up off the perch, I give her smooches at night, I can handle her babies.

Last week, while I was refreshing wading bins with cool water for them, Eris decided dumping a bin was an intolerable act of aggression toward her, and she flogged me. Now, regardless of what I'm doing in the pen, I always have at least some of my attention on the birds. So while I didn't expect to be attacked, I saw it coming in time to get a knee up as she jumped.

She still GOT me, but the 1/2" puncture wound was in thigh flesh, not my face.

The thing is, this wasn't even a full power blow because she was thrown off by my interception. But it's enough that a week later I still have a roughly 3" bruise around a puncture wound she gave me through my jeans.

Yes, she did that through my jeans!!

Now imagine that same attack from a 10-12lb male, with spurs over an inch long and much sharper than a hen's, and imagine that he means it, WILL give it his full power every time he's able to, and it will be his life's mission to stalk you until you let your guard down and he can get you. It is unfortunately the reality people have to live with when they raise these birds incorrectly, and hand raise males.

THAT is why you do not snuggle male peachicks.

Link: I got my top surgery at the fairy queen’s grotto

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