Hard-working cleaner needs a chance to shine

Her street name is Anna. She’s looking for a job, even though she already has two jobs. Why is she looking? I’ll answer that question with a question: How would you like to get up at 4 a.m. and work your tail off until midnight, for the privilege of earning minimum wage?

Anna and I had a cup of coffee downtown the other day. She was on a precious break. She was wearing rose-coloured glasses. No, she is not an optimist. She has restricted vision. She saw me fine.

She works as a cleaner. She is in her 30s and has a mild developmental disability. I wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t told me. She said, “I was born three months early; my heart stopped; there was some damage.” The lingering effect? “In some areas I’m very bright; in some areas, not so bright. When I’m learning something new, I can get frustrated.” She, and me. Her childhood was difficult. Her mother had drinking problems. She said, “There was sexual abuse from the age of 5. I lived in group homes until I was 8. I was abused in my first foster home.”

She had some behavioural problems growing up. The surprise would be if she had not had any problems. “I’d self-harm, I’d swear, I’d hit myself, throw myself into walls. I had some overdoses when I was 16.” You’d have done that, too. She also said, “I got addicted to hospitals.” Because in hospitals, at least, she was cared for. She looked calm as she said these things. No, she was calm as she said these things. And then she surprised me. “Work keeps me sane.” This is always a surprise to me: There are those who suffer the most minor setbacks in life and are crushed as a result. And then there are those who take the heavy blows, one after another, and keep on walking. She is one of the latter. Takes my breath away. Let me be frank: There is an old assault charge on her record, stemming from when she was a teen — kicking, biting, screaming, making threats to one of the staff in a group home because, she says, she wouldn’t make her bed.

She ended up living on the streets for a time, as you might expect, but she got herself sorted out and now here she is, with a day job that starts at 7 a.m. and finishes at 3 p.m., and an evening job that starts at 5 p.m. and finishes at midnight.

She has her own place, but she lives in Scarborough because she can’t afford to live downtown, closer to her work. She sleeps on the train in the morning. I work pretty hard. I don’t work as hard as she does.

She has tried to get her record cleared through a private company that specializes, supposedly, in pardons; she paid $600 but she has learned the hard way that her record still haunts her.

“I could have given up years ago. I don’t want to. That’s no fun. I’ve tried getting work at the university, at the hospitals.” Sometimes she doesn’t do well in the interview because she gets nervous, but she can’t shake the suspicion that the record check has tripped her up.

She said, “I don’t want to live off the system. I just want to be like everybody else. As long as I have income, I can be stable and live life.”

She doesn’t let it get her down when things go poorly. “I’ll go on a pity party for an hour. Then I get up and keep going. I’m a good cleaner. I’ve handled scrubbers and some machines. I vacuum, mop, clean, do garbage. Sinks, toilet, mirrors — that’s an art. I’m good at it.”

Consider this a letter of reference. Joe Fiorito appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: jfiorito@thestar.ca