The UPS man stopped by my house Tuesday to drop off a package. It required a signature, but I was at work, so the UPS man took it back. The UPS man stopped by my house Wednesday to drop off the package. Funny (funny strange, not funny ha-ha), I was at work, so the UPS man took it back. The UPS man stopped by my house Thursday to drop off the package. I knew he was coming but I had to do something called work.
It was his final attempt. When I got home, I called UPS and was told there'd be a final final attempt. Since I don't have a car to use to pick it up, if I missed the final final attempt, I had to stay home and miss something important. Luckily, I'm a TA, so my hours are much more flexible than your typical working Jane's. Still, it is extremely inconvenient and irritating to have to sit at home and wait for a package that can arrive anytime between eight in the morning and seven at night.
What do working, single mothers without cars do when UPS delivers a package? Even more odd, does UPS honestly think it's profitable to deliver a package four times? The UPS man finally did arrive, knocking frighteningly loudly on my door. When I opened it he sarcastically announced, 'Lookee, she's home!' Which, of course, was exactly not what my annoyed self needed.
So why do the UPS man and I end up pissed off while we suck down UPS's profits in this dance of delivery? One word: housewives. UPS's entire operation is set up on the presumption that there will be someone home when the UPS deliveryperson arrives'a housewife.
Think for a minute, whoever you are, about how great it would be to have a housewife. You'd never have to clean the kitchen floor or scrub the toilet again. When you were hungry someone would cook you food (and clean it up!). If you wanted to have kids, you wouldn't have to worry about who'd take care of them. At most you'd have to be sweet to her and take her out to dinner every once in a while. Not a bad deal, not a bad deal at all.
Of course, today, less than a quarter of households are nuclear families. And most of those wives work. Who, in fact, has a housewife nowadays? Mostly upper-middle class or upper class people, mostly white people, and mostly men. Putting the issues of power and privilege aside, is it in UPS's best interest to run its business as if the tiny percentage of families with housewives is the norm?
Of course not, but the mythology that the business is based on, the same assumption that most businesses have'that the nuclear family with a nurturing mother and breadwinning father represents real life'has really dug its nails in deep. Somehow institutions don't want to let the myth go.
Take welfare as an example. The government's solution for welfare mothers is to get them married and transfer their 'dependency' to a man. Somehow you're the worst kind of mother if you depend on the state for monetary support but you're the best kind if you depend on a husband for monetary support. Our country is living in 1950s television (since real life was never like that'not even in America) and it's about time it acknowledged the diversity in families that exists. Or maybe UPS would rather suck it up, lose profits, and teach all of us non-conformers a lesson.
