Or as “Working” described it nearly a half century ago, many of the workers who keep this country humming are the same people we regard as social wallpaper and take for granted. It’s doubtful being “essential” would leave them feeling any more valued. Yet they would also receive modest wages (at best) and come to work knowing that they will be exposed daily to COVID-19. Today, as the pandemic reshapes the ways we understand our work life and its meaning, Terkel’s supermarket workers would be classified “essential” to the smooth continuity of society. She asked the cashier for another bag of grapes, “right now.” She said that the cashier was breathing on her grapes. I rarely re-read a book, but: I was in line at a supermarket recently, socially-distancing, my arms full of milk and eggs, six feet from the woman in front of me who picked a fight with the cashier.

The last time I read “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do' (the full title) was 30 years ago, before I actually had a profession. Terkel, who died in 2008 at 96, was a radio host, an oral historian and a local character. “Working,” you might recall, was the Chicago journalist’s masterwork, composed of more than 130 conversations with everyday workers (mostly) in the Chicago area, toiling as teachers, janitors, executives, prostitutes, editors, farmers, housewives. So, for the past few weeks, nearly every day, often before bed, I have cracked this thick, dense classic to a random passage and just started reading, for its companionship and its anger and its resonance to spring 2020.

Working by Studs Terkel