Ann Larson: The Cashier Philosopher

10/25/21 • 28 min

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“What would it look like for that man in the business suit who comes in in his SUV and loads up with groceries... what if he had to work in the grocery store?”

On this week’s episode of Going for Broke With Ray Suarez, Ann tells us how her co-workers at the grocery store where she works chase shoplifters and clean up bathrooms, while shoppers, afraid of contagion, treat her like she’s untouchable. Ann grew up working class and trained to be a college professor but then the academic jobs disappeared. In the meanwhile, she co-founded an organization called the Debt Collective that fights for student debt cancellation. By the time the pandemic rolled around, she found herself out of work—so she took this job at a local grocery store.

Listen to this week’s episode to learn what it’s been like working in a grocery store during a pandemic year, including the surreal interactions between customers, those experiencing homelessness, and those who work in her store. During her year at the till, Ann has seen the bright lines that stand between workers like her and the customers, particularly the most privileged ones. We’ll also hear from Ann about her ideas for changing the existing paradigm and shaking up the hierarchies that divide and alienate us.

To be the first to hear all the episodes in this season, subscribe to Going for Broke With Ray Suarez on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes premiere each Monday.

Going for Broke With Ray Suarez is a podcast by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Nation. To learn more about the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, sign up for our newsletter. To support all of The Nation’s journalism, including our podcasts, subscribe today. New to podcasts? Learn how to subscribe here.

“What would it look like for that man in the business suit who comes in in his SUV and loads up with groceries... what if he had to work in the grocery store?”

Previous Episode

Ray Suarez: A Veteran Journalist Finds Himself the Center of the Story

Ray Suarez never wanted to be the center of the story. He’s been a journalist of one kind of another all of his adult life, on radio, on television, in books and newspapers. He was the host of NPR’s Talk of the Nation, he was a senior correspondent for PBS NewsHour, and he had his own daily news show on Al Jazeera America. When that last network ceased operations in 2016, he figured it might take a while to find work, but he had a reputation and good connections that would eventually land him a new gig.

He was in for a rude awakening: As he discovered, if you lose one job late in your career, the next one will both take longer to find, and not last as long as the ones earlier in your working life. For Ray, the endless job search was just the beginning of his troubles. On this episode of Going for Broke, Ray explains how he found himself in the kind of tough situations that he had spent a career reporting on.

To be the first to hear all the episodes in this season, subscribe to Going for Broke with Ray Suarez on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes premiere each Monday.

Going for Broke With Ray Suarez is a podcast by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Nation. To learn more about the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, sign up for our newsletter. To support all of The Nation’s journalism, including our podcasts, subscribe today. New to podcasts? Learn how to subscribe here.

Next Episode

Lisa Ventura: The Daughter’s Burden

Lisa Ventura is a housing case manager by day, but for years she's also been her family’s unofficial social worker by night. Lisa was just a kid when she learned to help her Spanish-speaking mother navigate the welfare system. It was a struggle, but she could handle it. But she wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like when her isolated father lost his job during the pandemic and needed her help filing for unemployment. Battling the bureaucracy during Covid on top of a troubled family history takes its toll.

What Lisa experienced first-hand is what experts call "administrative burden," the mountain of paperwork and forms we all have to fill out—but like many burdens, this one falls disproportionately on those already experiencing financial hardship. On this week's episode of the Going for Broke podcast, Ray Suarez also talks to Pamela Herd, professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, and coauthor of the book, Administrative Burden: Policy-Making by Other Means.