"My Low Wage Life"

I grew up pretty well off; I attended nice private schools, lived in a two-story house, and my family always had 2 cars. We also had a housekeeper, Maria, who we paid under the table to clean our house once a month for as long as I remember. Now that I begin to write this, I realize that even though I saw her every month for over a decade, I barely know anything about her. I never said much more than "hola," even though I know enough conversational Spanish to have talked with her, and after a while, I would not even notice when she was there; she would clean around me as I ate breakfast or watched tv, and I would never even notice she had left when she finished. This all makes me feel kind of guilty, because she basically did us a great favor for a long time and I never even said thank you or interacted with her. She probably spends almost every day cleaning someone's house, and if no one talks to her, she likely goes almost the entire day without human interaction or relation, which is pretty sad. I couldn't image being invisible to the people around me, but that's what my family did to her.
This past summer, I got a taste of a different side of low-wage work, working in a manufacturing warehouse in a poorer neighborhood in a neighboring city. I made minimum wage, as did my coworkers, most of whom had 10 or so years on me. One of my supervisors was actually in his 60s, and it was clear to me that this is as good as it would get for him. But I was lucky in that I always knew in the back of my mind that I'm young and was leaving soon to go to a good school, an opportunity that most of these guys never took advantage of. Many guys I worked with had all kinds of stories for me. I worked by one man's side for 2 and a half months and won't forget a story he told me. When he was younger, he worked at a gas station and tore his bicep muscle catching a pane of glass before it fell. He didn't have insurance and instead figured he'd sue the owner. Instead, the owner paid him $1,000 to keep quiet and not file a lawsuit, which he accepted. In the end, he never got it fixed and he still can't lift anything very heavy. Another co-worker had a similar story; he was in the car with a friend and his friend's buddy, who was drunk. Unfortunately, the drunk guy was the driver and took a turn too fast. The car hit a fence and ejected my coworker through the windshield. He broke his pelvis, along with a couple of ribs, and had a punctured lung. Since his injuries were internal, he was among the last to be treated. He also had no insurance and is still paying the bills for his treatment years later. He just had a baby girl and works miserable hours in order to make ends meet, and what makes me feel so guilty is that I know that as I type this, he is still working in that same horrible warehouse in the heat and probably doesn't have any other options. I, on the other hand, have insurance paid for by my parents. I don't need to work dangerous jobs and risk injury, and even if I were to be hurt, I know I would have treatment. Things that seem minor to me turn out to be a financial nightmare for others. I have new appreciation for what my parents provide for me, and I think that the experience of learning about these types of workers in such bad situations is what makes me want to succeed in school and make sure I get a good education.