- Carmen Maria Machado makes $10 an hour working as a sales clerk at a luxury mall outside Philadelphia
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A sales clerk at a luxury mall has opened up about the 'culture shock' she experiences serving affluent customers who spend exorbitantly without batting an eye.
Carmen Maria Machado, who works at a mall outside Philadelphia, wrote in the New Yorker that watching absurdly wealthy shoppers casually purchase luxury goods has had a negative psychological impact on her, leaving her depressed, antisocial and disinterested in other people.
The writer explains: 'The mingling of my financial status and my customers' abundant wealth results in a kind of daily culture shock to which I have yet to adapt.'
Culture shock: Carmen Maria Machado, a sales clerk at a mall outside Philadelphia, has explained that watching wealthy shoppers casually purchase luxury goods has had a negative psychological impact
Explaining that she earns about ten dollars an hour, Ms Machado writes: 'Every day, I park my run-down car among BMWs and hybrids. The mall rats who hover around the doors smoking cigarettes wear brands of designer jeans I've only ever heard about in songs.'
On an average day she watches wealthy shoppers of all ages casually spend more money than she could ever dream of.
One such customer was an eleven-year-old girl who came into the store and nonchalantly purchased $50 worth of high-end moisturizers.
Another was a man in his twenties who bought a pair of shoes that cost more than her own monthly rent.
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ShareAnd the most memorable customer of all was a woman who purchased every single product Ms Machado recommended without checking a single price tag.
'She had just walked in, just because,' explains the writer. 'And she didn't look at the price of anything, not for a second. It just looked so easy.'
After coming home from a day of work at the mall, Ms Machado reports feeling depressed, anxious, dissociated and 'utterly immune to it all'.
What's more, she finds herself feeling antisocial and indifferent about others and their needs.
The above symptoms are not unique to Ms Machado; according to recent research, this type of emotional numbness is experienced by countless others who are constantly exposed to money.
'She had walked in just because, and she didn't look at the price of anything. It just looked so easy'
Indeed, a 2006 Science Magazine study called The Psychological Consequences of Money found that overly exposing people to money has the effect of making them 'disinterested' in others.
'Reminders of money, relative to nonmoney reminders, led to reduced requests for help and reduced helpfulness toward others,' reads the study.
It continues: 'Participants primed with money preferred to play alone, work alone, and put more physical distance between themselves and a new acquaintance.'
Not only does witnessing others' wealth make people depressed and disinterested, but comparing others' wealth to our own may also affect a person's happiness.
Financial disparity: 'There is something shocking about working in a place like this,' Ms Machado writes. 'It is the presence of money - lots of it - and the ease with which it moves around me'
A 2011 study published in Psychological Science found that Americans are happier when 'national wealth is distributed more evenly than when it is distributed unevenly'.
This is because increased financial inequality makes us less trustworthy and less convinced that we live in a fair society, according to the research.
For the wealthiest 20per cent, however, levels of income equality was not found to affect their happiness.
'There's something shocking about the presence of lots of money, and the ease with which it moves around me'
While the economy may be in recovery, research has found that the wealthy have reaped the benefits of the recovery much more than the poor and middle-class.
As a retail worker, Ms Machado is an extreme case of someone witnessing firsthand the financial disparity between the rich and the not-so-rich, meaning her case is perhaps more elevated than the average American.
Still, it sheds light on a phenomenon affecting almost everyone, to varying degrees.
'There is something shocking about working in a place like this, especially around the holidays,' she writes.
'It is the presence of money - lots of it, more than I have ever seen in one place before - and the ease with which it moves around me.'
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