have you ever done day labor?

[angus]

Before the government started cracking down on the employment of illegal aliens, I think it was more common at least in parts of the country.  When I lived in Texas and when I lived in California, I used to see groups of immigrants--I assume that they were undocumented, but I don't know that for sure--standing on certain street corners.  Usually a truck would pull up and say, "Three men" or "Five people" or "one woman" or something like that, and the person or people would get in and have a job for that day.  I never noticed this in other places I've lived.  I don't know whether this is still common in California and Texas (maybe Florida and Georgia as well?) but it was 20 years ago.

According to the article Walter posted, it's still fairly common to see non-immigrant day laborers in landscaping and commercial building lots.  I've never done that sort of contingent work. 

When I was very young I often saw teenagers ply the streets of the neighborhood with a small lawn mower and knock at every house with long grass, asking if they wanted it cut for ten dollars.  I don't see that much anymore either.  Those teenagers with their little push mowers have been displaced by organized companies who leave flyers at every door advertising their services.  Many of my neighbors have hired those companies and they show up at regular intervals, in with a big truck pulling an even bigger flatbed trailer stocked with all manner of tractors and leaf blowers and other noisy devices, usually about 7 o'clock in the morning.  Two or three burly men step out and make short work of it.  Within 20 minutes they have mowed, collected leaves, edged the garden, polluted the air with hydrocarbon fumes, and covered the lawn in poisons so nasty that they have to leave little signs warning people not to walk on the grass for the next three days.

I mow my own lawn.