How to stop people from looking down on manual labor jobs

[WorldofWarcraft]

 

[mantronix]

I totally get this. I'm a chef.

It's one thankless job that should get much more pay than it does.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

Nothing like looking down upon the people who built your house or built ur car.. or are we just looking down upon janitors and other people who clean things you need to use...

its F'n laughable.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

Nothing like looking down upon the people who built your house or built ur car.. or are we just looking down upon janitors and other people who clean things you need to use...

its F'n laughable.

And you never see this attitude in countries like Japan, where a street cleaner is considered a very noble and honorable job and they are paid very well.

Only in the land of the freedom lovers do people zhit on the people that feed them and clean their streets and buildings.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

And you never see this attitude in countries like Japan, where a street cleaner is considered a very noble and honorable job and they are paid very well.

Only in the land of the freedom lovers do people zhit on the people that feed them and clean their streets and buildings.

Its the same 2 trolls on this site. Lucas and OldGoat who really have this Mitt Romney attitude towards blue collar workers..

also in the U.S. unlike Japan do we shit on senior citizens, in Japan theyre honored as the most important people in the family..

In America if you aren't "contributing" you are useless and should be pushed to the side.. Mind you the word "contributing" is a relative term, depends on the individual.

 

[ultramanhyata]

In America if you aren't "contributing" you are useless and should be pushed to the side.

Don't criticize the biblical, Christian values upon which this country was founded.

Fact is, if a person wasn't wealthy, influential and career-driven, Jesus didn't have a lot of time for them. He only hung with the best and brightest.

 

[LucasWithLidOff]

Jesus was a homeless bum. He wouldn't fit in at church in America.

 

[The Clamburglar]

That is funny. I look down on men who have no "blue collar" abilities. A man who can't use a hammer, a wrench, a saw, a shovel, etc. is basically useless as far as I am concerned.

 

[TankAbbott4Eva]

That is funny. I look down on men who have no "blue collar" abilities. A man who can't use a hammer, a wrench, a saw, a shovel, etc. is basically useless as far as I am concerned.

You'd look down on me then that's for sure! :icon_chee I'm a white collar now but during university I worked in a liquor store, in factories and in garden maintenance, i think it's important to do that sort of thing so when you're in charge of labourers in your future you kind of know about what they're doing a little bit.

 

[LucasWithLidOff]

Its the same 2 trolls on this site. Lucas and OldGoat who really have this Mitt Romney attitude towards blue collar workers..

also in the U.S. unlike Japan do we shit on senior citizens, in Japan theyre honored as the most important people in the family..

In America if you aren't "contributing" you are useless and should be pushed to the side.. Mind you the word "contributing" is a relative term, depends on the individual.

Well, if it eases your butt hurt, I look down on a lot of white collar people too. Even moreso in most cases. I just don't have the patience to be polite to stupid people with shitty attitudes no matter what they do for a living.

 

[computer fogie]

There's a difference between digging a ditch and designing/building a house though. My Papa was a steam fitter from Germany with a 6th grade education and a journeyman steamfitter's ticket, and because he was the shit with pulleys/cables and whatnot, they'd have him working out how to safe-lift pieces of steel that would weigh tens of tons. He was a pipe monkey, an "uneducated" man, but I bet you there aren't many people who could use his brain like he could to actually get things done. The man is retired now, single handedly running a sheep farm out in the bush, and when you go there you'll see log structures - barns, gazebos, free hanging gates - all built from trees ranging from 100 to 1000+ pounds - which he did by himself using nothing but man power and levers and pulleys.

I'm college educated. I got every damned thing my Papa wishes he had when growing up - masters from a university in England, working on a Ph.D in Canada (believe it or not, it's immaterial), and I still tip my hat to the working man who is a master at their craft.

You're not wrong in stating it'll never change, but I think that's only in certain segments of the population. In a world where most academic degrees are looked at as fit for toilet paper, I think you'll get more people like me who appreciate the incredible skillsets of "uneducated" individuals.

Now, a ditch digger? Meh, something like that I don't have a ton of respect for.

Nice post girlie.

 

[Islam Imamate]

The idea that people look down on manual labor is nothing more than blue collar insecurity being projected onto other people. In the United States the rich look down upon the poor, and how you got rich is only really important when it interacts with when you got rich, old money versus new. If you make your millions cleaning toilets then you're a businessman, not a shit scrubber. And if you're a broke ass lawyer, then only broke ass people who are insecure about their own educations really see that education as significant.

I don't think there is that much stigma and in general I think you're right in saying money matters more than the profession but I think the profession still matters when it comes to social standing, especially when there's a perception that manual laborers are poorer even though its not always the case(which kind of ties into your point).

Things certainly need to change, America went through a period where we started pushing college as the ultimate academic goal and that anything short of that represented failure.

The outcome is that anyone who chose a profession that didn't involve college were perceived as having been forced into that profession by an inability to get into (or out of) college.

As skyrocketing college debt continues to, well, skyrocket then people will gradually come back to earth (pun intended) on the value of non-college based professions.

Agreed. I'm a millennial and school felt like a conveyor belt to college. Its was pretty much expected that you were going to college and if you weren't then people assumed something had gone wrong.

At the risk of stating the obvious, you are entirely correct that it is ridiculous to look down on manual labor jobs.

BUT

In a diverse society such as America, manual labor jobs will always go disproportionately to a lower social class, and for that reason will be stigmatized as "outside" the higher social class. In other words, manual labor has come to be associated with an under-competitive ethnic underclass. And for that reason, it will be looked down on, whereas if it's just another ethnic German fixing your car with unionized labor, you don't have that problem.

This is why we have the ridiculous situation in America where people will work as an office minion, treated like crap and paid virtually nothing, rather than make 5x as much money and do more interesting manual work. Why? Because social status, contrary to what is commonly believed, is by far the most important motivator of human activity. Everything else is secondary. And office jobs are perceived as a different caste from manual labor, not just on the same continuum.

Never thought of that but that does make sense.

I totally get this. My cousin is a failed lawyer and he's still favored over me because I'm a chef.

That's ridiculous, a chef is much more useful in day to day life than a lawyer.

My town has a technical high school, it's very common for people to plan careers in trades, with electricians, plumbers an mechanics pretty much the three most common fields they'd look to get into.

All that example shows is that kids aspire to be rich and famous, and the career choices you've noted don't require higher ed, past the one year requirement for the nba. I think the vague ambition to be rich is more or less everywhere in the United States, but it doesn't get in the way of more pedestrian ambitions in the day to day lives of citizens.

I went to a high school that was also a trade school and we had to take some classes that related to some trade but even there all the students planned to go to college and only thought of trade as back up.

But if this guy is asked by a stranger, "What do you do?" technically, by the American standard, he has to say, "I'm a garbage man." Yet the guy, himself, identifies as, and really is, a pilot.

I like that story, especially since learning to fly was always an aspiration fo mine when I was a kid.

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

As long as banks keep selling the idea that you need to go to college and if you don't you are a dumb failure, then the system won't change. I've unfortunately witnessed the system first hand of those with degrees working inside looking down on those outside.

I worked on a support desk team. The company I work for actually bought my company. At my old company, you were not required to have a degree for nearly any position, and many higher ups climbed the ladder without them. But the company that bought us required EVERYONE from the bottom up to have 4 year degree. I got moved over due to my experience to a team where everyone had a degree. They just assumed I did and I kept quiet. In meetings they would talk so much shit on the people the company bought, how they were stupid, and will be replaced etc without realizing who they were sitting with.

Eventually I was putting up higher numbers than the rest of that team, the dumb guy from the company they bought, and got promoted to my current job while they are all still there. Was a pretty big eye opener for me and made me feel like shit at the time.

 

[Sir Burton]

When I got back from my honeymoon last August, I needed some quick money, so I took a job painting houses for a friend of mine who is from Ireland. I am a college adjunct professor -- World History, Science & Medicine, and Modern Europe -- so I usually make peanuts.

My Irish friend started his business about 10 years ago, w/out a college degree, with the help of a loan from his friend, another Irishman w/out a college degree, who had created his painting company about a decade prior.

Both of these men are millionaires, the older one living more comfortably with his family in the suburbs.

While I was working for my friend's company, I noticed that every one of his workers was Brazilian, all of whom had arrived in the U.S. illegally years before as children.

Over a few months, I became friendly with most of them. These Brazilians are my age (early 30s) and, since working for my Irish friend for the past 3-7 years, they all have a really comfortable savings account.

Out of mere curiosity, I asked my Irish friend why he only hires Brazilians and his answer was twofold:

-- "They just seem to work hard. I don't think it has much to do with their ethnicity, but each has a pretty good work ethic. When my company began to grow, first Brazilian told me he had a friend who was looking for work, who then suggested another friend, and so on."

-- "The American guys I have hired over the years always quit after a week or two. They complain that the work is too physically demanding, it's beneath them, or their college degrees should yield something less physically laborious."


Now, I have debt because I went to grad school. Over the next few years (or longer perhaps) I will see if an advanced degree paid off in the long run.

I have a feeling it will not. Based on my conversations with them, the smart Brazilians will likely go on to start their own painting, flooring, and roofing companies the same way my Irish friend did.

 

[Uchi Mata]

When I got back from my honeymoon last August, I needed some quick money, so I took a job painting houses for a friend of mine who is from Ireland. I am a college adjunct professor -- World History, Science & Medicine, and Modern Europe -- so I usually make peanuts.

My Irish friend started his business about 10 years ago, w/out a college degree, with the help of a loan from his friend, another Irishman w/out a college degree, who had created his painting company about a decade prior.

Both of these men are millionaires, the older one living more comfortably with his family in the suburbs.

While I was working for my friend's company, I noticed that every one of his workers was Brazilian, all of whom had arrived in the U.S. illegally years before as children.

Over a few months, I became friendly with most of them. These Brazilians are my age (early 30s) and, since working for my Irish friend for the past 3-7 years, they all have a really comfortable savings account.

Out of mere curiosity, I asked my Irish friend why he only hires Brazilians and his answer was twofold:

-- "They just seem to work hard. I don't think it has much to do with their ethnicity, but each has a pretty good work ethic. When my company began to grow, first Brazilian told me he had a friend who was looking for work, who then suggested another friend, and so on."

-- "The American guys I have hired over the years always quit after a week or two. They complain that the work is too physically demanding, it's beneath them, or their college degrees should yield something less physically laborious."


Now, I have debt because I went to grad school. Over the next few years (or longer perhaps) I will see if an advanced degree paid off in the long run.

I have a feeling it will not. Based on my conversations with them, the smart Brazilians will likely go on to start their own painting, flooring, and roofing companies the same way my Irish friend did.

Hate to say it, but few decisions are worse financially than to pay for an advanced degree in the Humanities. Professional degrees (other than law recently due to the glut of lawyers) tend to pay off pretty well, but a PhD in History isn't going to increase your earning potential hardly at all, certainly not enough to justify the cost. Skilled tradesmen who know how to run a small business will almost always do well. If you can provide good work, good customer service, hire and retain good employees, and manage capital reasonably well that's a recipe for success for sure.

 

[BigJaw McCarthy]

Worthless degree holder working a manual labor job here. Wish I had gone the commercial electrician or oil rig/pipeline welder track. But hey, everyone said I had to sit and read textbooks and take multiple choice tests to become "successful" all my life (mom/dad/friends). What a fucking wake up call after I couldn't find a job after I graduated. Fuck them all!

 

[MicroBrew]

Having moved from Germany to the US at a young age, I was surprised at the difference in the way we hierarchise so-called "blue-collar" and "white-collar" jobs.

In Germany, when a child tells his parents he wants to become a chef, a car mechanic, or a carpenter, the parent is just as glad and supportive as when the child wants to pursue a career in academics, law or medicine.

The vocational training system in Germany is also set-up in a similar fashion to the university system; meaning that there are several reputable and highly regarded schools that offer the best vocational training.

Getting a degree from one of these schools is worth much more than a degree from a particular humanities university, which are separate institutions and have fewer ties with the vocational training academies than the polytechnic unis which operate independantly from the humanities universities.

Do things need to change in the US in terms of the status and appeal of manual labour jobs, especially at a time when people are overeducated and ending up with degrees that are essentially worthless?

This is one of the great pluses of German education and society and why even though they are a small country (relative to the US) they still are world leaders in manufacturing high technology high end goods.

Re. looking down on Blue Collar workers ; The US is still order of magnitude less judgemental than the Middle East and South Asia.

 

[Dalarna3]

Statistically, it's much easier to find someone with the ability to become a master carpenter than it is to find someone with the ability to become a good doctor. Hence the "hierarchy" to which O.P. refers.

 

[Torami]

Worthless degree holder working a manual labor job here. Wish I had gone the commercial electrician or oil rig/pipeline welder track. But hey, everyone said I had to sit and read textbooks and take multiple choice tests to become "successful" all my life (mom/dad/friends). What a fucking wake up call after I couldn't find a job after I graduated. Fuck them all!

Well you do have a few years of school to do during an apprenticeship.

 

[Rusk]

Nothing like looking down upon the people who built your house or built ur car.. or are we just looking down upon janitors and other people who clean things you need to use...

its F'n laughable.

Well, of course they do a very important job, BUT using brain > using physical power, after all anybody can clean streets.