I found it very interesting to read
both Mike Rose’s “Blue-Collar Brilliance” and Barbara Ehrenreich’s “From Nickel
and Dimed” for the sole reason that I could relate to both situations. On one
hand, I have been a waitress for the past year of my life and have dealt with
every pain in the ass customer you could imagine. Now, on the other hand, back
when the economy was thriving, my parents could afford a cleaning service for
our beautiful home, so I was that spoiled little girl who didn’t have to do
very many chores growing up. Because I was able to relate to these essays more,
I paid plenty of attention to the small details that made these stories similar
as well as very different.
To begin with, In Rose’s “Blue-
Collar Brilliance”, he discusses the hard work it takes to be in the
blue-collar industry. He states, “…[this] kind of work demands of both body and
brain” (245). He goes further to explain how for years he watched his mother
work and perfect the service industry as a waitress. While reading “From Nickel
and Dimed”, I immediately noticed the similarity in the two. Ehrenreich
discusses how hard she worked as a housemaid. She describes is at physically,
and mentally exhausting.
Although the two stories had this
substantial similarity, there was an overwhelming difference. Throughout
“Blue-Collar Brilliance”, working a blue-collar job was glorified and discussed
as something to be proud of. This, however, is completely different then how
Ehrenreich described working a blue-collar job as. Ehrenreich made it very
clear that working as a housemaid was shameful, difficult, and not desirable in
any way. She not only describes her own story but she heavily mentions the
experiences of her co-workers and what they are going through. While one essay
glorifies working a blue-collar job, the other simply describes it as atrocious.
Overall, I
believe that the amount of joy from working a blue-collar job depends heavily
on the situation. I believe there are an endless amount of factors that go into
your experience, including: pay, coworkers, management, corporate, customers,
hours, home-life, age, and whom you are supporting. I have had a wonderful
experience working as a waitress because not only do I love the people I work
with, but also I have managers and bosses who respect me and treat me
wonderfully. I also get paid very well for how young I am. All of these factors
greatly influence my experience at work and my opinion of blue-collar jobs.
Mike Rose’s “Blue-Collar Brilliance” and Barbara Ehrenreich’s “From Nickel and Dimed” arguments were similar to me because they both talked about how hard someone worked to make a living in their situations. In “Blue-Collar Brilliance” Rose states that “…what I observed in my mother’s restaurant defined the world of adults, a place where competence was synonymous with physical work.” His mother’s blue-collar job required her to not only do physical work, but also intellectual work. In “From Nickel and Dimed”, Ehrenreich talks about when she is working in Mrs. W’s kitchen, “She's just watching that I don't leave out some stray square inch, and when I rise painfully to my feet again, blinking through the sweat.” Clearly, Ehrenreich goes through physical struggles being on her hands and knees for so long.
ReplyDeleteThese two arguments are dissimilar by the light they shine on how the work that is done. Rose has a more positive outlook on the blue-collar jobs his mother and uncle have. He remarks that even though his mother and uncle dropped out of school, they were still successful in their line of work. Rosie and Joe were able to learn skills they needed and began to think of ways to improve their own areas, fixing the oven for Joe and figuring out what she could do next for Rosie. Ehrenreich had a different view of the physical labor she did as a housemaid. She uses the phrase, “…primal posture of submission…” To me this reflects negatively on how she had to be seen in front of the customers.
I agree with both views because I think it is hard work and you have to go through both physical and intellectual struggles to succeed in any line of work, especially so in the blue-collar jobs. At the same time, if you make the choice to be happy doing whatever you are doing, you can be content with what you do.
Both of these essays presented two different situations, both in which I could relate to completely. I’ve been in Rosie’s shoes. I was the busy waitress trying to satisfy every single customer I was serving. Most of the customers I served didn’t speak a lick of English. So while I was busy running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I was also busy mastering Del Rio border Spanish. Eventually, the waitressing was like a second nature to me and border Spanish became my official second language. However, I cannot speak a lick of formal Spanish, so I just stick to the border. The notion that blue collar positions require no education or intelligence is an insulting one. I lived my life memorizing menus, serving others, placing orders, and learning Spanish! Minimizing every day, common work is again, insulting. Yes, we’ve all had those servers who weren’t up to our standards of competent, but minimizing ones level of education based on the type of work they are in is ridiculous. I can also relate to the essay “Nickel and Dimed” of being surrounded by others who are overworked and can’t seem to keep up with their lifestyles. It’s sad to watch those who are struggling while I have everything I could ever want and need at my fingertips. Is it their fault? Is it their parents doing? I know none of the answers to these questions. It is sad that our nations set minimum wage can barely support those who rely solely on the $8.00 an hour they earn to support themselves.
ReplyDeleteThese two authors tend to pose different views on blue collar work. While one has a more positive outlook on it, the other showcases the physical and emotional strain blue collar work places on its subjects. I would tend to agree with both. Yes, it does take smarts and common sense to work a blue collar position, the physical and emotional stress is unbelievably great. There were days I wanted to throw myself on the ground and quit. It took everything out of me to go to work every day while going to school, but it had to be done. It is about responsibility. Responsibility is not for the weak.
“Blue-Collar Brilliance” and “Nickel and Dime” share the same argument in that blue-collar work is not just work that relies heavily on the body, it taxes the mind as well. Whether it be intellectual or emotional, the mind of a blue-collar worker is always at work. Mike Rose nicely puts together what a typical waitress has on their mind throughout the work day. I’m sure Rose barely scratched the surface of what a waitress fully has to think about on a normal workday, let alone how stressful a busy work day would be. He was only observing his mother; depicting what he thought was going on in her head. Rose also talks about his uncle becoming successful at General Motors in the paint-and-body department through problem solving. I feel Rose is really trying to emphasize the importance of problem solving in a blue-collar work environment when talking about his uncle’s success. Barbara Ehrenreich talks about the mental strength needed to be in a cleaning service. Her story is more about the emotions that come with housecleaning and how she needs to maintain a certain attitude or standard when cleaning a house even though she feels completely different inside.
ReplyDeleteThe way I see “Blue-Collar Brilliance” and “Nickle and Dimed” to be dissimilar is how they describe blue-collar work. They seem to be polar opposites in that “Blue-Collar Brilliance” glorifies blue-collar work while “Nickle and Dimed” comes off depressed when describing the life of a blue-collar worker. Ehrenreich talks about how the cleaning service she works teaches her to forget everything she learned about cleaning and to adopt their standard cleaning style. This leads me to believe that not all blue-collar jobs let you think for yourself. The text also touches on where most of her co-workers come from and it’s not a good place. Nothing Ehrenreich writes about shows any positive emotion. Within the first paragraph she is complaining about the uniform. On the other hand, Rose makes it seems like anyone can climb the ranks of a blue-collar job and be successful. Without a college or even a high school education, a positive impact can be achieved.
I agree with Stacy on the intriguingness of both Mike Rose’s “Blue –Collar Brilliance” and Barbera Ehrenreich’s “Nickle and Dimed” for the reason of relativity. I too have worked in blue collar professions before without really having to need to because of the mainstay of my parents. Yet feeling the need to get things on my own I took on freelancing through the use of my artwork and also multiple jobs at local grocery stores. I really over thought these professions before I actually did them, seeming so easy from the outside but once you reach the inner workings of the job then it requires much (non-teachable) intellect and getting adjusted to do the job with ease and without complaint. For this reason I feel that both of these stories are very similar in function but differentiating in their action. Both Ehrenreich and Rose’s mother (Rosie) and uncle (Joe) talk about not being the most educated and still wanting a piece of Americana (both of non-native heritage wanting to live and thrive), and do to that fact the profession of choice isn’t that great but, hey, you have to start somewhere. Eventually Ehrenreich, Rosie, and Joe get their jobs down pact and can do them well; here’s where the stories break apart and differ in action. Ehrenreich becomes complacent (as far as the story tells) with her situation and gives the bitter ugly truth of how most of Americas jobs are, working long hard hours for minimum pay. On the other hand Rose talks of how his mother and uncle took that complacency and made the best of it, and with that came certain intellect that made their jobs more manageable. Rose’s uncle took it a step further than the rest and took that gained knowledge and profited from it, eventually becoming a Supervisor at G.M.(PRESTO! Joe starts to look like the poster child for “the American Dream”). Most don’t realize is that if aren’t born stinking rich then in time you are going to have to get a profession, and the general view of the American Dream doesn’t come over night, it takes years to achieve.
ReplyDeleteMike Rose’s “Blue-Collar Brilliance” and Barbara Ehrenreich’s “From Nickel and Dime” are both very much alike but then again are very different at the same time. Both stories describe how hard working one must be to work in the blue-collar field. “Blue-Collar Brilliance” describes working in this field as not such a bad thing but “From Nickel and Dime” describes it completely differently as a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteEven though I have not worked a day in my life in an actual job it is hard for me to relate but I know people that have. My boyfriend works in construction for his grandfather in a little town. I see how exhausted he can be and what all he has to learn. This job not only requires you to do what your boss says, but like a waitress requires you to do what the customer says. A great part of this job for him was learning to understand what him coworkers were saying since they spoke mostly Spanish.
Just like not having worked, I bed I could count the number of times I had made my bed or cleaned my room on two hands before I came to college. I have had a nanny/ housekeeper all my life. But I wouldn’t say this job is a bad thing like “From Nickel and Dime” describes. I became very close to my nanny as if she was my other mother. She took my sister and I in like we were her own children
These jobs are not for the uneducated or lazy, they are jobs that people enjoy. A blue-collar job may not be for you or me but for others it is the perfect idea of income.
Mike Rose's "Blue-Collar Brilliance" and Barbra Ehrenreich's "From Nickel and Dime" are two similar essays with different takes on the working field. Rose says in his essay that working in this field is not such a bad thing, but Ehrenreich says working in this field is a bad thing to do. Both essays center on the idea that you have to work hard to be in the blue-collar field. For me I have not worked at all in my life so it is kind of hard for me to relate to what they say about working, but then I just think of what my parents go through in the working field and then I catch on to their ideas. I know many people, such as in Ehrenreich's essay, think these blue-collar jobs are a waste of time, they’re not educational or lazy jobs, but these people love what they do for a living and that is the most important part of having a job, enjoying you. My mom as a young woman had many blue-collar jobs, and she said she loved them all because she enjoyed herself and they taught her life lessons she still uses till this day. You could benefit from these blue-collar jobs a lot just like my mom, they’re not a bad thing to do either they're just jobs that people have to make their perfect idea of living with their perfect income. I mostly agree with Rose’s essay than Ehrenreich’s essay because jobs don’t have to be educational or high standard, they just have to be something you love doing because it makes you happy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Stacy, in “Blue-Collar Brilliance” and “From Nickel and Dimed” both pose different standpoints, but have some similarities as well. Both worked hard to make a living, and were in tough situations in how they would make money. In “Blue-Collar Brilliance” Mike Rose is telling the story of his mother Rosie and how she made a living by working as a waitress. In “From Nickel and Dimed” talks about Barbara Ehrenreich and how she is starting out as a housemaid and how demanding her job is. But, there were also some differences as well where it seems in “Blue-Collar Brilliance” that Rosie actually enjoyed her job and that it was rewarding in the ways she had to analyze people and remembering all of their orders. “No wonder, then, that Rosie was intrigued by psychology.” (246) But, with Ehrenreich she also had a really tough job, but didn’t enjoy because of how meticulous her job was and how unfair it seemed. “In my interview, I had been promised a thirty-minute lunch break, but this turns out to be a five-minute pit stop at a convenience store, if that.” (Ehrenreich 6) Also, the way she describes how every inch of a house had to be clean, from left to right. Being in college, and trying to figure out what career path I want to take, I know I want to enjoy my job. I think it really does depend on your coworkers, bosses, etc. Your job is going to be enjoyable if you work with people who are enjoyable. Unfortunately, we aren't always given that option to choose who or whom we work with, when you’re in desperate need of a job.
ReplyDeleteIn Blue-Collar Brilliance and Nickel and Dimed, Rose and Ehrenreich describe in detail what working in blue-collared working is like and what it does for the people working within it. Rose describes how these jobs provide the people with each jobs own form of eduction from a waitress picking up communication skills and time management abilities to a worker at General Motors picking up "a kind of rhetoric education". Ehrenreich describes her work as a house maid as brutal, underpaid, and degrading. Both of these descriptions hold truth in them. Ehrenreich's description tells of all the trouble that comes with working in a blue-collared job and Rose's description tells what can be cultivated from from these jobs. It all just depends on the persons perspective. I have not had a job like these yet, but what I have seen from how my dad work, I would agree with Rose's interpretation and say he has learned a lot through his work and prospered, but I would also agree with Ehrenreich that it is brutal work and the pay can be frustrating at times.
ReplyDeleteIn Stacy's last paragraph, she states that the amount of happiness gained from doing a blue collar job depends on what kind of situation you are in. Ehrenreich talks about her coworkers and the hardships that they have to go through. If I was surrounded by that kind of misery and disparity all day I would be sad doing what I was doing, especially for that kind of money. If one gets caught up in thinking about how hard they are working in relation to the pay that they get compared to others, it will no doubt be terrible. But if, instead, one focuses on how they are helping others and how well they are performing they can take pride in their work. Ephenreich describes how the techniques used for "cleaning" were not really cleaning, but they were all about the aesthetics. This makes what she is doing feel useless, and gives her little self worth for the job. But you can feel the pride in her words when she says, " Coworkers warned me that the first time they donned the backpack vacuum they felt faint, but not me. I am strong and I am, more than that, good." Although what she was doing wasn't very fulfilling she was good at it. I know in my experience as a food handler, when I go into a work day feeling bad, work is horrible. When I think about the people I'm around, it makes me want to get a different job, but I take pride in what I do and how well I do it. I wouldn't be working there if I wasn't paid so well, and my previous manager told me it would be difficult to get that pay from anyone else in Texas. Nonetheless, I can use techniques like focusing on the positive to make the best of my current work situation, and when I start my career I think that those thoughts will help me to get through whatever I have to deal with.
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ReplyDeleteThese two readings contrasted each other in the way that both Had similar situations but opposite attitudes. The first passage Blue-Collar Brilliance, Rosie is the common restaurant waitress who works hard for her money. Waitressing is job that not only requires physical endurance but a capable mind to provide excellent customer service. Some workers see these requirement as to demanding and start to develope a hate for work. Not Rosie though, she loves the stimulation of waitressing. All the interaction with customers with the even balance of physics exertion make Rosie content with her job.
The second passage Nickel & Dime , Barbara describes her blue collar job with a different attitude toward her work. She complains about the bad parts of being a carpet cleaning and states companies take advantage of her. They charge $25 an hour for work but pay her a fraction of that. Barbara is very unhappy with her blue collar job and has a completely negative attitude; the exact opposite of Rosie.
My opinion on blue collar work is a honest living that most Americans experience. But this experience is different for everyone. Barbara’s natural niches may not line up with a carpet cleaner. This may have led to some negative experience give barbara a bitter distaste for her job. Rosie’s natural niches obviously lineup with a waitresses characteristics. She loves to interact with other while not being afraid of a little dirty work to.
I agree. Barbra Ehrenreich's "From Nickel Dimed" and Mike Rose’s “Blue-Collar Brilliance” have similar views on working the blue-collar jobs are difficult. The level of difficulty comes from doing task that are wear on the internal value of a person. i have served tables before and would consistently have customers that lacked tack. the concept of "serving on a person is often seen as lowly.....
ReplyDeleteI would also like to agree that although both essays seem very similar they are completely different in their arguments. In addition, I want to write a bit about how Rose in Blue-Collar Brilliance talks about how some jobs, specifically serving, creates skills that cannot really be learned anywhere else. I feel like that her description and explanation of those learned skills is the strongest point of her argument. I also work as a server back at my home city and I’ve learned so many things that I did not learn in school. I do love school, however, some of these skills are only learned once you work as a server. For example, Rose talks about how servers build a sense of organization and mental time clock. As a server, time is everything. If a customer’s food takes too long, the server will not walk away with a good tip. That’s especially important since servers live off of tips. Servers build an amazing sense of time after some experience. The ability to know how long certain orders will take allows servers to build a mental schedule of what they need to take care of, depending on how many customers and tables they have. You cannot learn that ability in the classroom. Rose excels at describing that skill among others. Also, a server learns how to behave depending on the character of their customer and that is another skill that is only developed after serving tables for some time. Rose also does an exceptional job at pointing out those skills that servers, and other blue-collar job workers, learn. Although the task will be difficult, the reward one gains is worth every drop of sweat.
ReplyDeleteThe two essays, “Blue-Collar Brilliance” by Mike Rose and “From Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, share a common theme of blue collar work. Both portray the work conditions as not only physically strenuous, but mentally tedious as well, as Rose states, “…kind of work demands of both body and brain” (245). They both share the idea that working hard not only requires physical labor, but mental as well. But the view of each is completely different. Ehrenreich portrays the idea of blue collar maid work as being shameful. Ehrenreich uses negative language to describe almost every aspect of the job and nowhere does she glorify being a blue collar worker. Rose however, portrays the work of a waitress as being brilliant, as suggested even in the title. Rose’s mother chose to make the best out of her situation by doing what she needed to. I can relate to this after being a waitress for 3 years. There was a time in during my job as a waitress that I felt shameful of the work I was doing. Then I remembered that I didn’t have to be here, I could choose to work somewhere else in order to pay for my new car. I changed my outlook on the job and thus, it became easier and less of a struggle for me. I feel like the attitudes of people is what makes blue collar jobs seem so horrible and shameful. If people were to look at their jobs as Rose’s family did and perfect their skills in order to do the best they can, then more people would take pride in their blue collar jobs.
ReplyDeleteLike other students are mentioning, the two essays describe a day in the life of a "blue collar job." I appreciate that the authors were trying to reveal or uncover the reality of working these low paying jobs. Although their personal views toward the experience of working a low paying, blue collar job are almost entirely opposite, I think they both wrote with the purpose to alter people's perceptions of what it means to work in this field. In addition, I think both authors went into writing about their experiences with a preconceived opinion. Ehrenreich opened her essay with negative adjectives describing her environment, her uniform, and her coworkers. It is hard to see any positives in a situation when you are already unenthusiastic about the job at hand. Conversely, Rose grew up with a mother in the service industry. Clearly, he had already developed positive feelings toward this line of work. Both authors agreed that blue collar work takes a certain intellectual ability, despite popular opinion stating the opposite. Both jobs described require pretty strenuous labor. I work in a restaurant and after a busy night I am absolutely beat. I imagine cleaning houses is similarly exhausting. To me, there is a common thread amongst these two essays that empower the employee to make the best out of their situation. Although the work is low paying, strenuous, and under appreciated in society you can find positive aspects such as building your resume or creating relationships with your coworkers.
ReplyDeleteThese readings both really intrigued me because I have worked my fair share of jobs very similar to these, and so has every member of my family. I really like how Rose explained that even without formal educations, her family really seemed to gain skills in the workplace, particularly skills such as the ability to read people, and how to interact effectively. I think that these two are similar because they both acknowledge the work they do and understand they have earned their living but they are very dissimilar in their attitudes towards their specific work. The Maid's employees all are very negative in their outlook on their position, as would most people, but they are forced to put up a cheery, positive front with a fake smile on their face every single day. Rose, however, observes that Rosie is very positive and takes advantage of the skills she has obtained in the restaurant industry. Rosie is able to use these skills to excel at her job and interact with customers differently in order to please each individual, thus leading to better tips. Rosie also realized how to deal with her fellow employees in the restaurant and used this knowledge to make each day as productive, smooth, and flowing as possible. All of these skills Rose witnessed Rosie obtained are what led Rose to study psychology and to teach for a career. In the end, the blue collar work in her family is what led Rose to obtain the job she desired later in life. The Maids employees were mostly not only pessimistic, but seemed to do what they could to just get through the day whereas Rosie and her family worked with what they had and made the absolute best of every situation and remain positive throughout the roughest parts of their lives.
ReplyDelete“Blue-collar Brilliance” and “nickel and dimed” were similar in the sense of the topic, but had extremely different points of view. “Nickel and Dimed” was written in from the point of view of a woman who got a job working for a large corporate cleaning company. She expresses how dehumanized she felt because of her uniform, the procedures she was required to follow, and the way the company treated her. She knew she was being paid only $6.25 an hour while the company was making $25 dollars and hour per person. She also said that the uniforms were made in bright, tacky colors that made her feel ridiculous and took away whatever little dignity she felt she had left.
ReplyDelete“Blue-Collar Brilliance” was written with an overall more optimistic tone. The writer writes admiringly of his mother an uncle about how although they weren’t particularly intelligent, they were clever, hardworking, and were driven because they worked so hard in labor intensive jobs in order to make a living and support their families. The author proclaims that these kind of people are an important part of American society and that life couldn’t be the way it is without “blue collar workers”.
I agree with both essays. I am a waitress too, and I love my job. It is labor intensive, busy, overwhelming, as well as fun and rewarding. It’s a job that allows you to interact with people, so this was you can avoid feeling as though you have been dehumanized because the customers are talking with you face to face. In “Nickel and Dimed” the author felt as though she had been dehumanized because she was. The company made her follow these procedures and she cleaned houses while the owners weren’t there so they wouldn’t have to come to terms with the fact they were hiring over worked, under paid, desperate people. America does need blue collar workers, but it also needs to become sensitive again toward these people and there needs to be more equality.
Both of the readings were describing separate viewpoints of working a blue-collar job. In "Blue Collar Brilliance", we see 2 people that are very happy with their jobs. They approach their work with enthusiasm and positive thinking which leaves them satisfied with the jobs they're working. We see the opposite situation however in "From Nickel And Dimed" where the blue-collar maid is unhappy with the job she does. Ehrenreich describes the blue-collar experience as being shameful, unlike Rose who shows that it's all about perspective. The authors’ arguments are similar when discussing the degree of difficulty the workers must undergo each and every day, and it's also shown in both of the readings that the attitude of the employee affects their work experience. The strain of work goes beyond physical tediousness; it requires a strong mental outlook in order to be able to handle the weight. In my opinion, which also goes along with what Stacy was saying, the experience one gets out of a blue-collar job depends heavily on the situation. Co-workers, working conditions, salary, and the personality of your superiors vary from place to place, resulting in a unique and individual experience for each worker. There are many factors that affect the way an employee feels they are treated, sometimes it’s just going to suck.
ReplyDeleteI definitely have to agree with you, Stacy. I think both excerpts share similarities, however the big difference of feelings towards blue-collar work. I think it really does depend on your look of things. Rosie, in "Blue-Collar Brilliance" I think decided to take the experience for what it was, and turned it in to something positive. The maid in "From Nickel and Dimed" did not. But, honestly, I think that is okay. Different people react in different situations, and it is not always easy to see the best in things. She had very tedious work, and while Rosie did too, I think the kind of work still varied a lot. The kind of people they worked with, their coworkers, etc. all had an impact on how they felt towards the job, and I think that all of those things factored in, like you said, can have a profound impact on your feelings toward the work you're doing. Like some said before me, the way each author approached it was very different as well. I think Rose shed light on positive things about blue-collar work and how it can be mentally stimulating, and that people should beware of misconception about the workers. While Ehrenreich kind of just started the entire thing out negatively, obviously making the mood of the excerpt very negative. This, in my opinion, just reveals each authors outlook on blue-collar work. Also, it reveals how everyone deals with economic hardship, hard work, and pressures of a job differently.
ReplyDeleteIn both essays "Nickeled and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich and "Blue-Collar Brilliance" by Mike Rose,they are similar yet different. Both essays I think are trying to alter readers' opinions by portraying what it's really like to work a blue-collar job.I think it's how you look at it. For example, the way Ehrenreich began her essay, it was easy to understand that she saw her job in a negative light. On the other hand, Rose's essay was the opposite, seeing from experience that it is a strenuous job that requires mind and body cooperation. I personally can't relate because I have never been a waitress or anything like that, but I do agree that it can drain you mentally and physically.From eating our at restaurants, its easy to tell by the looks on the workers faces who has been there all day and would want nothing more than to go home and lay in bed for the rest of the day. I respect waiters and waitresses because I do in fact believe that it is a strenuous job that requires a lot of effort. For most people who complain and mope about about how much they hate their job, others are making the best of it. I think if people would change their attitudes towards their jobs, it would make things a little more bearable.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading “Blue Collar” by Mike Rose, and “From Nickel and Dime” by Barbra Ehrenreich, I was able to grasp the opinion and point of both authors. Both authors wrote their essays, in which were both very similar to one another, except they do have completely different opinions on the working industry. Mike Rose believes as if working in this specific work field is not a bad thing what so ever, yet Barbra Ehrenreich on the other hand believes that working in this field is definitely not a good choice to make. Overall, the overlying message and topic in both of these articles is pretty much that in order to be apart of this “blue-collar field” you must have one, very important quality as a person; being a dedicated,motivated, and hard working. I personally cannot relate to any of these situations, because I have yet to ever have a paying job in my entire life. But, I have seen other people that do have day to day, daily jobs and I can base my opinion off of them. I strongly do agree with what Barbra Ehrenreich has said. I believe that it is not all about the income that you receive annually. I personally believe that it is very important to be apart of a job, that you love. A career that you love going to, it isn’t a pain waking up to every morning. Because at the end of the day, it is very important to realize that money does not buy happiness what so ever.
ReplyDeleteIn both of these works, writers Mike Rose and Barbara Ehrenreich give their own insights on their “blue-collar” workforce experience. Mike Rose from Blue-Collar Brilliance describes her family background as one that is poor and she tells us that her mother had quit seventh grade to help raise her siblings. As her mother worked at a restaurant, the amount of pay was limited and depended on how well she complied to the needs of others. With Barbara Ehrenreich’s writing, she tells us her background where her mother was a housekeeper, and her new job too, was to clean houses. Barbara also worked long hours with hard manual labor to only receive little pay. Both of these works could only make enough to suffice for their needs. However, with Mike Rose her mother was active in her job. She waited tables exceptionally with the skills she acquired. In contrast to Barbara Ehrenreich, her job was more focused on manual labor that strictly followed routines. I believe that if you are working for someone, it should involved not just your bodily labor - i.e. cleaning and scrubbing but also intellectual involvement as well. Ehrenreich was made to follow certain methods but her cleaning was regulated and not thorough as she would have liked it to be. I does not make sense to put in so much work and come out with a job half-done. If you’re going to do something, you do it entirely with all parts done in a thorough manner.
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