CAHoya07
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Post by CAHoya07 on Nov 19, 2009 17:49:22 GMT -5
I will echo a bit what Boz said. I worked at Tombs as a waiter full-time for over a year after I graduated. Probably was a bit immature and wasn't the smartest career move, but it got me through during that time.
I have now worked at a non-profit position for about a year. Yes, the work is different, but I can genuinely say that I worked harder at that restaurant I have at my current job (probably evidence by my post count during these time periods). It's a lot easier to "coast" and "mail it in" at many office jobs. Not saying that strummer doesn't work hard, but I'm saying that this is my personal experience.
I think everyone should experience a blue collar job like working at a restaurant at some point in their lives. It'll give you better perspective on things.
That said, I still do not like Sarah Palin. Honestly, I do not think she has a political future beyond 2012. People will have grown tired of her by that point. Does anybody think she would have such a following if she were in her 60's and unattractive? Our society is a pretty superficial one.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Nov 19, 2009 18:04:28 GMT -5
Your first response proves my point. You again separate "people who go to work each day and meet their own obligations" from the "intelligentsia and liberal elite." Ya know what? The "intelligentsia and liberal elite" go to work each day and meet their own obligations. And the fact that the phrase "liberal elite" raises such scorn in certain circles is absolute proof that the "liberal elite" can be EVERY BIT as marginalized as anyone else. It just depends on who's doing the marginalizing. And as long as the Palin crowd has FoxNews, and 3 of the last 5 presidents, and just won the governorship of two states, I refuse to accept that you're all that down-trodden in this country. I'm not downtrodden. But I will say that the people who really are don't get a fair shake in this country and very rarely does either party stand up for them. And if you want to be a pompous half-wit and argue that professors and investment bankers and lawyers are working as hard or contribute as much to society as coal miners, Army sergeants, and guys who work the late shift, well, wow, get to it. Best of luck making a case that someone with a PhD in economic theory is as marginalized as a guy who installs HVACs for a living. Waah, going for tenure is hard! Go back to looking at People of WalMart and shopping at Whole Foods and mocking anybody who doesn't always dress as nice as you do (except when you pull your GI Joe shirt from twenty years ago to accentuate your hipster wardrobe), but don't pull this crud about how you're as marginalized as they are. It's exceptionally pretentious and incredibly insulting. HVAC technicians make a lot more than most professors. I know, I worked for an HVAC company in Richmond, VA. I've also worked in construction, landscaping, restaurant management, and on an assembly line. I come from a long line of ship builders. I've also worked in dot com, advertising and am now a litigating attorney. Work is work and its generally always hard, regardless of what you do. I'm still not sure what all this blue collar romanticism has to do with a housewife and former governor. Did I miss the part where she was an ice trucker?
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 19, 2009 18:20:17 GMT -5
[quote author=cambridgehoya board=offtopic thread=20536 post=335683 time=1258671868 Did I miss the part where she was an ice trucker?[/quote] Ah, Cambridge, you're too young to remember the ice trucks that roamed the neighborhood supplying ice for people before refrigeration had a foothold in this country. They always had big ice tongs to pick up the block of ice.
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Nov 19, 2009 20:43:38 GMT -5
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Post by Coast2CoastHoya on Nov 19, 2009 21:24:03 GMT -5
This isn't the thread or the forum to make this complaint, and I don't intend to convey that I'm making it about the poll that ed just posted, because pretty much every poll suffers from this flaw, but are we REALLY comfortable saying "Americans think [x]" based on the opinions of 900-1100 people on a land-line phone poll? I mean, really? There are over 300,000,000 people in the USA. How is it POSSIBLE that a random sampling of such an infinitesimal percentage of human beings (in this case, 0.0000033 percent of the population, roughly) is representative of anything?
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Post by strummer8526 on Nov 19, 2009 22:34:39 GMT -5
Dadgummit. I just wrote this long, awesome post and the server rejected the reply. Ugh. Basically, the point was that I think if someone's hard working, responsible, acts legally and ethically, produces value at work, and makes good product, they should be respected regardless of the work they do. Mechanic, lawyer, retail salesman, cook, banker, miner ... in a developed society, all these are important jobs. I don't understand why we use divise and derisive rhetoric in conjunction with any valuable type of work, or why people think they're better or worse than someone in a different line of work. And some other stuff Hopefully none of my posts came off like I was putting anyone else down. I completely agree with this post. That's why it frustrates me when we treat blue collar work as somehow more admirable or superior to someone in an office. We don't need to have a Editeding contest over who works harder. But everyone needs to stop talking about "hard-working, bill-paying, kid-to-games-bringing Americans" like somehow that doesn't include white collar professionals as well. And just as a personal point, for 4 years before college, I worked in retail about 20hrs/week during school (on top of my 40 hrs/week actually being a HS student) and 30–40hrs/week during summers. So I do know what it's like to have that kind of job. I respect people who do it, but I don't think it's a reason to put them on a pedestal when it comes to honesty, concern for this country, hard work, patriotism, and all the other virtues that for some reason we lump under this strange "Joe the Plumber"-like category.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Nov 20, 2009 0:17:11 GMT -5
Boz let me tell you a story about a friend of mine. Her family was well off and her parents were both attorneys. One day they sat her down and explained this to her:
"Honey, we have to tell you something. You see, our parents were too rich to not send us to college. I know, it was a huge burden, But we did it. And we ate s*** from our bosses upon going to law school. It was our cross to bear. Now we want you to live your dream. If you don't want to, we'll support that. But we think that you should be an HVAC technician. Now I know backbreaking labor for 21.55 an hour has always seemed out of reach at St Joes but you can get into that HVAC school. Imagine a world of barely 40-hour weeks. Sweating, grinding, hauling, and lifting for only 40ish hours. That is the life we've always envisioned for you.
So honey, think it over. We don't want you to jump to conclusions. But know that your father and I get billed hundreds an hour to make sure you don't have to work as hard as we do...as an HVAC technician. The choice is yours. Godspeed."
Totally happened. Giga's honor.
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rosslynhoya
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Post by rosslynhoya on Nov 20, 2009 9:41:42 GMT -5
And just as a personal point, for 4 years before college, I worked in retail about 20hrs/week during school (on top of my 40 hrs/week actually being a HS student) and 30–40hrs/week during summers. So I do know what it's like to have that kind of job. I respect people who do it, but I don't think it's a reason to put them on a pedestal when it comes to honesty, concern for this country, hard work, patriotism, and all the other virtues that for some reason we lump under this strange "Joe the Plumber"-like category. Retail??? You realize you're still not grasping the argument here, right? Folding sweaters at GAP is up there with prepping legal briefs.
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Post by williambraskyiii on Nov 20, 2009 9:53:23 GMT -5
And just as a personal point, for 4 years before college, I worked in retail about 20hrs/week during school (on top of my 40 hrs/week actually being a HS student) and 30–40hrs/week during summers. So I do know what it's like to have that kind of job. I respect people who do it, but I don't think it's a reason to put them on a pedestal when it comes to honesty, concern for this country, hard work, patriotism, and all the other virtues that for some reason we lump under this strange "Joe the Plumber"-like category. Retail??? You realize you're still not grasping the argument here, right? Folding sweaters at GAP is up there with prepping legal briefs. Haha, I knew you would get skewered for that retail comment, strummer...first thing I thought of was The Gap as well.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Nov 20, 2009 10:13:47 GMT -5
Cinch it!
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Post by Coast2CoastHoya on Nov 20, 2009 10:17:14 GMT -5
Dadgummit. I just wrote this long, awesome post and the server rejected the reply. Ugh. Basically, the point was that I think if someone's hard working, responsible, acts legally and ethically, produces value at work, and makes good product, they should be respected regardless of the work they do. Mechanic, lawyer, retail salesman, cook, banker, miner ... in a developed society, all these are important jobs. I don't understand why we use divise and derisive rhetoric in conjunction with any valuable type of work, or why people think they're better or worse than someone in a different line of work. And some other stuff Hopefully none of my posts came off like I was putting anyone else down. I completely agree with this post. That's why it frustrates me when we treat blue collar work as somehow more admirable or superior to someone in an office. We don't need to have a Editeding contest over who works harder. But everyone needs to stop talking about "hard-working, bill-paying, kid-to-games-bringing Americans" like somehow that doesn't include white collar professionals as well. And just as a personal point, for 4 years before college, I worked in retail about 20hrs/week during school (on top of my 40 hrs/week actually being a HS student) and 30–40hrs/week during summers. So I do know what it's like to have that kind of job. I respect people who do it, but I don't think it's a reason to put them on a pedestal when it comes to honesty, concern for this country, hard work, patriotism, and all the other virtues that for some reason we lump under this strange "Joe the Plumber"-like category. I didn't think your posts came accross as putting anyone down. My read was that you're trying to figure out how we can all get along. I'm not trying to read more into what you wrote than that.
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Filo
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Post by Filo on Nov 20, 2009 11:26:31 GMT -5
I am so enjoying this thread.
Palin as a superstar...
Strummer as the hardest-working mo-fo the Gap and the white-collar world has ever seen...
Elvado going pinko and then all Ayn Rand....
Really, this thread has some serious promise.
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TC
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Post by TC on Nov 20, 2009 11:53:03 GMT -5
Don't forget TheExorcist having a Jarvis Cocker Common People moment.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Nov 20, 2009 12:18:16 GMT -5
Don't forget TheExorcist having a Jarvis Cocker Common People moment. TC, much as we argue, you and I really can't be all that different. The only thing that exorcist's post was missing was some all caps shouting at the end: "YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND!! HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE!!! WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL!!! ;D While I can't speak for everyone here, isn't it a relatively safe guess to think that the majority of us fall in the category of "If we called our dads, we could stop it all?" Maybe not now, but at some point in our lives? Doesn't mean it's not still a fun conversation though. I'm all for keeping it going.
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Post by strummer8526 on Nov 20, 2009 12:28:05 GMT -5
Retail??? You realize you're still not grasping the argument here, right? Folding sweaters at GAP is up there with prepping legal briefs. Haha, I knew you would get skewered for that retail comment, strummer...first thing I thought of was The Gap as well. Haha, fair enough. It wasn't the The GAP, or even clothing. As I said earlier, style and attire aren't really my thing. I still can't understand the lines we seem to be drawing. What if it was furniture? Or a Home Depot? Is that enough heavy lifting to put me in the HVAC technician category? Who knows. As long as we agree that next election cycle, the random blue collar worker of the year gets to be an HVAC Technician rather than a plumber, I'm happy.
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hoyatables
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Post by hoyatables on Nov 20, 2009 14:32:57 GMT -5
I don't think the distinctions we're drawing based on work are useful. There's a huge difference between a factory line worker who punches the clock on a daily basis and a plumber or HVAC guy who runs his own business. Similarly, there's a big difference between the office drone who's out the door at 5:01 and the lawyer or executive who's on call all the time.
The bottom line is that I don't think what people do for a living really informs their political allegiances. Plenty of GOP lawyers and Democratic plumbers.
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Nov 20, 2009 14:42:39 GMT -5
Don't forget TheExorcist having a Jarvis Cocker Common People moment. TC, much as we argue, you and I really can't be all that different. The only thing that exorcist's post was missing was some all caps shouting at the end: "YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND!! HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE!!! WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL!!! ;D While I can't speak for everyone here, isn't it a relatively safe guess to think that the majority of us fall in the category of "If we called our dads, we could stop it all?" Maybe not now, but at some point in our lives? Doesn't mean it's not still a fun conversation though. I'm all for keeping it going. I still consider strummer's comments to be shockingly inconsiderate and reflective of absolutely no grounding whatsoever. It takes a special type of person to complain about all the hard work involved in being a lawyer and how it's just as hard as working a shift in a coal mine, diner, or car factory. The people who do work those jobs get screwed. They rarely, if ever, have enough money to buy influence from decision-makers, they have a higher incidence of injury on the job, and if their job moves overseas or can be done by a computer, they can lose their employment in a day. It's why my parents - and probably many of yours, too - emphasized that going to college and studying so that you could get a job of relative leisure. Plumbers - or HVAC technicians - are never going to be the first voice that it comes to when addressing the rewriting of building codes, and yet mild changes in the law can lead to wholesale changes in how plumbers do business. Surprisingly, government regulations written by lawyers rarely lead to lawyers losing jobs.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Nov 20, 2009 15:00:23 GMT -5
Not that I want to take a side in this, but it is not accurate to suggest that lawyers are stable in their jobs, as the layoffs by firms of hundreds of their attorneys in one fell swoop can attest. In some cases, these were "performance" evaluations, but, as time wore on, performance became a euphemism for the billable hours of these attorneys. I am not sure what distinguishes that from work stoppages or layoffs on assembly lines and the like, apart from the differences in compensation between a blue collar worker and a white collar worker when the managerial decisions are made on the basis of the same criteria.
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Nov 20, 2009 15:07:43 GMT -5
Not that I want to take a side in this, but it is not accurate to suggest that lawyers are stable in their jobs, as the layoffs by firms of hundreds of their attorneys in one fell swoop can attest. In some cases, these were "performance" evaluations, but, as time wore on, performance became a euphemism for the billable hours of these attorneys. I am not sure what distinguishes that from work stoppages or layoffs on assembly lines and the like, apart from the differences in compensation between a blue collar worker and a white collar worker when the managerial decisions are made on the basis of the same criteria. Fair point. I would say, however, that lawyers as a general rule have a much easier job finding other employment (Many lawyers who lost their jobs when the market tanked have gotten other jobs as the economy has recovered - many auto industry jobs that have been lost have stayed lost).
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Post by strummer8526 on Nov 20, 2009 16:23:21 GMT -5
TC, much as we argue, you and I really can't be all that different. The only thing that exorcist's post was missing was some all caps shouting at the end: "YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND!! HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE!!! WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL!!! ;D While I can't speak for everyone here, isn't it a relatively safe guess to think that the majority of us fall in the category of "If we called our dads, we could stop it all?" Maybe not now, but at some point in our lives? Doesn't mean it's not still a fun conversation though. I'm all for keeping it going. I still consider strummer's comments to be shockingly inconsiderate and reflective of absolutely no grounding whatsoever. It takes a special type of person to complain about all the hard work involved in being a lawyer and how it's just as hard as working a shift in a coal mine, diner, or car factory. The people who do work those jobs get screwed. They rarely, if ever, have enough money to buy influence from decision-makers, they have a higher incidence of injury on the job, and if their job moves overseas or can be done by a computer, they can lose their employment in a day. It's why my parents - and probably many of yours, too - emphasized that going to college and studying so that you could get a job of relative leisure. Plumbers - or HVAC technicians - are never going to be the first voice that it comes to when addressing the rewriting of building codes, and yet mild changes in the law can lead to wholesale changes in how plumbers do business. Surprisingly, government regulations written by lawyers rarely lead to lawyers losing jobs. It would have been nice if you would have pointed out these disagreements in the first place rather than giving your ever-articulate "Wow. Just wow" post. I don't disagree with the fact that there are aspects of being an HVAC technician or a miner that make life more difficult in certain ways, or that there is a difference b/t the direct political access of lawyers versus coal miners. That's not what I was talking about, though. My point can better be framed this way: at the end of each day (usually a very LONG day), the lawyer/banker/businessman can be every bit as tired from a day of work as is the woman who works at the diner. Again, I acknowledge the physical versus non-physical distinction. It's not THE SAME. But it is comparable. I'm just tired of hearing things like "Sarah Palin speaks to hard working Americans" as if your run-of-the-mill liberal attorney is some "layabout" who's waiting for a welfare check, as Elvado would say. Or as if a liberal working in media or on Wall Street is just some 9–5 bum who takes his hour for lunch and then rolls around in piles of money. Yes, my parents did emphasize college to get a job of relative leisure. And while a lawyer has less a chance of getting his hand cut off at work than his grandfather did, he also has a much higher chance of ending up a divorced alcoholic who kills himself. Not the same risks or stresses or dangers, but comparable. To the point about job security, a whole lot of lawyers right now are in a lot of debt and out of work, trust me. Granted, they are in a better place in terms of marketable skills than is a guy just fired from the gas station. But odds are the young attorneys are also sitting on tens of thousands of dollars of debt. Again, it just seems needless to elevate one over the other.
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