Work — what’s it good for?<\/p>\n
For the lower class, work is one way of getting money and keeping the Man from hassling you.\u00a0 It’s not necessarily the best way, but it works.\u00a0 Taking pride in one’s work is not likely.\u00a0 Jobs are transitory.\u00a0 Work is an option.\u00a0 Your job is no part of your identity.<\/p>\n
For the working class, on the other hand, taking pride in one’s work is important<\/em>.\u00a0 In fact, pride is generally a very significant thing for the working class.\u00a0 Making money is important, and that’s a solid reason to work, but turning down added money in order to be proud of what one does is perfectly normal.<\/p>\n It doesn’t matter all that very much what the work is<\/em>.\u00a0 Oh, it’s best to have a job you enjoy, but whether you love your job or hate it, it’s important to do it well.\u00a0 If you’re a plumber, then by God you want to be a good<\/em> plumber.\u00a0 If you’re flipping burgers, then you want them to be good<\/em> burgers.<\/p>\n And this pride in one’s work is one of the major divides between working class and lower middle class.\u00a0 Some people make no distinction between those two classes, and economically they’re pretty interchangeable, but behaviorally they’re not.\u00a0 Working class people work to survive, because it’s what people do, and they try to do it well; middle class people work to get ahead, and if they try to do it well, that’s usually to impress someone so they can get a better job.<\/p>\n Generally speaking, the middle class hates work.\u00a0 Work is necessary to acquire money and status and all the other good things in life, but work itself sucks.<\/p>\n The fact that an awful lot of middle-class jobs are mind-numbing pointless crap may have something to do with this.\u00a0 It’s hard to take pride in pushing paper.<\/p>\n In the middle class you choose your job on the basis of how much it pays and where it is and who you’ll be working with, not generally on what you’ll actually be doing — because for one thing, you expect to be doing something different a few years down the road, because you’ve been promoted or downsized or gotten a better offer elsewhere.<\/p>\n But then when you get to the professional class, work is once again something you take pride in — but you may still have the middle-class obsession with getting ahead, moving up the ladder.\u00a0 You work in one field, and you want to be the best in that field — law, medicine, programming, teaching, whatever.\u00a0 (Some teachers are professionals, some are middle class.)<\/p>\n And for the upper class, work is an option.\u00a0 It’s something you do when you need money, or want to please your family, or are bored.<\/p>\n You may notice a certain symmetry here.\u00a0 Ask people, “Who are you?” and the answers will depend on class:<\/p>\n Lower class:\u00a0 “I’m Joe Smith.\u00a0 I live down on Howard, ‘cept when my old lady throws me out.”<\/p>\n Working class:\u00a0 “I’m Joe Smith.\u00a0 I’m a welder.”<\/p>\n Middle class:\u00a0 “I’m Joe Smith.\u00a0 I work for IBM.”<\/p>\n Professional class:\u00a0 “I’m Joe Smith.\u00a0 I’m a lawyer.”<\/p>\n Upper class:\u00a0 “I’m Joe Smith, of the Philadelphia Smiths.\u00a0 The cadet branch out of Upper Darby.”<\/p>\n Notice, also, that the middle class is made up of employees — people who work for other people, or for corporations, not for themselves.\u00a0 Working class and professionals are a mix of employees and proprietors.\u00a0 Upper and lower class can be anything, depending on their exact circumstances at the moment, but the default is unemployed.<\/p>\n I could have a lot more to say about attitudes toward work, actually — one attitude in particular:\u00a0 the fear of unemployment.<\/p>\n The lower class isn’t afraid of unemployment; that’s their natural condition.\u00a0 They’ll often just stop showing up for work because they’re bored or got a better offer or hell, it was too nice a day to sweep floors.<\/p>\n The working class doesn’t have too much trouble with unemployment.\u00a0 It’s rough, but layoffs happen and they’re not a reflection on anyone’s personal worth as a human being, and there will be other jobs.\u00a0 Skilled, dedicated workers are always in demand.<\/p>\n The middle class is largely terrified of unemployment.\u00a0 Losing a job is a horrible stressful event to be avoided if at all possible — you may never find another one as good, you’ll lose all your seniority, all your contacts and the network you’ve built up to handle the office politics, your benefits will be endangered, you might miss a car payment.\u00a0 It’s a vicious blow to self-esteem.\u00a0 When you’re working, you’re somebody, you have a place in the world; when you’re downsized you’re just wastepaper, with nowhere to go and nothing to do.<\/p>\n The professional class doesn’t have too much trouble with unemployment.\u00a0 Oh, it’s a blow, but educated, experienced people are always in demand.<\/p>\n The upper class isn’t afraid of unemployment; why should they be?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Work — what’s it good for? For the lower class, work is one way of getting money and keeping the Man from hassling you.\u00a0 It’s not necessarily the best way, but it works.\u00a0 Taking pride in one’s work is not likely.\u00a0 Jobs are transitory.\u00a0 Work is an option.\u00a0 Your job is no part of your… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generalities-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":806,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}