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there's a tendency to ignore or minimize the importance of the aspects of life one CAN control while emphasizing the aspects beyond one's control as justification for not doing things differently. As someone who likes to see people improve in their lives, I find this mindset disheartening.
I was raised in a lower-working class neighborhood, and all I ever saw were people working hard and getting used up. "Work your fingers to the bone, and what do you get? Boney fingers!"
My whole attitude toward work was to do as little as possible and get as much as I could.
But in my 20s, I joined a little startup that grew tremendously, and we made a conscious effort to diversify our employees. We had a prostitute, a welfare queen, a drug dealer, a woman with a Ph.D., several employees had physicians as fathers, one woman was the daughter of a small businessman, another was a farmers' daughter.
We were all young and inexperienced, and grew the business with sweat equity, which meant that no one who could get a real job would work with us, so we didn't have any mentors and had to learn everything from scratch.
During the 8 years I worked there, I learned to love running a business. I saw people working hard and getting ahead. I clearly remember, decades later, what a revelation it was to me. I had always cynically assumed that whole work-hard-and-get-ahead stuff was just pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die nonsense designed to keep the stupid ones working way past their normal quitting time.
And I saw the difference between the people like my self, who tried to get as much as possible, and tried to give as litle as possible, versus the kids from professional and upper-class backgrounds, who were working hard to move the business forward. I saw that it was possible to work hard and get ahead!
It changed my life.
Most people don't have the opportunity to get involved at the groundlevel in a growing opportunity - this was one of the first organic and natural food warehouses in the country, and it was a gold mine - but we were making way less than minimum wage, but since we were technically owners, pulilng out owners' draw, rather than wages, we weren't afraid of getting punished for it. But most people are not in a position to be able to work for years for less than minimum wage.
So, although it definitely is true that most people can do more than they are to improve themselves, if all you see around you are either slackers or people with bony fingers, it's pretty hard to be too critical of people who have given up.
Plus, the whole idea of our educational system is to train kids from a very early age, for many years, to be passive and do what they're told, so they can go to a job where they do what they're told and get handed some money at the end of the week.
It's a whole part of the "dumbing down" that's going on, and if you want to fight it, you have to fight the entrenched interests who are supporting it.
Last edited by margaretBartle; 05-17-2017 at 06:00 AM..
Will and want are a lot different than self confidence, ambition, drive, determination and hard work.
My dad was a migrant farm worker before WWII. After the war, he went to college on the GI Bill, and graduated with an engineering degree, and got a job with a large aerospace company.
He was a very hard worker, came home late most nights, had a lot of ambition and drive and determination. Invested his money in land, determined to get ahead. But he was a peasant. It showed in so many ways. He was a bitter, judgemental, angry man. His ancestors burned women as witches. He had the speech patterns of an ignorant farm worker. He worked at the same company till the day he dropped dead, and never got promoted. Most people don't get promoted.
His real estate investments and oil investments were bad - he didn't have the sophistication nor connections to be able to make wise investments.
Self confidence, ambition, drive, determination and hard work are important, but not sufficient. You also need family connections, the right background and/or luck.
I was trying to explain my friend that churning 3000 parts per shift when her shift mates barely manage 1500 parts is stupid and it makes no friends (pay is the same!)...
In the loveless cruel world that girl seeks some sort of acknowledgement and appreciation from management that just doesnt give a dime one way or another.
At one point in my career, I was a consultant and programmer to a company I had worked at for years. I was the second-highest paid person, after the manager, and so he and his executive team kind of thought I was "on their side" and talked freely in front of me.
One day, while I was talking to one of the inside order-takers about her job, her manager approached her and asked her to work through lunch, because it was a busy day, but, unfortunately, due to low margins, couldn't pay her for it. She agreed.
A bit later, in the manager's office, I was talking to him about the work we needed to do when the inside sales manager walked into the general manager's office to brag about how he sweet-talked Germaine into working lunch for free. They all laughed about it (the operations manager was also there), and chalked it up to Jonathan's charm. I'm sure they were all thinking about how that would add to their quarterly bonus.
But that's the way working-class girls are raised - to seek approval rather than power or money.
Last edited by margaretBartle; 05-17-2017 at 06:04 AM..
............ He was a bitter, judgemental, angry man. ..........
His real estate investments and oil investments were bad - he didn't have the sophistication nor connections to be able to make wise investments.
Self confidence, ambition, drive, determination and hard work are important, but not sufficient. You also need family connections, the right background and/or luck.
I fail to understand your logic. It seems that what held him back was his personality---bitter, judgemental and angry.
My grandfather was an uneducated, illiterate peasant from the rural area of northern Italy. He had no family in the US. He certainly had no background to help transition to a new lifestyle. He worked hard but he was also friendly, honest and easy to get a long with. He did very well.
I moved from a upper-middle class neighborhood to a poorer rural community for my job and noticed that many problems are someone else's fault. Growing up in my nicer neighborhood, when a kid failed a class, was overweight, did poorly at sports, etc, the parents taught him how to improve for next time. Down here in the same situation the blame is on the teacher, the doctor, the other team, etc. This isn't something a few people have shown me - it's a nearly universal aspect of this town.
I don't have quantifiable data, but in my experience, upper-middle class people tend to have a more positive attitude about life in general.
For the record my dad never had a college degree but managed a division in a medium-sized company, my mom was a part-time nurse, and education and lifelong learning was pressed hard upon my sister and I.
I agree. Blaming someone else is a common theme. Another thing I noticed that if someone is out of work and does get a job, they want to start at pay rates that are for people who've worked for years and have alot of experience.
Can someone define what this class deal is? Is working class just another name for middle-class? I am familiar with:
unemployment or government assistant people - poor
blue collar to white collar worker - middle class from factory worker to doctors.. all different range of middle class to small business owners
rich people I don't know them and don't think of them
the personality difference explained here sounds more like blue collar vs. white collar family
Can someone define what this class deal is? Is working class just another name for middle-class? I am familiar with:
unemployment or government assistant people - poor
blue collar to white collar worker - middle class from factory worker to doctors.. all different range of middle class to small business owners
rich people I don't know them and don't think of them
the personality difference explained here sounds more like blue collar vs. white collar family
I think the meaning of working class has changed or the term has now broadened to mean a few different possibilities.
Poor=as you said.
Blue collar=working class. This is what I learned was working class but some people now are equating working class to anyone who works for a living. Since most people work for a living, that would make most people working class.
Middle class=nurses, teachers, office workers, etc. Also known as white collar. They do not work with their hands, they work with their heads.
Upper middle class=doctors, lawyers, well off business owners. Have more luxuries and leisure than the ordinary middle class.
Upper middle class=probably the bosses of the above and also those who don't have to work yet maintain a well off life style if they choose to. Jet set, multiple homes all over the world.
Upper class=old money. GW Bush, Rockefeller types. I've known exactly ONE in my entire life. He was embarrassed when we learned who he was, the family he came from. He was a misfit--probably the only reason I ever knew him.
I can usually pick out members of different classes (in my part of the country but even somewhat in other parts) by the way they speak and act. In my own part of the country I can tell by their mannerisms too.
There's also a distinction between the new rich and the old rich. New money will be flashy, flamboyant, showing off, keeping up with the Joneses, may be loud mouthed, and are prone to name dropping and place dropping. MacMansions, brand new cars, trendy new clothing, etc.
Old money or even someone who is accustomed to having money will usually not care whether they have an old car or a new car, doesn't care whether they are wearing khakis or jeans, may live in a modest house but are more likely to live in a nice house (but not a showy or ostentatious house) and will usually live in a nice neighborhood, surrounded by their own kind. Or they might live on a desert island! Thing is, they have nothing to prove to anyone. Usually they are neat and clean but that's about it. Unpretentious. Often very pleasant to talk to as they tend to be humble and have nothing to prove to you.
The ones who annoy me are the new rich, the bragging keep-up-with-the-Joneses-types. Probably because I grew up straight middle class in a town of upper middle class, a few of whom were almost upper class (I think), many of whom were well established upper middle, and the rest were the new rich.
The new rich seem to be obsessed with proving what they are. There are insecure with their status so you are subjected to endless oneupmanship. For instance, if you casually mention that you spent the weekend in Maine (probably at a campground, lol) THEY have to outdo you. THEY make sure you know that THEY also spent a weekend in Maine --attending a reunion of their college sorority of X College where they joined many former classmates who are doing very well. They may even drop a name or two here and there. You are supposed to be impressed.
It's a step above actual bragging, which is considered low class and brash. It's subtle bragging. You may have had lunch at a restaurant but THEY had lunch there too. THEIR lunch was with ________ (insert name of well known, semi famous person.) How impressive.
A person can lose all or most of their money and still not fall in class. They may decline in economic class but not in social class. They will live in "reduced circumstances" but they still have the attitudes and behavior of the class they have belonged to. Maybe their children would fall out of the social class because they will not have had the opportunities handed to them. But the children will have been properly brought up with the "right" attitudes and behavior so they will have a leg up in re-attaining their social status.
My mom, encouraged by my dad's mom (who was an adult education teacher at a local community college at the time), was the first in her family to ever get her GED. Then, at 43 years old, she earned a 2-year-degree. I am incredibly proud of her.
I can tell the difference between my mom and her family and my dad and his family (my parents have been divorced since 2002, by the way), though. My dad has the lowest education level of himself and his three siblings, with two 2-year-degrees, and he makes $31 an hour. I'm not saying that his family is filled with PhD's or anything, but they are all relatively well-educated, and you can tell.
My mom's family, on the other hand, is what you would probably call stereotypical white trash. I love my mom more than words could express -- she is probably one of the most loving, giving, good-hearted human beings on this entire planet -- but, as much as it pains me to say this, most would consider her to not be very bright. It took her four years of VERY hard work -- hours of studying every night, working with tutors, etc. -- to earn a fairly "simple" two-year degree. Her sisters are worse. Yes, they all live in trailers. One sister cannot read at all. The other two have tried many times to earn their GED's over the years and simply can't.
My mom's sisters all say things like "Walmark's" instead of "Wal-Mart." They all have trouble doing things like filling out very simple forms or looking things up online...it often ends up being a chain of events....they call my mom first. Sometimes she knows what to do, but sometimes she doesn't. If not, she calls me, and I have to try to not get frustrated as I give very simple instructions for how to do things that so many people in today's world know how to do.
My husband is incredibly smart in many ways. He's something like "MacGyver." He can fix many things with seemingly nothing. He has an extremely mechanical brain. He also has more "street smarts" and possibly more "common sense" than I do. That said, he mispronounces things a lot. When people are having an "intellectual" conversation about things, he often comes way out of left field because he really has no grasp of what they are talking about. His grammar is also terrible. Mine isn't perfect, especially when I'm having a casual conversation, but his is noticeably bad. For some reason, I don't notice it much when we're talking to one another, but it sticks out like a sore thumb to me when we're talking to other people.
As someone who was born and raised working-class and who loves both my mother and my husband more than anything, I notice the difference. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I get embarrassed. I have a fairly intellectual career, and I know that neither my mom nor my husband would "fit in" with my colleagues. That's something that kind of makes me feel bad. Luckily, I work from home online, so it's never an issue.
Because of it all, I do kind of end up "dumbing myself down" sometimes, and I don't think that is probably a good thing, either.
Doctors, lawyers, etc typically aren't "middle-class."
CNA/Phelobotomist/LVN is working class, CNA/Phleb are actually more working poor.
RN is middle-class.
MD is upper-class.
Just as a rought ball park, an LVN makes about 40-50k/year here, an RN 70-80k, a GP $180k. There's some overlap... a CRNA, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists, makes $150-200k/year, about what a GP does. They might earn as much, but they're not in the same social class.
There is a lot of overlap in the class department also.
LVNs and Community College RNs are both mainly from working class backgrounds. Some just enter the LVN/LPN school to fast track the RN because there are long waiting lists at the community colleges.
Huge social difference between the RN from Happy Valley Community College and Simmons College in Boston, Case Western Reserve, or Columbia. Most of the second group are at least second generation college attendees.
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