Working with one's hands in contemporary society

[esantoro]

I've got leather on the bench waiting for me but have been preoccupied with this article and the readers' comments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?em

[wildrose]

That was an incredibly well written essay. I skimmed the first page or so of readers' comments.

I too feel that people are being pushed into college and certain jobs that they simply are not meant for. I worked at a community college with open admissions in NJ, and there were even people there who were not "college material". Did that mean they were stupid? NO! They were simply trying to fit in with society's thinking that college is necessary for "real" jobs.

[Ian]

He mentions 'Deadliest Catch' - my favorite show of all time. I often think when i'm watching it, how ironic it is that the men who are doing the dangerous work of bringing their luxury products to the tables of the Manhattan elites are those men that the elites look down on and would shudder to think of them sitting at the same table as them. And I suppose that is true with so many other guys doing the vital work of the country.

The young generation worships the inventors of the next 'Twitter' but feels superior to those who fix their roads and roofs and toilets (look what the media did to Joe the Plummer)

I love that the shows depicting the reality of real work are so popular - it's about time.

[hidepounder]

He mentions 'Deadliest Catch' - my favorite show of all time. I often think when i'm watching it, how ironic it is that the men who are doing the dangerous work of bringing their luxury products to the tables of the Manhattan elites are those men that the elites look down on and would shudder to think of them sitting at the same table as them. And I suppose that is true with so many other guys doing the vital work of the country.

The young generation worships the inventors of the next 'Twitter' but feels superior to those who fix their roads and roofs and toilets (look what the media did to Joe the Plummer)

I love that the shows depicting the reality of real work are so popular - it's about time.

Amen Brutha!!!!

[CitizenKate]

Great article. I totally identify with the author's observations.

Kate

[Regis]

Very interesting. The loss/reduction of shop classes in schools will have very longterm affects on our nation. I very much enjoyed reading is and glad you posted it here. Spent a long time in the cubes myself.

Thank you

regis

[McJeep]

Outstanding read - Thanks!

[rdb]

It will only be a matter of time before only the elite can attend college. There sure is a lot wrong with our education system, and our society. Either we fix it, or the world will be a very strange place.

I went to college, and it did help get me jobs every now and then, but absolutely nothing to do with what I learned in school. It was always just a little extra thing that put me over some other applicant. The fact is...I'm no genius. I had to work three times as hard at learning school stuff than all the others. Once I got it, it was good, but it took awhile.

The fact is, that 90% of my working life, I have worked with my hands....and enjoyed the hell out of it. From mover/truck driver to carpenter, from leatherwork, pottery, art, etc, it was my hands that provided food for the table. To this day, I can't express the pride in driving by a house or an addition I built, or for someone to show me something I made for them years ago. Or for someone to just say "remember when you made..." I wont make any history books, but I have left a small mark in the world.

An awful lot of kids I meet today (heck, even adults) don't have a clue how to make the simplest things they might need or enjoy. And if they do see something handmade, they think it was made in a factory anyways...sheesh.

It's a consumer society, and we need to get back to making things here, not in some foreign land. But big business wants to pay $1 instead of $15 an hour, so now some peasant in another land is being trained to make your craftool. They still charge us like they paid $15, but they only want to give you $9 for your hours work.

If you are lucky enough to be paying the bills with your income from leatherwork, you are a select few in this land. I don't make anything close to a weeks pay yet, even though I'm working 50-60 hours or more, a week at it. But it's getting better every week, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that somehow the economy turns around a bit, maybe we'll all have a fighting chance, and in the process, maybe some kid will think he might have a shot at it too. If they see a craftsman making a living with his hands, maybe they will make that choice too. But if they see a bunch of starving artists, they'll take that service job instead.

"Buy American' seems "quaint" now, but it might just help some of us. The workers in other countries need help too, but we've given up a lot, and need to kind of hold down the fort a little. The Global economy on paper sounds good. We were supposed to become the sellers of IT type services, and inventions to the rest of the world, so they could make stuff for us. Everyone's standard was supposed to rise. But what happened was that big business ditched this country for cheap labor, and the government never arranged to train all the people who lost their jobs.

Community colleges are good, but not intensive enough. Like in the Vocational schools of yesteryear, they need to get businesses to work with them, for example more work study type programs. Fine, teach welding, or pottery, or even leatherwork in the Community school, but if there isn't a job for it out there, what's the point. They can fix this, but we have to be the ones to yell at them to do it. There is no "Them". There is only us.

-end of rant #625003

Edited May 27, 2009 by rdb

[HallisChalmers]

Everyone nowdays is in the "quick fix" game. In other words, what will give them the maximum amount of dollars - for minimal effort on their part.

I think that's why the newer generation of kids and college grads all want to be stockbrokers, lawyers, or computer geeks. God forbid they should have to do "manual" labor and - WORK for a living!

Of course given the current state of the economy - many a delicate genius will find himself recycling Red Bull cans from the trash dumpster.

[esantoro]

One of the things I took from the article is that many people in white collar jobs are unsatisfied on many levels and that one of the prime motivators for them to climb the status level is that they have been well socialized into consumer roles. In a consumer society, positions that receive high monetary remuneration have to go, for the most part, to those who are most likely and most willing to put that money back into the economy. A hierarchical system of slaves with not a single master.

When you work with your hands to create, there is the potential to be in a world that is completely your own, which is something that I don't even think CEOs have. To work with one's hands, and to create in one's little sphere, is a revolution of sorts. Working with leather is unique, I think, because it ties you into the whole past of human civilization. I don't think cotton can do this in the same way, because there are too many intermediary techniques involved in making the cloth. However, maybe in some societies those techniques are still on a human level, so the process does have that revolutionary sense. When working with leather, you can also hear the animal making noises and almost see it romping through the fields.

Viva la revolucion!!!!

[esantoro]

The author of that article was recently on _The Colbert Report_.

http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport...pisodeId=231840

[azrider]

So I read the article, comments, and thread while sitting in my cubicle at work thinking about what I actually want to MAKE. (There's not really enough work to keep me busy, but I can't raise a fuss about it beacasue it's contract work, and we might lose the contract.) I am very grateful to be employeed right now but hate the fact that at the end of the day I can't point at anything and say "I did that." I have a History degree, and have been happiest in high paced phyiscal jobs with no relation to my degree. I have been at a desk for about seven years now, and question my choice of careers. That was a really good article.

[dragonspit]

So I read the article, comments, and thread while sitting in my cubicle at work thinking about what I actually want to MAKE. (There's not really enough work to keep me busy, but I can't raise a fuss about it beacasue it's contract work, and we might lose the contract.) I am very grateful to be employeed right now but hate the fact that at the end of the day I can't point at anything and say "I did that." I have a History degree, and have been happiest in high paced phyiscal jobs with no relation to my degree. I have been at a desk for about seven years now, and question my choice of careers. That was a really good article.

I think a lot of folks that are white collar type workers feel this way, I sure do. and I agree on the statement about being formed into a consumer position. I learned this a few years ago and trying to resolve, but can not get my better half to understand. but we have as a family are trying to work at getting down to more basics. and you have to teach kids this very message, some will take some will not. I started with advertising. showing and proving them that what ever is advertised usually is not. you are not getting what you pay for so why buy it type of thing. both kids kinda of understand that. not to say being kids they still dont push the limit, but I believe, and hope, that they wont start down that road to total consumer, more of a thinker. this was a great topic and i bet way more people feel this than almost any other thing in right now.

[dirtclod]

I didn't read the whole article but what i did read i agreed with. Personally i have worked with my hands to make a living sense before i got out of high school except for one breif period when i was talked into trying college at 35. I lasted one half of one semester. It was just like school i didn't understand what they were trying to teach. My mind doesn't work that way i guess.

Over the years i have done a little bit of everthing it seems. Worked for a butcher, set tombstones, worked on the farm off and on, pumped gas, mowed yards, bat tender worked for a boot leger, commerical glass work, carpenter work for several years and having been doing leather work full time for close to 20 years. I wouldn't take anything for what i have learned doing the different jobs. Knowing how to build ment i was able to build my own shop ( still a work in progress inside ) and save a ton money .

I make a living doing leather work but i just get by and i have learned to live cheap..LOL. Having the internet sure has helped business. Where i live the people that have money won't buy from me because they say it's better if it comes from some where else plus they have a bigger store. Still haven't figured out what the size of a store had to do with quality of the product. Guess i'll take some of those smart pills when i find them and i bet their next to that money tree i have been looking for all this time....LOL.

Edited September 9, 2010 by dirtclod