Nicholas Rodriguez                                                                                        DRAFT

            Someone’s status is basically who they are.  Whether you’re rich or poor or smart or uneducated your status is what people see you as.  Usually the most powerful or most successful person has the highest status.  We see rich and successful people and that is what we associate their status to be.  However, I do not agree with this.  The reason I don’t agree with this is because if we see a person with no money and no expensive things, we automatically put a label on them without even knowing who they are or what type of person they are.

            This relates to the Blue Collar Brilliance chapter in “They Say I Say.”  People tend to think of blue collar workers as uneducated or illiterate just because of their job and the amount of money they make.  Mike Rose argued that blue collar workers are intelligent and their work actually requires some type of education.  This is one hundred percent true.  A lot of blue collar work requires a lot of reading and even some math.  Workers must make calculations about the size of an object and the angle that is need to fit that object through a door or up a flight of stairs.  Some jobs require a lot of reading.  People must read directions or manuals to be able to complete a job or build something.  In Blue Collar Brilliance, Mike’s mother was a waitress.  She had to remember up to twelve peoples order at a time.  She would also have to determine how long the meal would take to be prepared and even anticipate what type of mood the people in the kitchen or the customers were in.  Blue collar workers are hard workers and it is unfair that white collar workers have a higher status then them.  White collar workers are no better than blue collar workers even though people see white collar works as better people and thus put them in a higher status category than blue collar workers.

            This also relates to Who Built the Pyramids chapter in “They Say I Say.”   In Who Built the Pyramids, Mike is a blue collar worker.  He works in a steel factory and lifts thousands of pounds of steel a day.  Mike has a much younger boss who is straight out of college.  Mike’s boss has a much higher status than Mike because of his position at work, the money he makes and his education which is what people use to judge his status but you don’t know what kind of person he really is.  Mike is a good man who works long hours at a factory every week to support his family.  I do not think it’s fair that he is looked down on because of this when in reality Mike’s boss is not better than Mike.

            The point I am making is that I don’t believe people’s status should be judged by how rich or powerful they are.  The higher status should be given to the better person and the one that does something good or meaningful.  To me status is not about what type of class you are in life but by what type of person you are.