essay 1, draft 1

Dayana Astudillo

October 7th, 2013

Essay 1, Draft 1

            There are many people who have a status in their lives once they success their education  and there are people who get a status with the pass of the years within their experiences. Some people get a status by studying hard since they are younger demonstrating their steps with honors and obtaining rewards like scholarships. Not only that, this achievement can be obtain by meeting important connecting people and getting experience in their jobs with the right knowledge. These people start from the bottom and scale to their accomplishment. That is why I think that a status is connecting with our work environment because most of the time a person's status depends on where they work and not only from their education achievement.

            On one hand, some people think that does not matter to be a blue collar worker in order to achieve success. According to Mike Rose essay Blue Collar Brilliance from the book "They Say I Say." His mother's brother did not finish his education. He worked in a blue collar job. He learned many things in his job such as, catching mistakes and solving problems and how to control his mind in order to memorize numbers. Also thanks to all their qualities of being a good smart worker , he obtained a status of manager position  in his blue collar job without thinking if he was graduating from college or not. However many people look at blue collar worker as a person with a lack of intelligence. That is why, they tend to classified jobs as white collar and blue collar. The white collar are jobs like doctors, lawyers, nurses, engineer, etc. and blue collar are jobs like factories, constructions, housekeeping, etc. For this reason some people think that white collar workers are in the top or they have a higher status in our society because those people have a career. But, I disagree with those people because everybody can have a status if they work hard and achieve a better position in their jobs.

            On another hand, some workers believe that if they would be recognized about their work, they would get a status in our society. In the interview of Mike Lefevre "Who Built The Pyramids?" from the book Working by Studs Terkel talks about how Mike was tired of his job. He worked in a steel mill. Mike said that he hated his job because he did not have a good salary even though he had to work hard and make physical work. In addition he did not have time to spent with his family. But, he did not have a choice to do it because he had to work to support his family. Also Mike was an uneducated man and for that reason he thought that he had to work in a job like that without having any status or any recognition in his life. Mr. Lefevre stated that, "I would like to see a building say, the Empire State, I would like to see on one side of it a foot-wide strip from top to bottom with the name of every bricklayer, the name of every electrician with all the names." (Lefevre, xxxii). He means that anybody recognized the hard and dangerous work that carpenter, electrician and construction workers make to built a building. But, the only people who is honored in that kind of work just to have a career  is the architect. That is why I agree with Mike because everybody should recognized people who make the hard work too in order to have a status to pursuit their dreams and be an example for their family.

            In conclusion, I strongly believe that is not to important to have an excellent background education to achieve a status in your life. Blue collar workers with effort and dedication with the right connection can achieve a better position and a higher salary in their jobs.