Dean Kamen, Manual Laborers, and You

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by gvarndell

Yes, his place in society should be valued -- by society -- and I believe it is.
But if nobody is willing to pay him to do what he loves doing, is it honestly inaccurate (much less offensive) to say that what he does is valueless?

The conditional statement as presented is of course rhetorical, but the "if" part of the sentence doesn't apply to any of my mentors.

Originally Posted by gvarndell

The real problem here is not with Dean's words but with the effect those words had on certain people.

Why can't it be both?

Originally Posted by gvarndell

But I don't believe he was referring to brick-layers, or plumbers, or HVAC mechanics, or skilled carpenters when he said 'manual laborers'.

I don't see how that's relevant. From the ladies in the VIP elevators who were pushing buttons for him, to the servers getting him food and busing his table, to all those gentlemen expertly moving/shipping/moving-again all of those robot crates, FIRST itself runs on the backs of unskilled, menial, manual labor.

Originally Posted by gvarndell

You have a selling job ahead of you and, as hard as it may be to accept, I'm trying to help you.

It's not difficult to accept at all.

I'm certain that Dean didn't get up in front of a group of enthusiastic students, mentors, and sponsors with the intent of offending them. However, having taken a step back and given it some time, I couldn't and still can't figure out what else he could have meant besides "students, don't be like those people" -- and I can't imagine how "those people" wouldn't be offended by such a remark.

Originally Posted by gvarndell

But don't they say that every year -- no matter what words Dean chooses?

I could have started the thread with a quip about speech length (at 27 minutes of Dean-only time, it was a record for brevity, and should have been a third of that), but I wanted people to take this seriously.

As for letting Dean know how his remarks were received, that letter is already in the works.