A couple months ago there was a thread about Dean Kamen’s remarks about manual laborers. (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=955885) Mike Rowe was brought up numerous times in that discussion. I wanted to share an interview with Mr Rowe and some thoughts on it.
The only thought I really have to share is to be passionate about whatever you do. If your passion is making burgers then do it well. I will close with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lives a great street sweeper who did his job well.
Follow your passions and don’t judge others for following theirs.
Especially in a manufacturing/logistics setting, the line between white collar and blue collar is becoming blurred. Traditional engineers are stepping outside the office for true experience and working side-by-side with the laborers to create solutions. Especially with the popularization of Six Sigma, Kaizen, and similar programs, traditional laborers are called upon to facilitate higher-level processes and decisions.
As far as the genesis of the blue-collar-jobs-are-undesirable notion, I’d look no farther than family histories. You don’t have to travel very far to find a laborer who lives by the mantra, “I’m doing this job so my kids/grandkids don’t have to.”
Mike Rowe was interviewed by Adam Carolla last week for his podcast and they had some really good conversation about the white vs. blue/college vs trade arguement. The podcast itself is explicit but they have a very sound discussion and I would reccomend listening to it. Rowe talks about how his grandfather a jack of all trades was his inspiration.
One of Mike Rowe’s responses from the interview that hits the nail on the head:
There is nothing wrong with working in an office. There is nothing wrong with getting a college degree. The flaw in our character is our insistence on separating blue-collar jobs from white-collar jobs, and encouraging one form of education over another. Why do we value one above the other, when our future depends upon both? That’s our blind spot.
I do two things at my job: I’m an engineer most of the time, and I weld and machine when I’m needed to. The later is usually much more satisfying than the former. TIG welding and machining titanium for prototype equipment is way cooler than spec’ing out a plug or writing reports.
You have to have both to have a harmonized society. If an engineer designs something who would they have build it? In order to build something it needs to be designed.
I had a former student who is now a mentor who wanted to go into drafting. He went to school for it and was miserable. He ended up going back to his passion which was mechanics. He has never been happier. He works 12 hours and 6 days a week and I have yet to see him in a bad mood from it.
You need to follow your dreams and passion no matter what it is.
Any prospective engineers who never want to get their hands dirty are going to be in for a rude awakening when they hit the job market and find out just how many jobs involve going out into the field/machine shop/whatever.
[this post was written while sitting in a trailer in the middle of a shipyard]
That’s awesome! I come from a family of hands-on engineers I’ve only gotten horror stories of not being allowed to touch anything. My dad worked at Raytheon, and got in trouble for moving a cart between labs after it sat unmoved for several days with a fast approaching deadline (unionized lab techs). A family friend worked at Caterpillar, and said the rule was if you were an engineer, you couldn’t do anything that required two hands. (i.e. all wrenches must be turned by techs, all heavy things must be moved by techs, etc.).
I imagine this probably changes with company size (i.e. smaller companies you get lots more hands on time), but I’d imagine a fairly significant portion of engineers are hired by these larger companies.
I can’t believe how much the US is throwing away it’s trade infrastructure. It seems like all the schools around me have eliminated their machine/wood shops. While it’s great for picking up decent equipment at cut-rate prices, it’s bad for business because fewer kids get introduced to them, and don’t have the opportunity to get interested in the field. Anyone with a job can (and should!) become a hobbyist machinist. :]
I TA the freshman introduction to shop class at RPI. It has given me a great respect for the machine shop teachers in high school, those guys have nerves of steel. :ahh:
Sounds like your family has been involved in manufacturing and production facilities, which is quite different from the world I (and most of my friends) are involved with, which accounts for the difference in perception. I don’t have as much exposure to unions putting red tape over everything. I work for the federal gov’t (whole different set of red tape), and a majority of my job revolves around working in labs or on-site. Many of my friends work for, both large and small, private companies, and most of them are the same way (lab and/or on site). At least until you reach the higher (managerial) levels, it seems many engineering jobs definitely involve a hands on factor (though not always directly constructing anything, usually more on the troubleshooting and testing side of things).
There is a big difference in work rules for companies that have Trades unions, such as unionized CAD/CAM or technicians, vs those that don’t. Some companies are even getting unions for some engineers.
While I agree both are necessary, some of the stipulations that come from this are just stupid. When I worked in manufacturing in a non union plant and we needed a tool that we didn’t have in stock for whatever reason our sister plant (unionized) accross the street had more storage space so most of our tools were there. When we went over there to get the tool we were allowed to find the tool on the shelf, but we were required to ask someone else to take it off the shelf and hand it to us, so we could carry it out!
It was literally the most ridiculous transaction, and they had a guy who specifically did that all day. He handed tools to people, took the tags off of them and placed them in a bin so that someone else could update the inventory! One day I made the mistake of taking the tooling because he wasn’t around. Next time I went back I got a half hour lecture about how I was trying to replace his job and how he was going to file a grievance with his union. The worst part…he made more than me.
My point is, yes there are skilled blue collar jobs that require training and specialization. I have a high respect for these people and I love working with them, I believe unions protect them. The man in my story gives these workers a bad name, and unfortunetly unions also protect these men, it’s a trade off and white collar folk, like me, have to learn to work with them…won’t learn that in school though.
I work for one of the largest robotic and automation companies and it’s non-unionized. Sometimes our engineers will come out to the floor where I work and help us. It’s helped both of us in the long run.
The only time I’ve dealt with unions is at trade shows, it’s normally a mixed experience depending on the union and the individuals you get to work with.
