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Studs Terkel published a nonfiction Working which consists many interviews among different people’s descriptions of their jobs. Through this book, Terkel demonstrates the meaning of work to different people and how their work experiences shape their attitudes about their lives. Among these interviewers, Maggie Holmes is a domestic while Dave Bender is a factory owner. Although their wages are different, Maggie Holmes and Dave Bender’s attitudes about their works are contradictory. People who love their works are passionate and happy about their lives and express less complain than those people who do not like their jobs. People’s attitudes about their works can influence their views of lives. In Maggie Holmes’s interview, she keeps …show more content…
Holmes describes, “If you work in one of them houses eight hours, you gotta come home do the same thing over… you don’t feel like… (sighs softly)… tired. You gotta come home, take care of your kids, you gotta cook, you gotta wash” (Terkel 115). By using the word “gotta” repeatedly, Holmes conveys her helplessness about the inescapable housework. She feels pessimistic as a domestic because she has to do housework not only for her host but also for her family. But the only difference is that she can get pay by cleaning for her host while doing housework at her house is a responsibility for her family. Therefore, she becomes indifference and even painful about her life. In contract, Dave Bender views himself as an engineer who has new thoughts and creates inventions. Bender keeps emphasizing “I love my work” in his interview and he works from six to five thirty per day. Sometimes, he works on Sunday and he says that vacation “is the worst …show more content…
For example, a person usually has a negative point of view about the people who treat him or her unjustly when he or she works for them. Consequently, this person would feel dissatisfied with his or her work or even hate it. Maggie Holmes reveals that when she worked at her host’s house, her host says she does not have a mop. But the true is that she hides the mop in the clothes closet. This is the reason “why many black women here got rheumatism in their legs, knees” when they use their knee to mop the cold floor many times (Terkel 113). Holmes’s host not only lie to her but also try to call Holmes “nigger”. As a result, Holmes indicates that “most time I don’t call her” (Terkel 115). Through a series of unjust treatments on Holmes, she begins to feel unfair about being a domestic, especially when she talks about her kids. She illustrates “I don’t want my kids to come up and do domestic work… You can’t see no tomorrow there” (Terkel 116). From Holmes’s description about her work experience, audiences can feel that Holmes’s depression, but she needs this job in order to survive. On the other hand, Dave Bender would like to be called Dave instead of Mr. Bender. “When they called me Mr. Bender, I think they’re being sarcastic. I don’t feel like a boss to them. I feel like a chum-buddy” (Terkel 396). Perhaps some people might say the Bender is phony because he doesn’t
In the line, “I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident,” Anne is explaining how she knows writers who are successful in the field in order to validate that what she is going to say about writing is true even for professional writers. Another instance ethos is used in this article is in the lines, “I used to write food reviews for California magazine… Even after I 'd been doing this for years, panic would set in.” Telling the audience that she used to write food reviews for the California magazine gives her a status of a published writer which can give her credibility. Also the fact that she had been doing it for many years shows that she has experience in the field of writing and knows the struggles that come with
In fact, the author Jack Finney shows this in the beginning by having his wife Clare says “you work too much though Tom—and too hard” by using this quote he makes it automatically seen by the reader that Tom works a lot (1). Shortly after this quote is said, Tom is leading his wife out of the apartment and as the door closes it blows his work out of the window. Tom makes the decision to go and get it, this also shows his work obsessed tendencies. Now, as Tom is out on the ledge he discovers his mistakes and makes the transition from work obsessed to identifying his
In Mary Oliver’s “Of Power and Time,” she shows us a more efficient way of becoming a creative and extraordinary worker. In her work, she shares many examples and ideas to help display her message that creative work should be done by dedicating large amounts of time, and giving it all your effort to make it truly extraordinary. Oliver demonstrates the main idea of that creative work requires more attention as it does not make the world go around, but forwards. Oliver uses curious word choice, asserting ideas, illustration of examples, and strong points, to give her audience of creative workers seeking for improvement a better understanding of how creative and extraordinary work can be done.
Currently, human beings are thinking more on the line of they need work in order to make a living. For that reason, work has become meaningless, disagreeable, and unnatural. Many view work as a way to obtain money and not a meaningful human activity that one does for themselves. The author states that there are two reactions of the alienated and profoundly unsatisfactory character of the modern industrial work. One being the ideal of complete laziness and the other, hostility towards work. Fromm believes the reason why people have animosity regarding work is due to their unconscious mind. Subconsciously, a person has “a deep-seated, hostility towards work and all that is connected to it” says Fromm. I believe what Fromm is saying to be true, after all I witness it everyday. Millions of people each day goes to a work which they are dissatisfied with and that can negatively impact their attitude
The inability to achieve “work-life balance” has become a major focus for workplace equality activists. When this topic is brought about it is primarily used to describe how woman cannot have a work and home life but instead are forced to choose. Richard Dorment took on this point of interest from a different perspective in his article “Why Men Still Can’t Have It All” published with esquire. Going against the normal trend he describes how women are not the only ones put into the same sacrificial situations, but instead that men and women alike struggle to balance work and home. Dorment opens up by saying “And the truth is as shocking as it is obvious: No one can have it all.” In doing so Richard Dorment throws out the notion that one
"The company man" written by author Ellen Goodman, gives us a story about a man and how work has consumed him and his life. The story shows us the reader an inside look at the effect of work culture and the impact it has on one's self, family, and livelihood. Throughout the text, we see the journey our main character undergoes and towards the end gives us a self -reflection on the way we see ourselves and how much work we are putting ourselves through.
Most people struggle to balance time between their careers and families. In the video clip by Fr.Boyle, texts “The Scalpel and the Silver Bear” and “Filial Relations “it becomes clear that we can provide service to others by way of our careers. This is meaningful because it shows that we need to block out separate time blocks for service to others if our careers are ones that serve others. Less balls to keep in the air!
Daniel Orozco tells a short story of a regular orientation day by using elements of literary criticism to make fun at the workplace experience that we can relate to. “ Orientation” is like about five to ten minutes reading time, but with
We all know that most people hate their jobs. Work is seen as something we have to do, and very lucky few seem to find a job that we enjoy. How we feel about work, and what we do for a living, in many ways helps to define who we are and who we are going to become. Having seen actual people share their perspectives and view points on “working for a living” helps us see ourselves and rethink our future. Overall, Studs Terkel helps flash- back into America's history and see the changes that America ans it’s people have gone through.
In the oral history “Just a Housewife” Therese Carter tells her life experiences of being a housewife in Downer Grove Estates, West Chicago. What strikes me about this oral history is the importance that Therese places on knowing that she is just a housewife. She says that she has no special talents and is content with doing duties for her family because that is how she wishes to spend her life. The common pattern in this history is Therese’s acknowledgement that being a housewife is low on the totem pole, but she feels that the work she provides is necessary. Her feelings toward the work she provides is rewarding because she enjoy pleasing people and wishes to raise her kids right. Terkel gives voice to Therese by allowing her to not seem
In the article, “The Way We Worked”, Tom Brokaw describes his fathers and other individuals’ work ethic during the Greatest Generation. The Greatest Generation took place during World War II and the Great Depression. Brokaw points out that the Greatest Generation was a generation known for their capacity of work, “As I researched the lives of the men and woman who came of age in the Great Depression, went through World War II, and built the country we know today, I was struck by how many of them went to work in their early teenage years. They had to work because their families needed the extra income for food, for clothing, to meet that month's rent” (Brokaw 274). In “The Way We Worked”, Brokaw's theme demonstrates examples of the different work ethic of the Greatest Generation and modern generation.
In her essay “The Company Man,” Ellen Goodman searches beyond the surface of a death of a business professional and sees his life in review as told by the obituary, and how his life was different from how it was written. “He worked himself to death” was not a suitabl...
The poem, “What Work Is” by Philip Levine is an intricate and thought-provoking selection. Levine uses a slightly confusing method of describing what work actually is. He gives the idea that work is very tedious, however necessary. It is miserable, however, it is a sacrifice that is essentially made by many, if not all able-bodied members of society. Many have to sacrifice going to a concert or a movie, but instead works jobs with hardly a manageable salary. This poem seems to have a focus on members of the lower-class or middle-class who live paycheck to paycheck and are unable to put money away for a future for their children or for a vacation and how difficult life can be made to be while living under this type of circumstance. Levine
Johnson, Spencer. Who moved my cheese?: an amazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life. New York: Putnam, 1998. Print.
Distinctively from others, I don’t bear a single quality or aptitude that defines me, but instead a collection of traits and skills that make up fractions of my character. In fact, I have somewhat of a list of values and principles that I try to live by. My first and most prominent strength is having a strong work ethic. In fact, I believe this is the most essential trait to have in life, for even though one may not naturally be at an advantage in a particular field of study or in a peculiar task, one may gain the capability and expertise in that subject through hard work and sharp determination. A strong work ethic is what embodies some of the most distinguished figures in today’s society, and is what some of the people in the past have found