In Blue Collar Brilliance, which takes place during the 1950’s in Los Angeles, Rosie a mother working a restaurant job brings her son into her work environment. Her son then begins to observe his mother work and over the years begins to create “Cognitive Biographies” (Rose 312) of blue collar work, which shows the difference between the two working classes. For decades, society has perceived blue collar workers and white collar workers differently. Blue Collar workers are seen as not as intelligent or as skillful. In the article “Blue Collar Brilliance” it states that this is not at all true. Blue collar work involves demands of the; body, brain knowledge and intuitions. Rosie, had a very taxing job physically. It is stated that “she sometimes …show more content…
had to work the register and the counter”. The ability for her to multi task was a very tedious job, but is required for survival in blue collar work. Often times Rosie would multitask like taking orders, carrying out multiple orders at a time hopping from one person to the next to satisfy her customers need. Sometimes she would wait on as many as nine customers at a time all while worrying about who needs what at any given time. Her son learned a valuable lesson his mother had always told him which was learning how to “work smart and make every move count” (Rose 310). Having this mindset allowed the physical work of multi tasking not to be as taxing. Mentally, blue collar work is more stressful.
Rosie had taught herself in remembers orders, or customers or day to day activities. This assisted her in managing her time better. She also had to know the lingo used at any given time that would either refer to a customer, a work area, or a specific …show more content…
job. For example, she would call her tables “ deuces, four-tops, or six tops according to their size” (Rose 309). As well as time management she had to be mentally available for her peers and the customers. Some customers would come in with very high emotional demands that she would have to cater to. She had to become a master or pro at learning how to decipher social cues. Rosie had stated that “ there isn't a day that goes by in the restaurant that you don't learn something.” (Rose 310) Although for blue collar work there may be no formal education required, general knowledge skills are required.
Basic math skills may sometimes be needed to complete a job; ie counting money, counting tips where all necessary functions Rosie needed to fulfill her tasks at the restaurant. She needed basic writing and reading skills in order to process the information she was given on a daily basis. Where it be using the register, reading menus, or specials she needed these basic skills to complete her job. Rosie used her strong skills of intuition to decipher what a customer wanted or if they wanted something. Since there was no formal training she had to also use her sensory skills to teach herself how to complete certain activities. Just like a mechanic or or a hair stylist would, using their senses to either know when someone has too much heat on their hair; or like a mechanic who might use smell to mix a chemical needed on a car. In Roses case she would use her senses to know how a customer is doing and will it be an easy customer or difficult
one. Some may argue that since blue collar work seems like it's not mentally like white collar work that maybe it's not considered “good work”. White collar works are seen to be more intelligent because you are not working with your hands doing manual labor all day. It involves being behind a desk using the formal training you received in a college or university that requires a lot more knowledge. But this is not the case. Blue collar work is in fact more tedious work, and requires a great deal of work. It is Physically, mentally and emotionally taxing. However by using the skills they learn in the field rather than behind a desk or in a university they are able to use their intuition to learn new skills.
In “Scrubbing in Maine”by Barbara Ehrenreich. Ehrenreich decides to work at the Maids Franchise so she can observe how the system was made for the maids. During her time being a maid she became emotionally impacted by the way her and the women were treated. Ehrenreich experiences in the article”Scrubbing in Maine,’’are the ones I can relate to even though both jobs don’t seem the same, the fact is my time spent working at Jewel is remarkably and depressingly similar to the time spent by Ehrenreich as a maid. In both instances employees are not really human, but are parts of a bigger machine and only Blue collar workers are stereotypes as uneducated unthinking individuals. As Blue collar jobs emphasized the routines, dehumanization of the employee, and loss of control over a person’s time. Workers do not engage in cognitive skills, but physical
Mike Rose describes his first-hand experience of blue collar workers in his monograph “Blue Collar Brilliance”. Patiently, he observed the cooks and waitresses whilst he waited for his mother’s shift to end. He noticed how his mother called out abbreviated orders, tag tables and so on. Mike Rose describes how his mother, Rosie, took orders whilst holding cups of coffee and removed plates in motion. Rose observed how her mother and other waiters worked and concluded that blue collar work “demands both body and brain” (Rose 274). He describes that Rosie devised memory strategies and knew whether an order was being delayed. She was assiduous in sequencing and clustering her tasks and solved any technical or human problem simultaneously. Managing
When analyzing the article “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” written by Mike Rose, and the article “Shop Class as Soulcraft,” by Matthew B. Crawford, you can see several differences in the strategies they use. Rose’s text was an educational article about the intelligence gained through manual labor trades. Roses intended audience is the well educated, professional class, as well as educators, and individuals working in white collar jobs. His purpose is to prove that not all blue-collar workers need an education to succeed and to bust the stereotype that blue-collar individuals can gain the essential skills and education from their jobs. Crawford also based his article around blue-collar work, he mainly focuses on the values the craftsman, being a craftsman
In the article, “Blue-Collar Brilliance” by Mike Rose, he begins with an anecdote of his mother working her blue-collar job at a diner as a waitress. Rose vividly describes her common day that is packed with a constant array of tedious tasks she has to accomplish to make her living. The authors goal appears to be making the reader appreciate the hard work of blue-collar workers because society places a stereotype on them as being less intelligent than someone with more schooling or even a white-collar job: “Our cultural iconography promotes the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps, but no brightness behind the eye, no inmate that links hand and brain” (282). I agree with Rose’s conclusion that if we continue to place a stigma on
Blue Collar workers today are looked down upon by most of society. People think that if you have a blue collar job you aren’t smart and not successful. But in my opinion, blue collar workers are the backbone of our society, and deserve the same amount of respect as white collar workers. “Blue Collar Brilliance by Mike Rose” explains how blue collar workers are very smart and use a lot of brainpower to get their jobs done. Both his Uncle and mother were blue collar workers and that’s where he got his inspiration to stand up for blue collar workers around the world. He gives us examples of how his own family members were blue collar workers and how they were smart and how they excelled at their jobs. He uses his own experiences to show us that blue collar workers are in fact smart, able to adapt to many different situations, and deserve respect.
Does the amount of schooling measure a person’s intelligence level? The essay “Blue Collar Brilliance” written by Mike Rose, argue that the intelligent a person has should not be measure under the amount of schooling, using the example of his uncle, who did not get a formal education, become the head of general motor. As for this, Rose suggest that education should be taken as priority. I agree with Rose point of view because the one who get formal education do not symbolize success. In older generation, many people could not afford the tuition, however they can also succeed. In the other word, having formal education does not grantee us a successful future.
The essay Blue-Collar Brilliance discuses the topic that even blue-collar jobs require intelligence. Rose says that it is an intelligence of both body and mind. This doesn't mean that they are book smart genius’ but rather they have their own form of smarts. In the essay Rose talks about a woman, who I assume is his mother, who was a waitress at a restaurant. He talked about the special skills she had and her ability to do her job as great as she did. He talks about the knowledge and intuition about the ways
Mike Rose’s article “Blue-Collar Brilliance” talks about people judging other people’s intelligence based on their jobs. Mike Rose explains in his article that people with blue collar jobs are just as intelligent as people with white collar jobs because they both use critical thinking and multi task while they are working. The standard of their jobs might be different because of their different ways of learning. People who are considered professionals or white collared individuals learn by studying or reading reports where blue collared individuals learn by performing a task. They learn faster ways to perform the task after they have done it multiple times. I believe that Rose’s thinking is very effective as it tells us that we should not judge
To be intelligent means to be able to apply what we learned in school and use what we learned in our everyday life to achieve a goals that is sit or one that we are accomplishing without knowing. Many people think that a person is intelligent because they went to a university, got a degree, and have a good paying job, so they must be smart and know everything however thats not always true. If we would ask a teacher or professor the chances of them knowing how to fix a car are slim. So why do we think teachers are so intelligent? We think teachers are intelligent because they know everything about their subjects, know how to teach it and know how to apply their knowledge to their everyday lives.
Blue collar work refers to work that involves manual labor. They are typically working class. They also usually earn hourly wages. These jobs can be unskilled or skilled. The difference between unskilled labor and skilled labor is that unskilled did not require that its workers be specially trained or have to learn a special skill. Meanwhile, skilled labor requires its workers to have a skill or special training in order to be able to perform that specified work.
This dark, alarming revelation of how disturbing the white collar workplace can be better illustrated in “Orientation.” In the short story, the workplace seems alien and the humans in the story seem to forced to be devoid of emotions. Everything in the economic work space has an order and a place, including who one can talk to and only after one has received permission from someone else. The representation of white collar work is almost haunting. The first few lines of the short story write, “This is your phone. Never answer your phone. There are no personal phone calls allowed. If you must make an emergency phone call, ask your supervisor first (Orozco).” In this piece of literature, the office space is portrayed at methodical and slightly
A Higher Level of Knowledge Work. Kelley (1990) described an old distinction that divided the work force into blue-collar and white-collar workers. Blue-collar workers typically did manual labor in a factory for hourly pay, whereas white-collar workers did knowledge work in an office on salary. However, changes in the nature of work and the workplace have led to large growth in the numbers of a particular kind of knowledge worker—the gold-collar worker, whose most valuable assets are problem-solving abilities, creativity, talent, and intelligence; who performs nonrepetitive and complex work that is difficult to evaluate; and who prefers self-management. The gold-collar worker is, for example, the computer engineer as opposed to a lower-level knowledge worker such as an input operator. Kelley pointed out that even though the name is new, there have always been gold-collar workers like designers, researchers, analysts, engineers, and lawyers.
They are not the technical skills required by an occupation but are the enabling skills that are necessary in most occupations and that allow people to do their jobs successfully. (Molson)
The early acquisition of mathematical concepts in children is essential for their overall cognitive development. It is imperative that educators focus on theoretical views to guide and plan the development of mathematical concepts in the early years. Early math concepts involve learning skills such as matching, ordering, sorting, classifying, sequencing and patterning. The early environment offers the foundation for children to develop an interest in numbers and their concepts. Children develop and construct their own meaning of numbers through active learning rather than teacher directed instruction.
so that students may be more successful in applying their classroom knowledge and understanding not only within the classroom setting, but in their everyday out of class problem-solving situations. Without this success students will be disadvantaged when they begin to enter the workforce, there will be limited occupations available to them. They will find that mathematics is the language and foundation stone for commerce, all the sciences, engineering and design work. This lack of expertise, understanding and confidence has far reaching consequences, because a country which has a significant mathematically illiterate population deprives itself...