In the story of “Harvest of Shame, Harvest of Gold” the author Matt Nocton shows us the daily jobs of the workers. The workers daily job was trying to even today’s standards and also my job. Working as a machinist is trying in ways that can test your patience and even lead you to your breaking point. The job required me to glue blocks together weighing about a ton when finished. Also, the job was very trying when I needed to inspect parts and read blueprints with .005 tolerance. Another process trying for me at the start was setting up and running machines. The hardest for me was reading the lines of codes on the screen stating where the machine is cutting. My arrogant bosses think they know everything and not wanting to train me.
The job required me to glue blocks together weighing about a ton when finished. Part of my job was to put together heavy blocks, like a carpenter building a house. At first I couldn’t carry the heavy blocks but I learned to be smart using hand trucks and being trained to use a forklift. I had to learn how to use powered saws weighing 30 pounds. I had to carry 300 pound blocks and learn not to break my back in the process. Making sure my block was straight and secured before gluing the blocks together in a safe and efficient way. This process took time to learn for it was also
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important to be within a quarter an inch in tolerance. Also, the job was very trying when I needed to inspect parts and read blueprints within a .005 tolerance. I had to know how to measure with a caliper, micrometers, height gauges, and read the lines of increments. I had to learn how to use a height gauge to tell the precious height of a part. One of the problems I had at first was reading blueprints which I took a drafting class to better my knowledge in this process. Overall being precious is a gift that a machinist will learn in time. Another process trying for me was starting and running the cnc machine. I had to learn how to clean the machine when the job was done and was ready for the next setup. I had to learn to locate the origin by lining up the part using an indicator. Also it is important that the tools are touch off correctly, if not then the tool will crash to the part. Watching the machine and having the feel to let the machine run on its own teaches you instinct. The hardest part for me was reading the lines of codes on the screen stating where the machine is running.
The machine uses G codes just like C+ coding for computer programing but more of a linear approach. I had problems knowing if the machine was going to crash or not. Paying attention to the first line of codes to state whether or not if the tools are set right. The codes are given as a grid like X3.0 Y4.0 to know where exactly your machine is cutting in relation to the part. Sometimes I had to learn the hard way, machines crashing, and getting yelled at by my bosses. It is beneficial for me being able to take college courses that pertains to my
job. My arrogant bosses think they know everything and not willing to train me. My boss for one is like the Grinch of Christmas. For example, if I made a mistake my boss would make a fool out of me for not knowing. He never is satisfied with my work but I keep on strong learn and be better. Taunting me by yelling at me, “You can always be replaced.” I learned to build myself up and not take it to heart because I knew they needed me. I learned their sense of humor and just went along with it. Not being trained properly is my excuse to take classes and learn from my mistakes. To conclude, working as a machinist is trying in ways that can test your patience and even lead you to your breaking point. We as machinist are always important in this ever changing world, building planes, making the fastest engine, and all sorts of technical parts require our call. In this essay I explained my job as trying in ways such as putting together blocks, to inspecting parts in a blueprint setting, setting up to run machines, reading lines of code to understanding what the machine is doing, and lastly dealing with arrogant bosses that can be very trying at times. After working there many years I have learned to be a good machinist. Also not giving up and determination for my career led me to where I’m. The money is great and I can only earn more money in the long run.
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
“We run to grab the wheeled carts...We run past each other and if we say something, we say it as we keep moving” (McClelland 400). A practically inhuman speed is expected from the workers, forcing them to rush from place to place. They do not have time to spare for walking. They are even deprived of socialization, which is essential to human satisfaction, due to a lack of time. There is not a moment of peace as long as they are clocked-in, no matter how hard or long they work. Enjoyment is impossible, and no effort is made to reduce the highly stressful environment of the workers. The company shows no concern for its workers’ mental well being.
Timothy O’ Sullivan’s “A Harvest of Death” is a photograph that was taken on July 4th, 1863 where it later was transferred on a 6 ¾” x 8 ¾” albumen silver print by Alexander Gardner and was part of a body of work O’ Sullivan exhibited in his “Grave Testimony: Photographs of the Civil War” exhibition held at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
In today’s society you either have to work hard to live a good life, or just inherit a lump sum of cash, which is probably never going to happen. So instead a person has to work a usual nine to five just to put food on the table for their families, and in many cases that is not even enough. In the article, “Why We Work” by Andrew Curry, Curry examines the complexities of work and touches on the reasons why many workers feel unsatisfied with their jobs. Barbara Ehrenreich writes an essay called, “Serving in Florida” which is about the overlooked life of being a server and the struggles of working off low minimum wages. Curry’s standpoint on jobs is that workers are not satisfied, the job takes control of their whole life, and workers spend
Rivethead is an account of the entire life of Author Ben Hamper, from his long family lineage of “shoprats” and his catholic school upbringing to his numerous different positions on the General Motors assembly line and his equally numerous lay-offs from the GM Truck & Bus Division. Unfortunately the many years of back breaking labor combined with Hampers own personal demons led him to check into an outpatient mental facility (at the time of the completion of this book) where he learns daily to cope with his many years of mental anguish. Rivethead is a social commentary on industrial America, assembly line work , and the auto industry. This essay, however, will focus on the more specific aspects Hamper considers, such as the monotony required on a (then) modern assembly line, the relationship and hierarchy among workers and their interaction with management as well as both collective and individual responses to work and job satisfaction (or lack there of).
The poem describes workers to be “Killing the overtime ‘cause the dream is your life, / Refusing to take holidays or go home to your spouse, / But for many the overtime comes, ‘cause the work is not done. / Deadlines to be met. So you continue to dream like a war vet, / Having flashbacks to make you shiver and scream” (Jones, stanza 7, lines 2-6). Jones reinforces that overworking for an incentive of money does not give one a sense of gratification, and it also distracts them from the values that should matter more to them than anything else. Both Kohn and Jones have a similar approach to showing the reader the effect that overworking can have on a person, and how it will change their values in life, causing unhappiness. Many students go through school dispirited and do not join various clubs and activities for their own enjoyment. A friend of Kohn’s who was also a high school guidance counsellor had a student with ‘…amazing grade and board scores. It remained only to knock out a dazzling essay on his college applications that would clinch the sale. “Why don’t we start with some books that
Working in the mills is physically demanding. The work that men due are dangerous and accidents and injuries take place at the mill. Life in the steel towns involves the same twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week. Every week there is a shift of working days and nights. On turn days the men work a twenty-hours straight, which leads to tempers and accidents. “Hope sustained him, as it sustained them all; hope and the human.” (Bell, 47) They hoped that the jobs would be there and the money would steadily come in. As Pervosky says, “No work, no pork, no money, no boloney.” (Bell, 268) Without work the men would not be able to provide for their families.
Rebecca Harding Davis wrote “Life in the Iron Mills” in the mid-nineteenth century in part to raise awareness about working conditions in industrial mills. With the goal of presenting the reality of the mills’ environment and the lives of the mill workers, Davis employs vivid and concrete descriptions of the mills, the workers’ homes, and the workers themselves. Yet her story’s realism is not objective; Davis has a reformer’s agenda, and her word-pictures are colored accordingly. One theme that receives a particularly negative shading in the story is big business and the money associated with it. Davis uses this negative portrayal of money to emphasize the damage that the single-minded pursuit of wealth works upon the humanity of those who desire it.
Work in the mills was hard and dangerous. The men worked from six to six, seven days a week. One week on day shifts and one week on night shifts, at the end of every shift the workers worked twenty-four hours. When the men worked the long shift they where exhausted, this made it fatally easy to be careless. Accidents were frequent and the employers did little or nothing to improve the conditions that the workers h...
Although I was nervous because I had never done anything like this before, I had only been accustomed to cutting grass or construction jobs with my dad that only involved nailing wood and sheets of plywood. I worked for Frank for about a year and a half before I had to quit. I missed California too much, including the warm air, the smell of the dairies, and the ocean breeze. I moved back and lived with my dad. I have had a few jobs in my life that didn't last very long, either because the timing wasn't right or for other reasons.
In the essay “Work in an Industrial Society” by Erich Fromm, the author explains how work used to carry a profound satisfaction, however today workers only care about their payment for their labor. Fromm opens up with how craftsmanship was developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth century. It was not until the Middle ages, Renaissance and the eighteenth century, when craftsmanship was at its peak. According to C.W. Mills, workers were free to control his or her own working actions, learn from their work and develop their skills and capacities. Despite what Mills says, people today spend their best energy for seven to eight hours a day to produce “something”. Majority of the time, we do not see the final
If you’ve worked in your life then you know that working takes effort, dedication, and hard work. Work for many can also be a struggle just like it was for the main character in “What Work Is” by Philip Levine and for Jim Grayson’s in his interview in “Working” by Studs Terkel. Both the man in “What Work Is” and Jim Grayson are struggling with their experiences with work. The man in “What Work Is” cannot find a job and his brother is overworked, Jim Grayson has a job but it 's very tedious and he doesn’t spend much time with family. Work is a struggle as proved by Philip Levine and Jim Grayson, they conveyed this by using ethos, pathos, and logos as well as literary elements and techniques.
The children work in various conditions, suffering numerous injuries. In boot factories, children are forced to sit so close together that they poke each other with needles: “many have lost an eye in this way” (595). The children work “unreasonably long hours” (595). Chimney sweepers in particular work long hours, starting at about four a.m. and working for twelve hours. These chimney sweepers sleep in bags of soot, wrapping themselves in the bags and straw. They are subjected to suffocating steam, heat, flying hot metal, and the “unhealthiest kind of grinding known” (595). Those who are employed in mills endure lung problems, scrofula, mesenteric diseases and asthma.
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
It was my job for two summers, and was a great, exciting first job. One of the aspects that was very neat about it was the fact that I started it once school got out for the summer, and then once school started back up at the end of the summer I stopped working so I could put all my focus into school. I was primary weed eater for my first summer, simply because I was the newest guy on the job and also the youngest. I didn’t enjoy this near as much as I did mowing, but it taught me a lot about what hard work. We mowed a really big trailer park every other week, and I was in charge of weedeating the whole thing. I had to weedeat around all the pipes and poles sticking out of the ground, and although there was a bunch of those I didn’t really mind that part of the job much. However, the part of this that I absolutely hated was that I had to weedeat two or three decent size hills that were too steep to get a mower on. The worst part of this was that it was a job that couldn’t be done in the morning because the steep hills would be too slippery from the dew, so usually I would have to wait until the extreme heat of midday. This was one of the hardest things I had ever done before, and I truly hated it. However, because it was one of the hardest things I have ever done, it taught me what hard work really was. It taught me how to work hard, and showed me the rewards of my hard work through my paycheck