Since the inception of civilization, people have dedicated themselves to certain practices to obtain needed supplies. With the advancement of society, these practices have specialized into roles that society needed and have become jobs and careers. With these jobs and careers, people have struggled to find a difference between the two, if there is one. However, the two are very different. There are a multitude of differences between a job and a career, but the most distinct differences being the necessary skill, and dedication needed. The amount of skill that is needed to work efficiently and be successful is vastly different in a job than it is a career. Anybody can get into a job, as they are simple and easy to get the hang of most of the …show more content…
For example, in Claudia O’Keefe’s The Travelling Bra Salesman’s Lesson, she tells the reader her first job, “my job was to sort and count the [price] tags, at a nickel for every hundred” (O’Keefe 205). The author’s anecdote serves to show the reader what a job is like. The author was able to complete this task easily with minimum difficulty. Later in her essay, she talks about her career as an author. An author is a career that requires a great amount of skill to be successful in. Writing as an author requires a deep understanding of the English language as well as the literary devices involved and the effective use of them. Compare this profession to the former one, and the differences in the amount of skill needed are obvious. Counting and separating tags is a job requires little skill, and can easily picked up by anyone. However, a career writing at an author’s level requires a great amount of skill that many do not possess. Another example would be in Thomas Carlyle’s essay, Labour, where he mentions that those with skill would be rewarded, proven by, “the knowledge [skill] that will hold good in …show more content…
One does not need a great deal of dedication to maintain their job. O’Keefe mentions in her essay that the only requirement for maintaining a job is to able to take a pay cut, proven by her statement, “Americans who have lost their jobs…are having to adjust to the idea that the next [job] they find is likely to involve a pay cut” (O’Keefe 207). This shows the reader that it is not necessary to devote large amounts of their time or energy to maintaining or getting a job. O’Keefe also talks about how she tried to maintain her career as an author, and how much she had to dedicate to maintain her career. O’Keefe states that, “I sought to adjust to my shrinking income by progressively relocating to areas of the country with cheaper…costs of living” (O’Keefe 207). O’Keefe shows the reader that in trying to maintain her career as an author she had to not only deal with the pay cuts, but she had to relocate several times to try and keep her career afloat. The dedication that is required to maintain a job is lower than the dedication required to maintain a career, as proven by O’Keefe. A career takes more resources like time and energy to keep afloat than a job which can only require taking a pay
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.
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.
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
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
He expresses about his mother working at the restaurant is what made him and this article credible. He got to witness and experience his mom and her “waiting brilliance” up close and personal (Rose, 273). He also states, “I’ve since studied the working habits of blue-collar workers and have come to understand how much my mother’s kind of work demands of both the body and the brain” (274). In this statement he establishes his own credibility as a source of authority on this issue. Rose, the author, wants to open social minds by showing “mental activity” (279) required in blue-collar work is still under-recognized and undervalued by society. The blue-collar workers are not as valued as they deserve but the capability they have is not less than other high-level workers, even sometimes it’s more than
Annie Dillard, a Pulitzer Prize winner and writer, says, “If he noticed how he felt, he could not have done the work” (Dillard). She is referring to Dave Rahm, a stunt pilot who seemed to love his work. After Annie had took a flight with him, she had realized that he was not as passionate about being a stunt pilot as everyone thought. Many people can be fond of their type of work, but someday they will realize they are not happy with it. I know someone personally who had a great career, and decided they were not happy and quit. Also, many people would consider Dave Rahm to have a dream job, but it shows that someone can not be happy unless they are passionate about their work. Likewise, Thomas Carlyle believes that an individual’s passion will be calling. Carlyle says, “He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it!” (Carlyle). This is a great representation of the point Annie Dillard is trying to get across. Thomas Carlyle is saying that through life a man has to find his life purpose and the reason he walks the Earth. This article is a perfect example of someone quits everything just to find their professional calling in life. Although he believes you should find your passion, Carlyle also says, “an endless significance lies in Work; a man perfects himself by working” (Carlyle). By saying this, Thomas means that a person has to find
People will argue that having a low-paying job and freedom is better than a high-paying job and a 60-hour workweek. However many including myself, don’t share the views of Hal Niedzviecki’s essay’s “Stupid Jobs Are Good to Relax With”. Having a higher paying and longer hours provides much more income and allows for a lot more financial freedom. This freedom can help bring much more happiness into your life compared to the lower paying workweek. Hal Niedzviecki mentions many benefits to the easy jobs with low-paying workweeks in the following statement
Can you imagine going through stressful, exhausting, and depressing days repeatedly everyday? This could potentially ruin futures and also great opportunities in life. Marge Piercy’s poem, “ The Secretary Chant,” uses despondent vocabulary and a depressed tone to express her feelings on how your work could be the downfall of your life. The poem takes place in a secretary’s office where the secretary feels she is a tool in our society. Her body parts are being compared to a bunch of office supplies, thus making her seem like a tool not a human being. After a firm analysis on the Marge Piercy’s “ The Secretary Chant,” I have come to the decisions that people are tired of doing the same stressful work consistently without
Application of career theories to my own life allows for analyzing past and future career decisions. Holland’s Theory of Careers states that one’s vocation is an expression of self, personality, and way of life. There is an indisputable and fundamental difference in the quality of life one experiences if they choose a career one truly enjoys, versus choosing a career one detests. A true testament to the validity of Holland’s theory, my job/career choices reflect my interests, as well as the evolution of my personality (internal self). My first job as a fine jewelry specialist and second job as a make-up artist echo my love of the fashion world. As I matured and became less fascinated by presumed “glamour” careers, I became captivated by physical fitness, nutrition, and medicine; I received my national fitness trainer certificate so that I may become a personal trainer. Nevertheless, my career decisions do not fit uniformly into merely one career theory.
In the book “Outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell talks about meaningful work and relates it to higher pay he says, “If I offered you a choice being an architect for 75,000 a year or working in a toll booth for 100,000 a year which would you take”(150)? He asks this question to show the importance of working a job that is meaningful and makes one happy. $100,000 a year a year working a toll booth sounds good, but for how long? Nothing makes this job meaningful; your eight hour shift consists of sitting in a booth taking and handing people money. Your job becomes meaningless because there is nothi...
For every job that you have, you will need to have a certain set of skills to be successful. For example, two people are looking to be hired, but only one person will actually get the job. The two people have near identical resumes but a few things make them different. While the first person was able to articulate his ideas when he was being interviewed, the second person could not. The first person was incredibly dedicated to getting the job while the second person was not. Last but not least, the first person was able to adapt to the fast moving paced job unlike the second person. In the end the first person got the job because of his dedication, flexibility, and communication skills. It would be extremely unbeneficial to go into a job without having, in my opinion, these most important set of skills. While there are several job skills that are essential to being successful, I strongly believe that being dedicated, adaptable, and have phenomenal communication skills are the most important.
While working or while looking for work there are certain skills sets that are universally important. No matter what job or career path you have chosen these skills make it easier to obtain your goals, whatever they may be.
An occupation is an activity that comprises specific goals and meaning for an individual (AOTA, 2014, p. S5). These meaningful occupations can impact well-being and can even become part of person’s identity. To understand this relationship of impact that occupations have on people, occupational science (OS) was formed. OS is used by researches to explain how occupations are experienced and shaped by external factors, some factors may even be an identifying factor for a client such as culture (Pierce, 2014). Culture is considered an external and internal factor that shapes activity patterns, behaviors, and beliefs which in turn shapes how occupations are performed by an individual (AOTA, 2014).
It nearly killed me, and I still didn’t break twenty grand that year.” (p. 6). My opinion on this is that it must be discouraging for her to work so hard and not get much out of it. However, I also think that the reason she has to work so hard at minimum wage jobs is because she did not get a college degree and most jobs that pay well require a college degree. In chapter two, Tirado says, “you have no legal right to take breaks in America” (p. 18).
When I was five years old, my grandmother taught me how to read and write. Ever since then, I have loved to do both things. If there was ever a job more suited for me, I have no idea what it would be. Authors are usually amicable people. Authors are kind to their colleagues due to their friendly and creative trade.