This is the Blue Collar Thread!

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Until about the age of 26, I only worked blue collar jobs. Factories, wineries, construction, etc. Today I passed some guys on the street unloading a truck of cabbage into a Korean market, chatting and laughing, seemingly carefree... I was envious. Now I'm back sitting in front of a dumb Mac.

Explain your past attempts at blue collar life, and what you'd like to do if you re-entered that world...

― andy, Wednesday, 28 April 2004 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

i landscaped for a few days once. carpentry is my new answer.

― Chris 'The Velvet Bingo' V (Chris V), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I was the best damn picker and packer the Northampton Wickes warehouse ever saw for two months.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I was, no shit, a lumberjack.

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Farmhand,
Leesburg, VA, Summer 95
Best work ever - thought so at the time too.
Agreed that sitting in front of a computer is shit.

― 57 7th (calstars), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 16:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been working construction basically full-time for close to two years. The money's good, the excercise is OK, I don't pay taxes and I mostly get left alone. But it kills my joints, Texas heat fucking sucks, people are dicks to manual laborers who they think are beneath them, and I have to wake up at 6 or 6:30 most days.

This is my last summer, if I can make enough by working days and then doing my own projects a few nights and weekends to cover fall tuition and not have to work for a few months. Then I'll probably go back to waiting tables.

Between my experience, watching my father work construction from the time I was born (hey, that BA from Berkeley did a lot of good!) and seeing my grandfather not be able to retire after a lifetime of this work... Romanticizing blue collar work is, inevitably, bullshit.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I drove a delivery van for five years. Best job I ever had in terms of enjoyment. Pay sucked tho and I eventually got fired for leaving the van unlocked.

― lawrence kansas (lawrence kansas), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't pay taxes...

dude you should move to Bermuda.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:26 (twenty-two years ago)

For me, driving a tractor through the vineyards was by far the most picturesque and pastoral... fat grapes hanging down, the dry California dust, sly foxes trotting by... We'd sneak Pinot Noir into our coffee mugs and dip broken baguettes into the wine. I guess that sounds sissy compared to pounding nails, but I loved it....

― andy, Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

a slightly-related thread:

Say, is there a white-collar term for "proletariat"?

― Kingfish Disraeli (Kingfish), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, Andy, you is a sissy.

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I worked at a factory one summer putting the price tags onto children's clothes. It was a really miserable job -- you had to work fast, and I'm so clumsy that I would end up shooting the price tag gun off into one of my fingers instead of the clothes at least a couple of times a day. And all day long they piped in the soundtrack to the Lion King -- it was really too much Elton John for anyone to take for very long.

― El Diablo Curmudgeonbotico (Nicole), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Contracting work. Demo and drywall, yep. Maybe I'll go back to it, fucking shitsucking job market.

― Dickerson Pike (Dickerson Pike), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 18:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I worked as a park ranger for a week. After one of the relative long-timers ran over a groundhog on a lark while I was riding with him, I decided this was not the job for me.

― Prude (Prude), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 19:10 (twenty-two years ago)

at all the blue-collar type jobs I've worked, I've always got on with my fellow workers better than any white-collar job, where everyone seems like they're stepford wives/husbands. blue collar folks have a more character, and everyone is bonded by a collective hate for the job. whereas in the white-collar world people seem to feel the need to pretend that they enjoy and are really interested in their work.

― ooops, Wednesday, 28 April 2004 19:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Spent a month working in a warehouse, putting flyers into college-bookstore bags. It was bad, and we all got laid off via phone call.

― mike a, Wednesday, 28 April 2004 19:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I was a house painter for awhile. I don't miss it.

― mcd (mcd), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I've worked in a teddy bear facotry, a cake decorating business, a rose greenhouse, a jewellery warehouse, cleaning, as a maid and in a variety of menial office filing type jobs. The pay is awful, the work is boring, the actions are repetitive and result in pain and numbness in your hands. Often it's loud. The only good thing can be getting to chat to the people you work with. Cleaning and maiding were the best/most varied.

― isadora (isadora), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

all sorts: Landscape gardener, kitchen washer upper, order picker, sandwich maker in a factory, only the landscape gardening didn't suck

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I worked for a friend as the only 'employee' of his sprinkler installation business. Work ranged from insignificant (riding around in a truck all day looking at sites) to backbreaking (digging pipe trenches all day with a spade), but I got paid the same no matter what. Otherwise, I worked as a grocery store stocker for some time. Once in college, I worked in kitchens and eventually started waiting tables. I immediately kicked myself for not entering such an easy and lucrative job sooner.

― webcrack (music=crack), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

practically all the work i've done has been blue-collar. factories, motorway maintenance that sort of thing. i did office based work for a while and i hated it.

― don (don), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh yeah, I forgot about my two-year receiving clerk job that seems to have permanently fucked my back up, as it's a decade later and nothing seems to get rid of the occasional serious aching down my spine.

― Dickerson Pike (Dickerson Pike), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 22:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Roofer. I loved it. If the pay was any good I'd go back to it tomorow.

― Matt (Matt), Thursday, 29 April 2004 00:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha. My father worked hard to steer me away from any sort of blue collar jobs!! Reasoning? I think miloauckerman explained it best, though the difference here is that my father always had to declare. Thank you again, m.

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Thursday, 29 April 2004 02:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I've worked a summer at one of those "student painter" jobs, which was OK, and also as a landscaper. At the time I bitched about it - getting up at 6, being physcially exhausted at the end of the day, etc. But the money was good at the time. In hindsight - it was great. I was outdoors most of the day, and I was in the best physical shape of my life.

ooops is totally OTM about the comradery. Even the much-mocked "Newfies" (a lot of labourers in Ontario are guys from Newfoundland) were great to work with. They might have teased me as being a 'city-slicker' or 'college boy' or whatever, but deep down we got along really well. And they were the type of guys that would stand up for me in a fight - something I seriously doubt any of my office co-workers would EVER do.

I don't know if I could re-enter that world, though - I would harbour some sort of snobbish resentment that I could "do better", which is nonsense I know, but it would be tough to shake. I blame my middle-class suburban upbringing and my seemingly fruitless acquisition of a "higher education".

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Thursday, 29 April 2004 07:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Worked as an usher at at a sort of cultural center place, where they had authors come to speak and string quartets and whatnot. So it was this weird mix between the hoity-toitiness of the programming and clientele and the oddball assortment of my fellow ushers, who were from several different countries and socio-cultural backgrounds. We'd all stand around and bitch about the bitchy patrons. The job was not without peril: I once had to forcibly remove a psychotic schizophrenic woman from a heated Q&A session with a Cuban-American author. Another time, I got to tell Matthew McConaughey where the bathrooms were. Best $8-an-hour job I ever had.

― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 29 April 2004 08:42 (twenty-two years ago)

So does "blue collar" include retail-type work? I thought true blue-collar work involved physical labour of some kind - landscaping, factory work, etc.

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Thursday, 29 April 2004 08:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I worked for a delivery firm, in their wharehouse for a year straight after college. I got to have my own office & do 10am to 6pm which are the best hours ever!

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Thursday, 29 April 2004 09:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I worked in a tearoom, stripping the furniture. Also a scary indoor mushroom factory, which was hell and you all wouldn't go near mushrooms if you saw the crazy lengths they go to just to accelerate the growth.
Best job ever was working as a picture framer/art print storage facility, factory owners name was Mr Frame too, krazy...

― mzui, Thursday, 29 April 2004 09:39 (twenty-two years ago)

There is a serious lack of dishwashing on this thread.
Dishwasher ---> Kitchen Prep ---> Busboy
Ah, the front of the house!
Art Modell once walked past me, and raised his hand as if in blessing.

― weather1ngda1eson (Brian), Thursday, 29 April 2004 09:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I should note, Art's wife Pat is one of the nicest people I've ever taken salad plates away from.

― weather1ngda1eson (Brian), Thursday, 29 April 2004 09:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Brown(s) noser!

― lawrence kansas (lawrence kansas), Thursday, 29 April 2004 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Three of my close friends are blue collar guys. Two are plumbers and one is a carpenter. They seem to have good lives, plus they make mad bank.

― Chris 'The Velvet Bingo' V (Chris V), Thursday, 29 April 2004 12:02 (twenty-two years ago)

So does "blue collar" include retail-type work? I thought true blue-collar work involved physical labour of some kind - landscaping, factory work, etc.

I'd call working at McDonald's pretty blue-collar. Plus, most service jobs are a lot more physical than you might think. (See Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed for abundant examples.)

― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 29 April 2004 15:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Three of my close friends are blue collar guys. Two are plumbers and one is a carpenter. They seem to have good lives, plus they make mad bank.

yeah, "blue collar" doesn't necessarily equal "poor."

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 29 April 2004 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

of course not skilled-labor can be fantastically lucrative career.

So what is the definition of blue-collar then?

all I know is sitting behind a desk sucks ass.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Thursday, 29 April 2004 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Merriam-Webster sez: of, relating to, or constituting the class of wage earners whose duties call for the wearing of work clothes or protective clothing.

Which would certainly cover pretty much all service-sector jobs.

― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 29 April 2004 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I put in a good 6 years in the food service industry. Dishwashing, kitchen work, delivery at one point. Someone once tried to tell me that working on the kitchen staff at a 5-star restaurant wasn't blue collar work, because our menu prices were so excruciatingly high. They've obviously never worked a 16 hour-sans-break shift in a barely 12'x12' room full of ovens, grills, griddles, stoves (ie FIRE), knives, plates, etc.

The thing is, I actually DO miss kitchen work. I miss the different-kind-of-stress, the getting-in-the-ZONE, the physical demands (almost like martial arts). I DON'T miss not being able to pay my bills though, so...

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 29 April 2004 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

There are certain things I miss about all my restaurant/retail/service jobs. But not enough to do them again unless I have to.

― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 29 April 2004 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I think the definition should be updated with specific reference to the "extensive collection of hairnets and nametags" scene in Wayne's World.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 29 April 2004 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd say food service is definitely blue-collar, esp. back of the house, but retail and the like, not so much. Working at Abercrombie doesn't require protective or work-clothing, any more than a white-collar office job.

Camraderie was the only good thing about waiting tables (aside from money). Everyone banding together to hate management and the customers. The last place I worked tried to screw this up by having manager-waitstaff -some nights they'd be your co-worker and some nights your floor manager, so the line between the two got blurred.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Thursday, 29 April 2004 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

My working definition of blue collar: if you feel like you really need a shower after work, you're blue collar.

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Thursday, 29 April 2004 16:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Huh. I'm more blue collar than I realized, then.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 April 2004 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Abercrombie, maybe. But how 'bout Wal-Mart? The nation's largest employer, etc. Definitely blue collar.

― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 29 April 2004 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

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