Scrubbed up lovely for a posh bird
Aug. 23rd, 2006 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cincinnatus_c
High today, here: 24. Dewpoint then: 12. High dewpoint: 14.
High today in TO: 26. Dewpoint then: 8. High dewpoint: 13.
Low today on the balcony: 15.4. High: 24.9. Currently: 20.7.
There's a construction gate across from the WLU library, with a "DANGER - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" sign on it. Over "PERSONNEL" someone has written, in bolder magic marker, "SLACKERS". Now, I know, there's this cultural stereotype, which I'd never really thought much about before, of bunches of construction workers standing around watching one guy work. (There was even an ad playing on that recently--a couple of guys in an office, looking out the window at the stereotypical construction scene, and one says to the other, "They'd never make it in the business world," and then it cuts to a woman with a laptop who pronounces something finished, and the two guys high-five each other or something.)
But, seeing that on a university campus, it gave me a jolt. Manual labourers on campus make me uncomfortable--I was made to understand, at an early age, from a certain manual-labouring quarter of my family, that the kind of life I was likely to lead (and the kind of life that people in other quarters of my family actually led) did not involve any actual work (a, hmm, former colleague of mine was once asked by a cab driver what he did, and when he had explained what he did in some detail, the cab driver said, "so you do nothing"), and the people who led that kind of life were fit objects of scorn from people who had to work for a living.(On the other hand, I ought, by all means, to try to live that kind of a life, because you'd have to be an idiot to work for a living if you didn't have to--and, anyway, I was evidently incompetent to perform any real work.) Custodial staff, particularly, and especially because university students leave an embarrassing lot of trash and filth lying around--because, after all, it's somebody else's job to pick it up; it's the job of somebody who can't get into university, and so has to clean up trash and filth. So, you know, I don't know if the custodial staff actually do typically resent the students (and faculty), and I generally tend to think that nobody ought to resent anybody, but it would be eminently understandable to me if they did.
Now, construction workers as slackers--well, look, the fact is, whatever you think "work" is, construction workers do hard work, and, moreover, by and large, work they don't want to do, wouldn't choose to do if they didn't have to, and don't particularly enjoy, and none of that is particularly true of university students, or university faculty. At least, it's not nearly as true, and it seems beyond insulting to suggest that it is. Beyond insulting; actually neurotic, I suspect. It struck me, a few years ago, how frequently radio DJs and TV newsanchors complain about having to come into work, and say they're looking forward to days off, and things like that--and that this is crazy; why wouldn't you want to do what they do? (It's quite possible, sure, that it's all a put-on, an identify-with-the-working-stiffs schtick. But, really, you think the working stiffs don't notice that your work is just not like their work?) And then it struck me: they feel guilty! They have to pretend that their jobs suck, because they feel guilty that they have such great jobs! ... or, at least, they feel defensive.
High today in TO: 26. Dewpoint then: 8. High dewpoint: 13.
Low today on the balcony: 15.4. High: 24.9. Currently: 20.7.
There's a construction gate across from the WLU library, with a "DANGER - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" sign on it. Over "PERSONNEL" someone has written, in bolder magic marker, "SLACKERS". Now, I know, there's this cultural stereotype, which I'd never really thought much about before, of bunches of construction workers standing around watching one guy work. (There was even an ad playing on that recently--a couple of guys in an office, looking out the window at the stereotypical construction scene, and one says to the other, "They'd never make it in the business world," and then it cuts to a woman with a laptop who pronounces something finished, and the two guys high-five each other or something.)
But, seeing that on a university campus, it gave me a jolt. Manual labourers on campus make me uncomfortable--I was made to understand, at an early age, from a certain manual-labouring quarter of my family, that the kind of life I was likely to lead (and the kind of life that people in other quarters of my family actually led) did not involve any actual work (a, hmm, former colleague of mine was once asked by a cab driver what he did, and when he had explained what he did in some detail, the cab driver said, "so you do nothing"), and the people who led that kind of life were fit objects of scorn from people who had to work for a living.(On the other hand, I ought, by all means, to try to live that kind of a life, because you'd have to be an idiot to work for a living if you didn't have to--and, anyway, I was evidently incompetent to perform any real work.) Custodial staff, particularly, and especially because university students leave an embarrassing lot of trash and filth lying around--because, after all, it's somebody else's job to pick it up; it's the job of somebody who can't get into university, and so has to clean up trash and filth. So, you know, I don't know if the custodial staff actually do typically resent the students (and faculty), and I generally tend to think that nobody ought to resent anybody, but it would be eminently understandable to me if they did.
Now, construction workers as slackers--well, look, the fact is, whatever you think "work" is, construction workers do hard work, and, moreover, by and large, work they don't want to do, wouldn't choose to do if they didn't have to, and don't particularly enjoy, and none of that is particularly true of university students, or university faculty. At least, it's not nearly as true, and it seems beyond insulting to suggest that it is. Beyond insulting; actually neurotic, I suspect. It struck me, a few years ago, how frequently radio DJs and TV newsanchors complain about having to come into work, and say they're looking forward to days off, and things like that--and that this is crazy; why wouldn't you want to do what they do? (It's quite possible, sure, that it's all a put-on, an identify-with-the-working-stiffs schtick. But, really, you think the working stiffs don't notice that your work is just not like their work?) And then it struck me: they feel guilty! They have to pretend that their jobs suck, because they feel guilty that they have such great jobs! ... or, at least, they feel defensive.
