
Blue-collar workers who become white-collar later in life - paulpauper
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/blue-collar-to-white-collar-work-jobs
======
theshadowknows
Pharmaceutical supply company line worker, warehouse truck loader, dishwasher
assembly line worker, gas station attendant. I had blue collar work from 16
until about 30. Under grad then grad school. Technical writer, jr developer,
sr developer, architect. It’s been an insane transition. And the biggest part
that gets me is when people complain about workload. I try to temper myself
because I know my lived experience is vastly different than nearly everyone I
work with. But when Jrs complain about having too much to do or something
being a lot of work I can’t help but remember unloading hundred pound boxes
from the back of a scalding hot truck in the North Carolina summer and chuckle
to myself.

~~~
planteen
Undoubtedly there are really hard jobs. I'd put a mover on that list as well,
along with oil field worker.

But it seems dismissive to say a dev can't claim burnout because they aren't
doing something physical. When a junior dev, I once went into the office 23
days in a row and was usually there until 11 pm or midnight, sometimes later,
sometimes earlier. I got burned out and left. It wasn't good for my health or
relationships. I bet if you worked hours like that loading a truck you at
least would have gotten overtime.

~~~
abduhl
How many of those days and hours were spent inside an air conditioned room
with a bathroom and, probably, a kitchen/cafeteria?

I work in engineering for construction - when we were building Bertha's rescue
shaft in Seattle the crews worked 5 months straight drilling holes and placing
concrete with two crews on 12 hour shifts with only July 4 and Memorial Day
off. When we excavated the shaft and repaired the machine we switched to three
8s and ran for almost another year.

Rain or shine, hot or cold, day or night. We worked that job every day. Nobody
left until we switched to 8s because guys wanted to work 10s on another job -
that's just blue collar work. In fact, that's the type of blue collar work
that guys want because the OT pays the bills so you're right about that. The
management on the project? Worked 1.5x as many hours as the crew because they
would normally cover a shift and a transition. Every one salaried. Nobody
left.

What the tech industry complains about for working conditions makes me laugh.

~~~
anigbrowl
_the OT pays the bills_

Another way to look at this is that people are underpaid just enough to get
them to work longer, but the knock-on costs of that (impact on health etc.)
won't manifest until later and will likely be borne by someone else rather
than the current employer. This is equally true for bricklayers and coders.

For context I also did many years of construction and manual work, I'd guess
my life has been about 50-50 physical and brain work (of course they're not
mutually exclusive). The above is an observation from experience rather than
theory.

------
tomohawk
That bit about the assumption of positional authority really rings true.

I've worked with a number of people who used to be in blue collar jobs (former
military non-commissioned officers, former trades men, etc). They often have a
different kind of work ethic than people without that background and that
often adds a lot. You'll rarely see analysis paralysis with them, or non-KISS
solutions.

However, I once worked in an organization where all the management came from
that background, and really still had one foot (at least) in that mindset.
They did not understand what the engineers and developers did, so often made
decisions based on fear of the unknown, or out of a sense that their authority
was being questioned. Not a good scene.

~~~
robertAngst
1 to 1 comparison.

Do you want your leadership figure at 30 to be someone who spent the last 11
years learning tech/design? Or someone who is new to the tech, but lived a
'tough' life for the last 14 years?

I don't see any advantages to the later, except they are lower cost.

~~~
nick_kline
Obviously both kinds of experience can bring different perspectives. There's
not just one way to do things. You want someone who has faced some challenges,
had some failures, had to recover, things sometimes worked out. That works for
both sources of experience.

------
esotericn
Part of the reason white-collar salaries are so high (along with demand) is
that a lot of jobs actually aren't that interesting to do.

The stereotypical office job is "get on a train for 1-2 hours a day, then sit
in front of a screen for 8 hours a day in a boring office with fluorescent
lighting, five times a week, forever".

Not everyone works at a company that actually matters so they're ultimately
just pushing bits around.

There are definitely other monotonous jobs (checkout staff is the obvious
canonical example), but then there's interesting stuff like working for
emergency services, mechanic, personal trainer, etc, all YMMV of course.

~~~
maxxxxx
If I had to choose careers again I would probably think more about finding
something that’s more active and outside. My current job keeps me permanently
at my desk or meeting rooms. No physical activity, no outside,no travel. This
together with commuting being in a cube without daylight is really impacting
my mental and physical wellbeing.

~~~
jsbaby608
Find remote work. I've been working remotely for over a decade, because I felt
an office confining and I missed being able to go outside.

With no commute, I also use that extra time to spend with my family.

I have my own office and many times work outside in the summer. I've even
traveled to other states/countries and worked from there. You just need a good
Internet connection.

It does take a lot of discipline. I basically have no manager now after
proving that I can get my work done without being watched.

I've seen lots of remote developers come and go because they couldn't handle
working remotely without someone sitting over their shoulder/telling them what
to do.

~~~
ilammy
> I also use that extra time to spend with my family

Remote can be nice _if_ you already have a family. Otherwise one could end up
simply trading office desk and meeting rooms for their own desk and own room,
still staying inside.

~~~
jdbernard
I think it is more that remote is nice when work is a part of your life and
not the center of your life. Swap family with other major life pursuits.
Family is often a forcing function for people to learn to balance work and the
rest of their life. Remote affords more flexibility, but that means it
requires more experience and discipline to balance your life.

If you already have the skill, remote gives you more flexibility to balance.
But if you're not intentional about it being remote gives you more rope to
hang yourself with, so to speak.

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TravHatesMe
> he wanted to be “someone my kids looked up to ..”

> I wanted to provide a bright future for my kids

Both examples in this article had to do with being a parent. I wonder if this
innate feeling was the true catalyst behind their move from blue to white
collar jobs. The stress, or drive, to provide for their families and be a good
role model. Good for them, their display of strength and pride will influence
their children. I bet those kids will grow up to be strong-minded, hard-
working adults.

------
maire
My husband was a machinist for about 6 years then went back to school to
become a mechanical engineer. As you can imagine he is an extremely good
mechanical engineer.

Nobody doubted his intelligence when he was a machinist because he was
obviously smart. People in our generation experimented more with our life path
more than kids these days. My husband was not unusual. He was a Berkeley
dropout and his machinist best friend was a law school dropout. It makes me
sad sometimes that kids these days don't experiment more. It is freeing to
realize that you can make your way in life no matter what.

When my husband was a machinist he worked with a mechanical engineer on a
project and realized he understood how to design better than the engineer. At
the time I was still in school so we decided I would finish school first and
then he would go back to school.

~~~
et-al
> _It makes me sad sometimes that kids these days don 't experiment more. It
> is freeing to realize that you can make your way in life no matter what._

Kids don't experiment more because a generation or two ago, all one needed was
a high school diploma to be employable; now one needs a college degree.
Saddled with student loan payments, who can be free to experiment? And wages
haven't kept up with cost of living increases, either. So I would have been
able to support myself as a server in a restaurant back then, but now I'd
probably have to juggle two jobs to make ends meet.

~~~
maire
Wow - so many negative reviews! This must be the most controversial thing I
have posted!

In general you are right that blue collar wages have not kept pace with the
cost of living. This is particularly true in the SF bay area. I have often
thought that the poor livability in the bay area is not sustainable. I used to
live in a neighborhood with only a few engineers. Now everyone seems to be an
engineer. Having said that - there are far more livable places to live!

As for college education - I do support free college education but with
caveats. I am shocked by the number of people who think college needs to be
expensive. For instance, you can get a degree from Berkeley by going two years
to a community college and the final two years at Berkeley even today. When
you don't have much money, that is a great option.

I am also here to tell you that you can have a great career with a degree from
a state college. My husband and I worked our way through school and the state
colleges are very flexible with working students where universities are not.
With my degree I was at some of the greatest companies in the world including
Apple, IBM, Xerox in their heyday. I also worked at 4 successful startups.

Even in your generation this is possible. My son got a liberal arts degree in
2008 which was the worst possible year to get a liberal arts degree. He
discovered that that the curriculum from Stanford and ITT India were on line.
So he studied on his own to get a college-equivalent education and worked in
tech for a couple of years. Then he decided he wanted a computer science
masters degree. He took the prerequisites from community colleges and applied
and was accepted to graduate school. His expenses ended up being small enough
that he paid half through his savings and the other half he was able to pay
back within a year of graduation.

I can understand that this route is not possible in all fields such as
medicine. But an interesting life is still possible.

------
LocalPCGuy
Worked as a printer at a newspaper for almost 15 years. For the last 10 years
been working as a software engineer (mostly web, some mobile).

One of the biggest adjustments was trying to figure out how to not feel guilty
when not "working". Even just taking a break, which I now know is important
(at least for me) for solving knotty issues.

It does give one a perspective that those who've only done WC work often don't
have. I'm not one to diminish other's hard work however for me personally even
really long days have not compared to my days working as a press operator.

------
motohagiography
So glad someone addressed this issue directly in an article, as it needs to be
explicit:

"“Blue-collar roles are usually in very authoritative structures. When men
move from blue-collar to white-collar roles, they tend to assume that with
their new role comes a lot of positional power. But in large organizations,
that’s not always true,” she tells MEL. “Men in these situations need to learn
to lead with influence, not power. They need to be more collaborative, and
they need to understand that to get what they need they might have to leverage
other departments or leaders.”"

What is also notable is that the culture companies so desperately contort
themselves to create is a naturally occurring phenomenon in blue collar
environments. Tech is basically blue collar work for white collar money.

"“The one shift I’ve noticed is most difficult [when men] go from blue-collar
work like police officer or firefighter: there is a lot of time spent with
colleagues in a ‘brotherly’ way,” she tells MEL. “Eating together, spending
long hours together and supporting one another in life and death or dangerous
situations. This isn’t the same schedule or interpersonal interaction in the
white-collar environment and [it] can be difficult to transition to.”"

White collar work is mainly political, and there is very little actual
physical competence involved. The skills are social, and not really skills
anyone (men or women) respects or admires. Perhaps that's why they are so well
paid. From the outside, the emphasis on flexibility and collaboration, can be
understood as being able suspend rules and principles for opportunity.

From the inside, you need a kind of self-superiorization that abstracts you
from the work, people, and relationships. This is why an elite education is so
valued, because no matter what happens "you still went to Harvard/have a PhD
etc." and this is what facilitates your ability to be "dynamic," or deal with
outwardly contemptible behaviour because it's not, "you," who is engaged in
it, it's something a person of your position "does."

When competent people encounter uncertainty, we fall back on protecting the
integrity of that competence, because it defines our self image of who we
"are." But risking group survival (that is based on the external perceptions
of stakeholders) to maintain the integrity of our competence based self image
will get you isolated pretty quick. This is the essence of that blue collar
alienation feeling technical people get.

This flexible superiorization can be affected in a number of ways without an
elite education, but almost all of them are anathema to a traditional
masculine identity, which is based on the very competence, principle, and
structure that is the barrier to them in dynamic white collar environments.
The thing about an education is it's something nobody can "take away," from
you, and this is the key to being able to superiorize yourself to the work.
Whereas "blue collar" things like competence and masculinity can be lost, and
so the need to protect or maintain them becomes a kind of weakness or
vulnerability in the political dynamics of white collar work.

If white collar jobs were just a matter of actualizing the most noble aspects
of being good people, and the attributes that make us likeable, they wouldn't
be work. White collar work itself is the ability to self superiorize, sustain
the necessary cognitive dissonance to maintain and affect strategic
perceptions, and to act on the instincts and techniques for identifying and
aligning correctly to power.

Some people are naturals at it, and while they usually aren't particularly
admirable or likeable, the compensation, status and power that comes with
achieving it place those virtues as second prize. Until very recently, having
the intellectual ability to criticize these dynamics was exclusive to people
who were educated to work in them, and so there wasn't a reason to reflect on
them critically. The internet is changing this as well.

Such an important article for people to read.

~~~
Noumenon72
I need more of a definition of "superiorize". I kind of lost the meaning of
every sentence where that word appeared.

~~~
motohagiography
It's similar to how you relate to a kid where you recognize yourself as an
adult and them as a child, so you don't personalize or internalize their
actions. Doctors and patients, even developers and users. You can be equitable
about it by accepting things as they are, but internally, you can do that
because you don't need for them to reflect your own self belief.

Among adults, it's recognizing people as true others, who are not a part of
"your," tribe or experience, just neutral independent beings. In a
professional context, their opinions are objective things that you don't
register personally because your sense of self does not depend on your
relationship to them. People will bend over backwards trying to explain it in
a non-hierarchical neutral zen way, but the example makes it easier.

It comes from working with animals, where a trainer needs to emotionally
separate themselves from the animals actions so you cease to relate to them an
a reactive way.

~~~
Noumenon72
Thank you for explaining!

------
bane
This article talks a bit about the difficulties that come with making the
transition (and the transition can be hard) but doesn't address the benefits.
Working in blue collar positions can give one a unique perspective in WC
positions: knowledge of how hard work _can_ be, a production driven mindset, a
work hard play hard approach, limited tolerance for doddling and other B.S.
and so on. This can be incredibly useful differentiation in the WC workplace.

------
vilts
My route has been opposite, from white to blue collar. I was software
developer and sysadmin for 16 years, straight out of school. For past 3 years
I've been full time hand engraver and CNC machinist at my own company. I get
to do very cool actual physical objects, starting from design with customer
all the way to the finished product. Not a single regret so far, even though
the office job was cozy and paid very well.

~~~
helij
You are not a blue collar worker. You are a business owner. Being a business
owner sometimes entails working blue collar like work but it doesn't mean you
are a blue collar worker.

~~~
opportune
This is something I see a lot. When people say "my plumber makes $200k/year"
what they mean is the guy who owns a plumbing business they use makes that
much money. Very few blue collar workers that aren't also small business
owners make over $100k/year and it can be pretty hard to get the gigs that do
(usually require having many years of experience and being in the union in a
particular area like NYC, or having a very rare specialty). The only "easy"
way to break $100k/year as a blue collar worker is to work lots of overtime,
which isn't exactly an apples-to-apples comparison with white collar jobs

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fallingfrog
I think the biggest surprise for me was learning that white collar workers are
neither more intelligent or wiser than blue collar ones, and that upper
management is also made up of people with no particular oversupply of either
attribute. They are just people who were born into the right social class and
who are really good at playing the power game.

------
ycombonator
Dishwasher, Linecook (Grad student), Construction worker, Construction
Superintendent, PhD Student, Field Superintendent, Business Analyst, .NET
developer, Java Dev & now Program Manager. I still love to be linecook,
construction any day. The best job satisfaction I ever had. I see young kids
these days just beaming with pride that are able to do a crud app or some
react bs and they think they own the world. No respect sorry.

~~~
petra
>> I still love to be linecook, construction any day. The best job
satisfaction I ever had.

Why ?

~~~
ycombonator
Because there is no setting out to change the world “fakery”. Let’s face it,
we are not changing the world by swiping right or left for hookups. Or,
ordering delivery by tapping on the phone instead of calling the takeout
place. When I am feeding a hungry person or building a shelter that’s going to
stand there for a hundred years I am literally changing the world.

------
RickJWagner
I have a relative who was a blue-collar health worker for most of his life.
He's in his mid-50s and started taking night classes a few years ago. Last
week he graduated with his bachelor's degree and appears headed for a
management job with his current employer.

I think it's awesome. He's so proud of that degree, and the rest of us are,
too. It seems a little more special.

------
epx
I worked in a textiles factory in IT, one astonishing thing I found soon was,
dealing with the blue-collar people was way easier. People did what you asked
to, and were smarter.

------
Havoc
Surprised just how clean this article is.

Actual writing. Real groundwork. Relevant outlinks. No referral links (they
totally could have sneak that in on the ONE amazon link).

Solid...anyone know what melmag is?

------
robertAngst
>As a delivery driver, people wouldn’t talk to me the same way or wouldn’t ask
for advice and stuff. I’m the same person with a different position but it
seems like people respect me more because of what I do.

Because as a delivery driver, you follow instructions

As an engineer, you are paid to think critically, using logic and math as
needed.

You should be more talented at making decisions after school + experience than
before. Which is why people would ask you for advice.

Is there anything surprising/wrong about this? I don't ask high school kids
for investing advice.

------
failrate
I remind people at my company that I used to clean the shitters at a diesel
garage.

------
madengr
Strange that someone would get a degree in mechanical engineering, then go
into IT.

