
TED: Mike Rowe talks about dirty jobs and innovation - geuis
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html
======
electromagnetic
The thing I love about Mike Rowe is that he's been to hundreds of 'dirty' jobs
and has come out with a converse theory on nearly everything we've been told
to believe.

We're told we should work as little as possible in a job thats as physically
undemanding as possible and believe we should be paid more for it.

The best days work for me was when I had to knock down a wall. I had a 10 lb
sledge hammer, a wall I'd wrongly presumed to be cinder block, but was in fact
reinforced concrete blocks they used for bomb shelters in WW2. It took me
about 6 hours to finally get the wall down and that night I slept like a baby
and for like 3 days I don't think it was even physically possible to get
annoyed.

I don't know why, but when I work with my hands I always seem to be in a much
happier mood, and I think it helps that demolition is just downright stress
relieving. IIRC there's a demolition company in the UK where you can pay them
to let you rip down a part of an apartment or office building before they tear
it down. Apparently they made a lot of money with the idea.

~~~
nlanier
You enjoyed it so much because you knew you didn't have to do it for the rest
of your life.

~~~
electromagnetic
Ha, I'd been doing work like that for a year and I did it for 2 years after
that. The only reason I stopped is because I moved out of the country, and
I've got a guaranteed job offer to go straight into a construction job as soon
as my papers go through.

That's purely work, that's not including the things I've done as favors to
people. Helping to build a dock was the most fun, but a weekend of drink and
power tools is hard to beat.

I think I need a DNA test, I think I've got some hillbilly in me.

------
pjhyett
Easily one of the best TED talks I've seen. It certainly makes me wonder what
I'm contributing to society building GitHub. Not that what I'm doing isn't
fulfilling and helpful to others, but rather what more I could be doing.

~~~
sho
I think you're doing fine. GitHub _is_ infrastructure, and programming _is_ a
dirty job.

~~~
ejs
Programming is not a dirty job for most (maybe if you are a plant PLC
programmer)... the shows name is quiet literal, as figurative as you may want
this to sound it just doesn't work talking about Mike Rowe. Unless you
regularly arrive home showered in feces and tape your pants to your boots
before heading into work.

~~~
sho
I didn't mean it literally, obviously. I meant it in the sense that
programming is not generally considered a glamorous job, aspired to by
celebrity-conscious kids everywhere. It can be an art, yes, but often it's
about rolling up your sleeves and putting in long hours to build something
great.

Mike Rowe specifically mentioned the concept of infrastructure; something that
societies need to be good places to live but whose construction and upkeep are
not occupations encouraged by the media. Well, there is informational
infrastructure too, and it's programmers who build it, mostly unsung outside
our own narrow circles.

A dirty job, despite your narrow reading of the show's name, does not just
mean you literally get dirty doing it. It means an unglamourous job where you
just ignore everything else and go in and do what needs to be done. Hyett &
co. might be micro-celebrities now, but that came after a long stretch of very
unglamorous hacking - sitting on their asses staring at a tiny screen at all
hours of the day and night, _getting shit done_. When was the last time you
saw that kind of occupation celebrated in, say, an ad? And yet the product is
the infrastructure we all rely on.

That's what I meant, sorry for being ambiguous. And if you still disagree,
I'll show you some of the code I just wrote, I promise you'll feel dirty for
_weeks_ ; )

~~~
ejs
Oh no I know exactly what you mean, but the thing is... everyone, in every
field feels the same way about their job. Just about everyone in the world
feels that they work in the most underrepresented and unappreciated jobs.

I watch dirty jobs every now and then and love the show, but I think it is
very clear that he is talking about the literally dirty jobs. Any job can be
considered to have 'dirty' parts, depending on how far you want to stretch the
definition. To think that even celebrated jobs like doctors and lawyers don't
have, by your loose definition, dirty parts is very naive.

I am not really attacking you, I just always roll my eyes when people start
complaining about their jobs. I guess growing up blue collar has made me very
cynical when people working 8 hour days in air conditioned offices complain
about doing dirty work. Hard, intense, difficult, exhausting? Sure. Dirty? No

~~~
umjames
Of course the TV show has to depict physically dirty jobs. Most TV programs
seem to have a requirement to capture and keep hold of the viewer's eyes and
ears. A TV show where a bunch of people sit in cubicles in a mostly silent
office and you only hear typing, mouse clicking, and the occasional phone
ringing does not make for desirable TV programming (even if it accurately
depicts reality).

Just because most people feel that they are under-appreciated in their
professions doesn't mean that that feeling is less legitimate. Everyone has
the right to complain about their job, regardless of how cushy it seems to
others.

In a way, complaining about your job is proof to yourself that you aren't
where you want to be yet. That's the essence of a lot of startups.

~~~
ejs
Considering Mike Rowe is pushing for more trade school enrollment makes it
pretty clear I think that he is talking about legitimately dirty work, the
real literal definition.

I don't understand what any of this has to do with "dirty"? So now we just
stretch the definition of dirty to mean anything one can complain about at
work? Then there is no point to it, by that definition there are dirty parts
to every single job in the world.

Personally I cant think of any other job that is further from dirty then most
programming jobs (literal definition). Why is that tech people have to hijack
everything with the me too talk? Next we will read about strong men
competitions and all the tech people will chime in with how deployment is such
a heavy weight to lift... but hey its just figurative! Or how the programming
is like cleaning toilets, because you have to look at other peoples code... on
your monitor!

And if you really think your job is dirty, go find an electrician and pull
wire through a steel mill, or work with a nurse, or a truck driver, go pull up
well pumps, or drain septic tanks... or any other legitimately dirty job.

Or just stop trying to jack the little bit of pride a blue collar worker can
have because he actually knows what dirty work is everyday.

~~~
umjames
It doesn't have anything to do with "dirty" or Mike Rowe. You were saying that
you were tired of people complaining about their jobs. I happen to think that
complaining about your job is fine.

I don't think anyone is trying to hijack the phrase "dirty job" to lessen
those who do literal dirty work in any way. I'm not attacking you.

------
yan
I love Dirty Jobs and Mike Rowe is an amazing host. The amount of charisma
that man has is insane and the ability to say the right thing at the right
time, every time, is something I wish one day to acquire.

~~~
coglethorpe
He does one very dirty job very well: selling Fords.

------
10ren
I wish I've had a classics education

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anagnorisis>

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peripeteia>

------
karl11
I like his overall message - but I can't help feel a twinge of disagreement
that happiness and success do not come from following your passion and your
dreams. I think a better way to say it would be that you might not find
yourself where you originally dream, but if you have a direction, work hard,
follow it, opportunities will come and you will get somewhere fulfilling.

~~~
jerf
Are you disagreeing because you have copious experience showing that following
your dream leads to happiness, or are you disagreeing because it's what you've
been told all your life and you can't easily give the idea up?

Mike Rowe is not necessarily the world's expert on job-related happiness, but
he does have a unique and extraordinarily well-traveled perspective. I am not
entirely inclined to agree with him either (because of my own personal
experience; I am very happy as a programmer, but I note that even many of my
coworkers aren't, in the very same environment), but I can't dismiss what he
says entirely either, because the man has me creamed on the experience front.

------
sprsquish
The Dirty Job's approach to their show is so perfect. No nonsense, no fear,
just show it for exactly what it is.

------
peregrine
Mike Rowe gets it right on so many levels. If Obama really wants to make a
difference I think he needs to talk to this guy. He systematically relates to
intellectuals and non-intellectuals and does it with ease.

~~~
anamax
Rowe's strengths don't apply to Obama's situation.

Unlike Obama, Mike Rowe isn't trying to tell people what to do and never has
to deal with anyone who wants to thwart his goals.

------
alex_c
I'm a big fan of Mike Rowe, and it looks like he's serious about the message
he wants to spread. There's more at the site he's starting (started):

<http://www.mikeroweworks.com/>

------
snprbob86
Discovery Channel is the unsung hero here. Mike Rowe is a fantastic host and
narrator, but it is the Discovery Channel which has given him and others the
platform to do what so many else have struggled to: get young people
interested in science and technology. Sure, a lot of it is overly high-level
or pseudo-science or simply mindless explosions... but they sure have done one
hell of a job making a lot of traditionally uninteresting things, interesting.

