Blue-collar employees are inferior and uneducated: a stereotype many believe to be true. In Mike Rose’s “Blue Collar Brilliance”, Rose addresses exactly what a blue-collar job is, and that having a blue-collar job doesn’t classify you as uneducated or incompetent. Rose begins with personal anecdotes and emotional appeals, then building his credibility through ethical appeals, and successfully employing logical appeals. Ultimately saying, the capability of one’s job performance shouldn’t be based off of a number on an IQ test or a letter grade from high school, but rather one’s determination and success.
First, Rose uses his personal anecdotes as a foundation for his claim, which emotionally hooks his readers. Bringing forth compassion and
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Rose tells his readers that neither his mother or father were of higher education, and he believed that meant he wasn’t meant to have an education either. But, Rose proved he was very capable, “I studied the humanities and later the social and psychological science…Then I went back to graduate school to study education and cognitive psychology and eventually became a faculty member in a school of education” (275). Rose is an extremely knowledgeable and reputable man, which makes it easy to stand with him on his views towards blue-collar workers. Rose believes that we should challenge our understanding of the relationship between mind and body and acknowledge the ways in which blue-collar workers use various kinds of intelligence on the job. Rose specifically recalls that his mother was interested in psychology, “… there were customers who entered the restaurant with all sorts of needs, from physiological ones, including the emotions that accompany hunger, to a sometimes desire for human contact” (274-75). Here, it becomes clear why Rosie was so intrigued by human interactions and the psychology behind them. Not to mention her tip, which was also how she made a living, was dependent on how she responded to theses sometimes-ridiculous needs, and so Rosie was forced to adapt to reading social cues and …show more content…
Rose tells us about his mother’s brother, Joe, he left school in the 9th grade to work on the railroad, then went to then Navy and eventually ended up back on the railroad. Joe talked about the conditions as a foreman on the line, recalling the inhumane pace of work, where he was constantly learning. Joe voiced that, for him, the shop floor provided what school did not, he was constantly learning. Joe accomplished the most efficient way to use his body by fabricating quick routines that preserved energy. “Coming off the line as he did, he had a perspective of workers’ needs and management’s demands, and this led him to think of way to improve the efficiency on line while relieving some of the stress on the assemblers” (277). Rose then says that after hearing of Joes experiences as a blue-collar employee, he decided to conduct some experiments of his own. He catalogued the cognitive demands serval blue-collar and service jobs, ranging from waitressing and hair styling to plumbing and welding. So he could gain a sense of how knowledge and skill evolve, he monitored experts as well as novices. His conclusion was, in short, this: much of physical work is social and interactive, to work is to solve problems, the perfection of everyday tasks comes from trial and error. Rose uses a hair stylist as his guinea pig. A hairstylist will stand on her feet all day, while continuing to engage in conversation with a client. A
Mike Rose’s introduces his argument by explaining the intelligence of blue collar workers and emphasizing his belief that blue-collar jobs require certain skills and tasks acquired by experience, and should not be viewed as menial tasks held by uneducated people. He goes on to point out that there are many people that feel “intelligence is…the type of schooling a person has…[and] work requiring less school requires less intelligence,” but then goes on to explain why this belief is simply not true. Rose starts with the story of his mother, Rosie, and describes what he has observed of her intelligence throughout the years of his childhood, as he
In past years, when people was talking about higher education, they had no hesitation to mention university immediately. When others were mentioning that college also belonged to higher education, sometimes they reacted with a wry smile, and shook their heads. Yes, even if it is for today, university gets the higher appraisal than college, and even many people think ‘‘college as America used to understand it is coming to an end.’’ As parents, they prefer their children to study in university instead of college, no matter how high of tuition the university it is. They ignore the value of college. Although sometimes college is viewed as critical by other people, we still can find its value, and how it is really beneficial for our lives, even if we don’t pursue a degree.
In the article “Blue Collar Brilliance”, Mike Rose emphasizes that blue collar jobs should be recognized for their amount of work and intelligence levels required. Usually in today’s world, blue collar jobs are viewed as monotonous tasks that require little or no ability or intellect. Rose argues that individuals often judge people who work in blue collar jobs based on the level of education. Rose’s argument is that formal education does not define the level of intelligence in a person. He made his argument effective by providing the idea and evidence that intelligence should be respected, regardless of where it is learned or gained.
“You can’t judge a book by it’s cover”. Every day our parents tell us as children that we cannot judge things based on the first glances that we see. However, people in our society today have filled their heads with stereotypes in order to judge people and their abilities. And when hiring employees, stereotypes and first glances is all an employer sees and therefore care about. In her book, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich proves that a person’s race and gender have a massive influence on the type of low-wage work a person can find, due to the stereotypes that are associated with gender and race in our society today.
First, being employed in the blue-collar industry a person must show intuition. Rose studied the habits of the blue-collar workplace, and based on his observations came to better understand how the job requires both physical and mental capabilities of an individual. The author Mike Rose, grew up in the 1940’s, this is an example of ethos in the story. Rose observed his mother, Rosie Rose work in a local restaurant as a waitress. Rose observed his mother’s impressive ability to retain food orders while keeping track of her list of side work was a skill demonstrating her intuitive capabilities that were learned out her
As Mike even began to study those who worked around the same level as that of his family, he began to piece together his belief that those of the “blue-collar” work force did have their own intelligence from “waitressing and hair styling to plumbing and welding.” (Rose 396) He noticed more and more of them portraying their own intelligence through their work. He says we “[separate] the body from the mind” instead of having them work together. (Rose 397) It was
First, in his article, Rose sets the scene by efficiently using personal anecdote as an essential to achieve the emotions of the readers to argue his claim. Rose introduces his readers
His argument does use pathos a little; citing the lower IQs, and that the people who own them may struggle trying to bend to American culture’s demand for a Bachelor’s Degree, tends to tug on the emotions of the reader, probably intentionally. This helps Murray a lot, for throughout the argument he has seemed very sure of his argument, and as earlier mentioned, often disdainful and lofty regarding the subject matter. Though an elitist, Murray is intelligent in his
His mother didn’t receive education since she withdrew from school by his father’s command that “a girl did not need education”. As a result, a housewife implied that you had “no job, no status, low self-esteem”. Even though there were no direct evidence showed that women had less sense of identity from their jobs in Tom Fryers’s article, his illustration had strongly reflected that women’s identity was disregarded. Women did not get the job opportunities they deserved to have. According to their content, two articles all mentioned women’s job identity, they had quite opposite point of views. Rebecca Riffkin used the real data to tell the truth that women are slightly more likely to get a sense of identity from their job than men. However, Tom Fryers stated that worker-identity still remained problematic for many woman.
Everyone has a dream, but not everyone has the courage to pursue their dream because of the fear of failing. "Blue-Collar Brilliance" by Mike Rose and "The Pursuit of Happyness" directed by Gabriele Muccino discusses where dedication takes a person in life. In the article of "Blue-Collar Brilliance" Rose, discusses the life of two successful individuals who have no education but are very dedicated to their work. "The Pursuit of Happyness" discuss the life of a struggling man who is not able to support his family, but never leaves the hope of one day becoming successful. "Blue-Collar Brilliance" and "The Pursuit of Happyness" share a common theme of, it does not matter whether a person has an education or not; it takes a lot of dedication to succeed. Both authors claim that everyone can be successful in their job as long as a person has patience and dedication. Composer Rose and Muccino both make an effective argument about dedication to their audience by providing real life experiences of an individual.
Barbara, a successful journalist and author, decided to conduct a Participant Observation experiment. Working as a waitress, maid, and at Walmart; Barbara discovered that low-wage employees are hard working have just as much knowledge and/or skills that the higher social classes. Employees are unaware of their own potential due to their situation and jobs. We, as a society, believe that the things we do, such as our jobs or education, reflect ourselves as people in terms of morality, work ethics, and overall life. Therefore people of the lower social class cut themselves short, give up their ambition, and have no inspiration due to their “acceptance” of what place they hold in the Social Hierarchy. This results is the Higher Social Classes remaining dominant and continue to set the guidelines for
As a result, the rose makes the reader feel the pride and fulfilment the rose would have felt for overcoming the odds of survival in
In America, there are innumerable types of jobs, and the jobs are split into two categories: blue collar and white collar. In the article, “White-Collar vs. Blue-Collar” by Ian Harrison these two categories are discussed. This article talks about the leverages and weaknesses of the jobs in these categories. The “White-Collar” jobs are more satisfying because the jobs offer more opportunities and are more challenging than other jobs.
First the point Rose is trying to make is by saying intelligence is not only associated with formal education and that blue collar work or service jobs require more intelligence than what people distinguish. He backs that claim up by talking about his mother and how she didn’t have formal education working as a waiter nevertheless she was still intelligent due to the fact she remember orders and how she handled customers
Webster, Mary Jo. “Where the Jobs Are: The New Blue Collar.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, 12 Jan. 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2016