7 ms·
Painting blue collar workers as inherently sexist is classist. There are plenty of blue collar workers who are respectful human beings.
by faitswulff 6y ago
Painting blue collar workers as inherently sexist is classist. There are plenty of blue collar workers who are respectful human beings.
- fhood 6y agoExactly, what "class" they were should have nothing to do with it, they should have been fired and that should have been the end of it.
- delecti 6y agoNot to mention the reverse; there are plenty of very public stories about very sexist white collar workplaces.
- justinclift 6y agoAlso, nurses are apparently extremely "out there" culture wise. Source: several friends (mostly female, some male) who are nurses. Their environments sound deeply toxic, and super political.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoEveryone who's ever worked blue collar knows exactly what I mean. These people aren't any more racist or sexist or whatever than anyone else. They're just willing to crack jokes about a hell of a lot of stuff that would make most white collar employees cringe. In a blue collar work place welders are dumb, electricians are gay, jokes about wives and girlfriends are fair game and a suction cup didlo is a tool of endless comedic potential, not a HR disaster waiting to happen. And the overwhelming majority of the time nobody takes any of that seriously or gets offended by any of it. It's just how the culture is.
- jackhack 6y agoThen you need to have a speak with someone in HR. (ed: to understand the impact) Attorneys on the other side of the courtroom dream of the payouts such a "comedic" situation would provide.
- raxxorrax 6y agoOr you could learn to take yourself less serious, most women would probably appreciate that.
- cmdshiftf4 6y ago>Attorneys on the other side of the courtroom dream of the payouts such a "comedic" situation would provide. Jesus, is there anything in life that Americans can't make about money? It's no wonder your "culture" is so utterly sterile.
- celim307 6y agoUnless you’re a woman.
- devthrowawy 6y agoThank you for your insight into the emotional fragility of female construction workers.
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- mywittyname 6y agoAt an old job of mine, we'd all often work at golf courses, in a fenced area, thus we had a mountain of golf balls everywhere in the shop. We'd always play a game where you'd throw a golf ball at the shop floor, trying to bounce it into the nuts of your coworker. I'd never even think of playing something like that in an office.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoCondom/balloon/zip-lock full of acetylene is a classic. Probably don't do it in any workplace large enough to employ anybody with "safety" in their job title though.
- mulmen 6y agoMy office mates run around with nerf guns like children. It’s not much of a difference tbh. Both are completely inappropriate.
- threatofrain 6y agoPlaying with nerf guns in the office isn’t much different than playing with your colleagues testicles? Huh?
- mulmen 6y agoI've been shot in the eye by Nerf darts at my desk, while trying to do work. I don't think that's much different than being hit in the pants by a golf ball thrown by hand.
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- cmdshiftf4 6y ago
- mulmen 6y agoI worked blue collar jobs for a long time and I was always offended by the kind of speech you mention. I just didn’t say anything because I needed the work and didn’t want to become a target.
- nineplay 6y ago...
- raxxorrax 6y agoWomen are most often also involved there. They don't treat them worse, they just aren't that fragile. A.frwshmen could actually learn something about interpersonal relationships working such a job. My impression is that it is needed. It is not applicable here though.
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- libraryatnight 6y agoEh, it can be but often times there's people in the wings cringing.
- NickGott 6y agoReading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain really opened my eyes up to how different the work place is at different class levels in modern society.
- vharuck 6y agoKitchens are a notoriously cruder and harsher working environment than most. My wife went to culinary school to be a chef. While she stuck with it and graduated, she is totally against ever working in a kitchen. Instead, she's a daycare worker. That was the less stressful and more respected position for her. It seems like, if all restaurant workers put up with the culture, it might be because those who won't never joined in the first place.
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y agoThat book is significantly exaggerated and decades out of date. Kitchens remain horrible workplaces but not really in the ways depicted in that book.
- orwin 6y agoIt changed, not as much as it should have, but it changed in the right way.
- cortesoft 6y agoI used to believe this, too, and participated in this type of humor... I thought it was ok, because no one took it seriously. I realized later I was just not seeing the people who felt excluded by this type of humor.
- grawprog 6y ago>In a blue collar work place welders are dumb, electricians are gay, jokes about wives and girlfriends are fair game and a suction cup didlo is a tool of endless comedic potential, not a HR disaster waiting to happen. Dunno what kind of lousy shops you worked at but nobody ever did anything like that at the granite shop I worked at for 5 years, nobody did that kind of stuff in the landscaping crews I worked on.
- NeutronStar 6y agoNice anecdote. Want mine that contrast with yours?
- zrobotics 6y agoI hate to say it, but he does have a point. Anecdata: I was a mechanic quite a while, and while my coworkers were decent, I know that there were enough other shitty people in the trade that none of the parts stores in town could keep a female delivery driver on staff. I never knew of a female delivery driver that lasted over 2 months; and I had 2 black drivers comment along the lines of "those jackasses as shop X called me a n* b/c we didn't have something in stock". Delivery drivers weren't especially high-turnover positions, normally drivers lasted long enough I would end up knowing them by name. And even though I felt my coworkers were somewhat OK, they would still make remarks (especially homophobic & racist ones) that would be at least grounds for disciplinary action in most white collar fields. That (along with RSI and the pay) was one of the reasons I left the trade. I enjoyed the job, it is really satisfying to have that sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, but I was frankly tired of having to be around/associated with crappy people.
- rolph 6y agono snark intended...you should try roof repair/construction for a while
- therockspush 6y agoyou're right. i did it for a summer. those guys smoke, sit in the sun all day, work with all kinds of toxic shit, can fall, and don't have huge career growth potential. they have nothing to lose and the humor shows it
- jancsika 6y ago> These people aren't any more racist or sexist or whatever than anyone else. They're just willing to crack jokes about a hell of a lot of stuff that would make most white collar employees cringe. I wouldn't cringe if I heard off-color jokes at an auto repair garage. I think I'd call the police if I saw a bunch of dipshits sitting around a workstation, targeting random women from the other room with facial recognition software to share degrading posts about them being receptacles for their own sexual gratification. Aside from TV sitcoms and online forum caricatures, I haven't a clue what that kind of sociopathy has to do with blue collar workers.
- ryandrake 6y agoThere is a massive spectrum of juvenile behavior out there in workplaces. I've worked in a place where overt, graphic (often disgusting) harassment happened regularly, and I've also worked in a place where even making what you thought was an innocuous wisecrack would probably get you fired. Obviously the former is totally unacceptable and probably illegal, and the latter is stifling and feels oppressive. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and where it gets drawn is not necessarily the same at every place you can possibly work. There is not one line that fits all companies. Where the line gets drawn can and does depend on the existing workplace culture, the industry, the job function, the country, and the law. There is a legal/illegal point on the spectrum that the company definitely doesn't want to go near. There's a "reputational disaster" point that most companies also don't want to go near. On the other side of the line, there's the "exceedingly woke" point that you won't see outside of multi-national corporations and silicon valley. Most office workplaces draw the line somewhere in the middle, where you basically are expected to treat people thoughtfully and pleasantly, with dignity, respect, assume good intentions, behave like an adult, etc. You know, the "no assholes" rule.
- walrus01 6y agoYou've obviously never worked with large numbers of telecom tower climbers, or linemen, or underground utility contractors. There's a reason for the stereotype of toxic masculinity bro culture. By no means is it everyone but the percentage that could be categorized as such per 100 persons is definitely higher. If you want to see it taken to an extreme go spend some time with Alberta oil/mining/gas industry workers.
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