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I don't think anyone in that room would have agreed with that term.
by dharmab 2y ago
I don't think anyone in that room would have agreed with that term.
- trallnag 2y agoWhy?
- dharmab 2y agoFrankly, trying to claim their jobs, which all require more education and have much higher pressure and consequences for error than mine, aren't white collar would have been rude and insulting to everyone.
- goda90 2y agoDid you read the Wikipedia article? Grey collar is work that takes both intellectual and physical skill. It even includes surgery as grey collar. Thinking white collar indicates more education and pressure is the issue. There's white collar jobs that can be done by high school graduates, and blue collar jobs where life and death are literally a split second away most of the time.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dharmab 2y agoThe Wikipedia article that comment linked to in a later edit says it's a controversial definition and says that such professions are typically described as white collar. That seems to support my statement?
- marcusb 2y agoI get that people want to Categorize All The Things, but this doesn't seem like a particularly useful category. If you look at the list in the Wikipedia article, it includes "skilled tradespeople/technicians". That alone represents a pretty big chunk of work traditionally considered "blue collar."
- goda90 2y agoWhether you want to use a "grey collar" category or not, it's still best to avoid putting white collar on a pedestal over blue collar.
- nkrisc 2y agoIt's equally insulting to insinuate that some blue collar jobs don't also require more education and have much higher pressure and consequences for error than many white collar jobs. There are many blue collar jobs that require a lot of education and the consequences of errors is loss of life.
- dharmab 2y agoMost of the people in that room had worked blue collar jobs, worked through school, and retrained in white collar professions. I would have been incredibly rude to tell them "No, your job isn't _really_ white collar, and you haven't changed your social standing as much as you thought."
- jart 2y agoIn the US about 60% of the workforce is "white collar". Being proud of that is like being proud of a six figure salary in California.
- tanjtanjtanj 2y agoWhite/Blue collar, while correlated with income, has nothing to do with social standing. A friend of mine is a construction foreman. He lives in a mansion in a suburb of a suburb, is a member of a highly regarded country club and makes more money than me. He’s blue collar.
- p3rls 2y ago
- saurik 2y agoI find your definition of "insulting" really confusing, as pretty much all "white collar jobs" are "I sit on my butt all day and think lazily about things with very little pressure" jobs. They push paper and write reports on things, maybe doing some annoying math at times, but the entire concept of a "high pressure" job with "consequences for error" seems entirely at odds with white collar, and I'd personally have expected people who actually do something important on a daily basis (unlike, for example, me) might would find being categorized as "white collar" insulting?