Posted on 04/23/2021 3:58:18 PM PDT by anthropocene_x
Recently, I was mesmerized by a prep cook. At a strip-mall Korean restaurant, I caught a glimpse of the kitchen and stood dumbfounded for a few minutes, watching a guy slicing garnishes, expending half the energy I would if I were doing the same at home and at twice the speed. The economy of his cooking was magnetic. He moved so little, but did so much.
Being a prep cook is hard, low-wage, and essential work, as the past year has so horribly proved. It is also a “low-skill” job held by “low-skill workers,” at least in the eyes of many policy makers and business leaders, who argue that the American workforce has a “skills gap” or “skills mismatch” problem that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Millions need to “upskill” to compete in the 21st century, or so say The New York Times and the Boston Consulting Group, among others.
Those are ubiquitous arguments in elite policy conversations. They are also deeply problematic. The issue is in part semantic: The term low-skill as we use it is often derogatory, a socially sanctioned slur Davos types casually lob at millions of American workers, disproportionately Black and Latino, immigrant, and low-income workers. Describing American workers as low-skill also vaults over the discrimination that creates these “low-skill” jobs and pushes certain workers to them. And it positions American workers as being the problem, rather than American labor standards, racism and sexism, and social and educational infrastructure. It is a cancerous little phrase, low-skill. As the pandemic ends and the economy reopens, we need to leave it behind.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
When I would threaten to drop out of school, my parents would say, “Go ahead. The world needs ditch diggers, too.”
The world needs ditchdiggers, too.
People in “think-tanks” are the most un-essential workers of all.
“Being a prep cook is hard, low-wage, and essential work, as the past year has so horribly proved.”
Not so much for me. I’d survive quite fine without restaurants.
I’m not opposed to same, but would find that learning to Frack would be more valuable in my World.
Microsoft Foundation Classes often make me feel like a low-skilled worker.
There’s more honor to unstopping a toilet or cooking a burrito than anything a single one of those Davos A-holes has ever done.
We need to honor labor; we’ll *always* need mechanics, and cooks, and plumbers; fat cats is suits who just push numbers around on spreadsheets have never done the world as much good as a competent roofer or gardener.
The problem of course is the flood of illegals dragging down the pay of such positions—and taking them to boot!
“All work is honorable.”
True and under appreciated. But some work is completely useless make work. The best example I can think of is the state New Jersey not allowing customers to pump their own gas like ordinary people do in the other 49 states. An absurd and useless job.
And the drive to automate everything is going to make for a lot of idle hands.
And we all know what that means.
I disagree with the author. the deepest problem is that most student leave college with no marketable skills and no work habits that are worth very much.
Learn to code! Otherwise you’re a loser! -The Establishment
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Just so you can watch some Indian H1B or OPT scumbag take every possible job, from entry-level to senior engineering manager.
Then you will know how to code, a skill you will use while manning that fry station at McDonald’s
The world needs ditchdiggers, too.
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That’s why the world invented the dumb jock high school dropout that can bench more than their weight.
You have a point. There is more skill required to writing the class library. It would be analogous to a tool and die maker vs. the user of a tool. (With exception, i.e, if the tool user was surgeon.)
there is something in the white privilege charge, I concluded today. The problem with globalism and exporting “hard” jobs is that the kids who grow up now expect that they don’t need to learn any real skills because they will simply be in charge of everything. But the less privileged folks who had to go out and learn to do real things now have skills and experience that makes them more qualified to run things than the so-called privileged folks who just grew up with the expectation that they would be running everything.
Nope, not 49. At least the People’s Republik of Oregawn is right there with ya.
My mother use to tell me the same thing, and she was right! Proud ditch digger (excavating contractor) for over 40 years.
Oh, Brother. BTW, Krispy Kreme as NJ Governor did not even try to change this stupid requirement. He also signed a 23 cent per gallon increase to the gas tax. And the fat b—tard thinks he is presidential material. As a Republican. What a clown.
I think the vaccines will help get that under control. Unfortunately.
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