Blue Collar and Proud of It: The All-In-One Resource for Finding Freedom, Financial Success, and Security Outside the Cubicle Read Online Free PDF Page B

and proud to be part of the blue-collar workforce.
    Stick with me, and I promise to tell you all you’ve ever wanted to know about getting ahead in this world while finding success outside the cubicle.

Chapter 2

What Is Blue Collar, Anyway?
    H ave you ever stopped to think about the term blue collar ? To me, blue collar means skilled individuals who make the world go around. We’re talking about people who are there to fix the plumbing, the leaks, and the wiring when it’s broken. These same blue-collar people build skyscrapers, work as freight train conductors, and perform my riad other important jobs. Unfortunately, the term blue collar sometimes has a negative connotation, one that makes some people think of a person who didn’t work hard enough to get a college education. We need to rethink this attitude.
    The actual term blue collar came into everyday use in the United States around 1950 and referred to the uniforms traditionally worn in factories and other industrial work sites.You’ve probably seen the exact clothing I’mtalking about: the durable clothes that won’t tear easily and can withstand dirt and grime and grease. These blue collars were worn by plumbers, auto technicians, and service people, and while these traditional blue-collar uniforms are not obsolete, you see them a bit less nowadays. Some of youmight even recognize this look since it’s cropped up as fashionable retro clothing.
    But beyond the color of the shirt collar, blue collar came to mean a certain type of worker, one who wasn’t white collar , which basically meant an office worker or someone working in one of the professions. Blue-collar workers were traditionally paid hourly, although that’s not always the case now, andmany blue-collar workers are unionmembers. Blue collar even came to mean a way of life. It has long defined people who don’t sit in an office all day, or sit in front of a computer, with the same routine. It means a person who was often outside, in the field, or means in a shop working with his or her hands, fixing something, rebuilding a part, or operating machinery. To me, it means someone who is always looking to keep moving, doing, making, or breaking.
    Traditionally, the federal government has classified all workers in the United States according to whether they were white collar, blue collar, or service workers.Chefs, police, and firefighters were grouped together as service workers, for example. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks all these nifty jobs and counts the number of workers and the salaries in each industry, recently stopped categorizing jobs according to collar color. Apparently this approach was offending some people. It doesn’t offend me, and I hope it doesn’t offend you. I’ve said it before and you will hear me say it again: I am proud to be blue collar. But the fact is that not all jobs fit perfectly into one category anymore.
    Maybe you don’t even think of yourself as blue collar . Perhaps you use the term tradesperson . That’s fine, too. Whatever label you apply to yourself, the point is that the non-white-collar workforce is a crucial piece of the puzzle. We are the people who like to build, scrape, hammer, carry, dig, and put our hands to use. The idea of sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen sickens us. Thinking about it makes me want to jump out of a window, actually.You see, we don’t mind getting dirty, although not all of us will. But none of us are heading off to work in ironed pants and starched shirts, carrying briefcases.
    The biggest change—and it’s huge—in the blue-collar workforce in the past generation is that you need to bemore skilled to land a job and to get ahead than fifteen, twenty, or thirty years ago. Technology is taking over, even in the blue-collar world. Every industry has been affected. Every industry has incorporated technology into its manufacturing, building processes, and overall functioning. Jobs are simplymore technical