Jobs and Awareness

[cjsmith]

I have discovered, among my smart college-educated white upper-middle-class mostly-male circle of friends, that there are few people who have done anything but white-collar jobs. Most have never held ANY unskilled-labor job, EVER, including during high school. EVER.

That first sentence could also be pronounced "...among my [privilege] [privilege] [privilege] [privilege] [privilege]...".

I have discovered that I tend to have more respect for the ones who have; they read as "less spoiled", somehow, and then when I find out they once bagged groceries or changed diapers it just all hangs together. The ones who've been burger-flippers or security guards tend to be --- not always, but they tend to be --- the same ones who would have seen the alternate pronunciation of that first sentence and its implications.

What I respect is that awareness, wherever it comes from.

Comments

[akienm.livejournal.com]

I have thrown papers... I GED'd my way out of high school a year early ('cuz I was bored), and did one semester at the local JC, done the short order cook thing, made Sale! signs at JC Penney. And I sold computers. In that last job, I started teaching myself coding. I moved boxes for Clorox, did data entry for AT&T and Pac Bell, and was a shipping clerk. I taught myself 6502 assembly, and did game platform translations.

Then I went on to doing Tech Support. I think every programmer should be made to do 2 years of tech support as part of getting a CS degree. It gives you a very different view of software.

Almost everything I use in either of my careers, I taught myself.

I think I tend to have more respect for those who fought they're way through it too.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I think every programmer should be made to do 2 years of tech support as part of getting a CS degree. It gives you a very different view of software.

Oh, doesn't it! So does QA. I would quibble with the two-years figure, perhaps, but I'd include both tech support and QA as requirements for coding. Next, maintaining other people's code, and working on a team where you cannot dictate everything... both of these teach lessons so valuable that I'm glad they happen to occur early in a lot of programmers' careers.

Re:

[akienm.livejournal.com]

I'd be flexable on the timeframe, but it has to be longer than a few weeks. You really need to get immersed in it.

I also agree that the other things there would be good too.