work snobbery?

[BackToBasics]

Do people really look down upon people who are in jobs that don't reconise you as being "educated"?

I have noticed this a few times on MN and i find really irritating. If everyone when to University and got qualifications and went on to a high paying, top job, who do they think would serve them in the shops, empty their bins, clean their drains, make their sandwich for lunch, clean their place of work etc?

People in these type of jobs are a very valuable part of our society and for people to look down on them is just plain snobbery imo. Not everyone wants to have a perfectional job believe it or not. Some people actually choose to work elsewhere and are perfectly happy with their choice. It seems the attitude of some people is that person who has served them behind the counter must somehow have failed or not tried hard enough and is stuck in this "awful" job serving the public

One quote about shop assistants from a poster last year, which is partly why i rarely come on here now is "It's hardly a career choice for the educated."

Why do most people do their jobs? Presumably for the same reason I do mine, because someone will pay me to do it.

Of course there are vocations but I think for the vast majority of people a job is a means to an end.

As someone upthread said, you work to live, not live to work.

Some people live to work, although they are usually getting payed shed loads!

yes. i have a degree. i used to be a bank manager. now, i work in a shop doing evenings/late nights because it fits in with the dc and means we need minimal child care.

i'm the mananger of a team of about 20 staff who all do late hours. they are a mixed bunch, some are students, some are mums, some are second jobbers.

a lot of the mums were previously in 'professions' and are now in this job for the hours and i suppose the perks (discount/staff shop etc). they don't need childcare in the holidays, and if their kids are ill they're there for them. also, they're part of a big team so it's easy for them to swap shifts to allow for events/plays/whatever.

with the students i used to have a quantum physicist manning the fitting room and a molecular biologist tidying the shoe department.

with the second jobbers we have people who used to earn high commission, but since the recession they're missing the extra income (think estate agents/car salesmen etc).

it makes for a very interesting bunch of people, but yes, there is a certain assumption from the general public that we are all dullards who know nothing and haven't made anything of ourselves.

Although does anyone else find it patronising and irritating when you read celebs in interviews and they go on about how they love to go to the supermarket to shop and get on the bus and stuff Grr

That's one of the things that makes MN so sociologically interesting, you talk to lots of people and get on with some more than others based purely on personality, and a personality filtered via the tinternet at that. No knowledge of their work/ status etc.

YANBU - and I totally agree with what Tethersend has written. It's a pet hate of mine when it's intimated that if you don't earn much you can't possibly be working hard.

In this day and age, there is very little real choice for many people regarding the jobs they end up in anyway. I am "educated" but am severely restricted by a shedload of various circumstances which mean that my employment "choices" right now are more or less pre-ordained by what fits my situation, as opposed to what I'd ideally like to be doing. Like many people my main objective in finding work is getting paid, and paying bills, rather than job satisfaction, though that's not to say, that as a conscientious person, I wouldn't work damn hard whatever I end up doing. This assumption (by some) that you must be thick and/or lazy (??) to have a "lowly" job is really mean-spirited and is incredibly snobby. Apart from anything, all these jobs (some) people look down on are necessary.

BacktoBasics YANBU, but it's not an attitude I've seen all that much on MN recently.

I think that anyone who looks down on anyone else has basically got insecurity issues of their own.

I went down a very academic and then vocational professional career path that simply did not suit me. Over my working career I've worked in McDonalds, in a shop, as a receptionist, a Healthcare professional and now in a playgroup.

I have enjoyed all these things and taken pride in my work, and in fact I sometimes think the most fun I had was at McDonalds - the camaraderie was great !

I'm really keen for my sons to identify what it is they love to do and to find a way of doing it - either in their work, or by earning enough to enable them to do it as a hobby

This thread makes interesting reading.

On the one hand everyone's agreed that whatever job a person does, it plays an equally valuable and important role in society.

However, on the other, there are some posters on here who are applauding people in 'unprofessional' (for want of a better word) jobs like cleaning and binmen seemingly because they're doing a 'worthy' job with long hours for very little pay, whilst people in 'professional' roles are being villified for being people who -

-live to work
-Sit in meetings planning things
-are stuck on a plane travelling round Europe
-turn their noses up at people doing jobs that involve 'hard work' like cleaning

Isn't this just reverse snobbery?

where I work now there is a divid between proffesional and none profesional. but the profesional forget that the whole place would grind to a halt if the none profesional were not there and the profesional are far to up themselves to do what we do.

Where I used to work the top man was as happy as larry to dothe job of one of the nenial workers - cos he knew that if he didn't everyone would suffer, him worse than anyone else

if everyone went to university we would be a very hungry dirty nation

^Vinomum6 - maybe just redressing the balance ?

I do know what you mean though - I hate it when people talk about people who have been to University having "no common sense".

It is important that university is there to educate people that want to go on and become proffesional, but they will work hard and so will the people that don't go to uni or work there way to the top.

Yes we need doctors - but no point in having a surgeon and a dirty operating theatre

Ivykaty - after I gave up my job as a health professional I worked as a receptionist in another hospital. It was a fascinating insight into the hierarchical nature of hospitals - who talks to who, who socialises with who, and most interestingly, how the public perceive and speak to you.

I made me realise how important it had been to me to have a "professional status".

Many people who go to university will not end up with a 'professional' job. We don't just send people to University in order to prepare them for certain types of job Many graduates are on the receiving end of appalling reverse snobbery when they go into jobs that do not require a degree.

All this slagging off of educated people rarely happened when most graduates were men.

tethersend: i didn't mean that everyone is in their ideal job. i just meant that whatever job you do, you should do your best at it.
and that someone shouldn't be judged on their job.

like the poster who said that she was a waitress because she enjoyed it, not because she was filling in time whilst looking for something else.

every job is important.

by no means do i believe that there is noone wishing that they could do a different job.

I know plenty of people who had to leave school and do apprenticeships, or just get a job because their parents couldn't afford them to stay on at school. Most of them excelled at the job they did, regardless of how far up the line they got. and a couple of them wish that they had had the opportunities to do something else. I also know people who retrained/ went to uni in their 30s in order to do what they'd already done. (and one of them was a mother and had done it because her children had grown-up)

but i don't think any less of the people who stuck with the job they started with. i don't think they missed any opporutnities, because they did the job they had to do in order to help their families and once they had families of their own that was more important than trying to "better" themselves.

any situation can skew the question, but I stand by my statement that no matter what job you do, you should do it your best, so you can be proud of it.

All this slagging off of educated people rarely happened when most graduates were men

this certainly hasn't been my experiance and unfortunatley quite the reverse

Milly R said: "Many people who go to university will not end up with a 'professional' job. We don't just send people to University in order to prepare them for certain types of job Many graduates are on the receiving end of appalling reverse snobbery when they go into jobs that do not require a degree" .....

..... I would be genuinely grateful for any sort of job right now. As I said earlier, my circumstances dictate what I can apply for and I've often been grilled asked at interview why I'm applying for such a job at all given I have a 1st class degree. I'm at the point where I wonder if I should strike it from my CV but will then be left with a 4 year gap to explain as well. I have obviously tried to reassure prospective employers that I won't be off as soon as "something better" comes along and have emphasised that I've applied for the job not only because it's something I think I can do well but also because it's something which fits in with my circumstances and am therefore unlikely to relinquish that in a hurry. Perhaps I've been unlucky but yes, have definitely got the impression that graduates are viewed with suspicion by some employers.

Ivykaty, do you think there is less criticism of graduates now than in the past then?

Am the most educated in my family but probably one of the lower paid and not necessarily content, certainly compared to my father who only did O'Levels yet loves his job or my cousin who left with the bare minimum yet successfully manages a lorry firm. An conferring a degree on someone doesn't mean they have to have an ounce of common sense or practical ability.

On the other hand, dh and some of his cousins certainly recognise the value of being educated, having come from a mining family where you went down pit at 15, yet can see other members of his extended family getting stuck in dead-end jobs and living a Jeremy Vile existence. He doesn't look down on them but doesn't exactly applaud them either.

i've worked in loads of different jobs: some because i loved them, some because i needed a job and couldn't get anything else.

i worked at Burger King when i did my degree. the manager didn't have a degree, but because she worked hard, she got to the status of manager.
i worked at a bookbinders earning £3 an hour. i worked in abookshop (where i got to Senior bookseller), i worked in a lab, i've worked in call centres and as a data entry clerk.

i don't think i'm qualified to comment on everybody i've worked with, but the common theme is that i worked hard at whatever job i was in.

you know the worst attitude i've ever seen? bloke at the job centre who used to be a "shit-shoveller" and as he had been a shit-shoveller for 30 years and that's all he could do, he was adamant that he could never do another job because all he could do was shit-shovelling. he used to shout it out while in the queue waiting to sign on.
wouldn't even consider re-training or any other type of cleaning job.
my point here is that because he couldn't do the job he wanted to do, he was unwilling to do any job.

I think there is less now - though probably because there are far more now than ever before, therefore people are more used to graduates.

Like anyother group of people though some graduates have oddles of common sense and get on with menial tasks, then there are others who can't semms to lift a broom and don't know how to work an oven.

This though is true of all walks of life.

But I have found when groups of men graduates are together they can be very snobish with what they consider to be uneducated persons.

I get what you mean, nickelbabe, although I don't think I agree with you wrt doing any job to the best of your abilities- but that is another thread (and one which was done recently IIRC?)

I just want to combat the slightly dangerous assumption that all workers in menial jobs are either lazy with no aspirations or happy in their chosen vocation.

"the manager didn't have a degree, but because she worked hard, she got to the status of manager."

Because she worked hard and got rewarded. Hard work alone does not guarantee success or promotion.

YANBU. Was having a discussion with a friend of a friend and mentioned I was at uni. She said "I used to work in a university, I was only a cleaner though". Makes you think about the kind of snobbery she's had to deal with. I used to be a cleaner and was a waitress in a cafe for a day but was sacked for being crap at it.

yes, got rewarded: that's true.
i was just trying to add a bit to illustrate the comments about educated people and the reverse snoberry.

and yes, i also agree with your assumption comment.
not all people want to be in the job they're in, many have to be in the job because they have to earn money somehow.

yanbu. as most posters agree - everyone's role is society is important.

it does tick me off though when i see people treat those who work in the service industry like robots because thats snobbery. i don't care how fancy someone is - doesn't make them so special that they have no need to greet the shop assistant and say thank you, say good morning to the street sweeper/postman that they see every day etc etc