White collar work Vs Blue collar work

[mad_scientist]

What exactly is it that distinguishes those who are able to gain white collar work to those who are unable to, and are forced to be engaged in blue collar work instead?

[pavelcherepan]

33 minutes ago, mad_scientist said:

What exactly is it that distinguishes those who are able to gain white collar work to those who are unable to, and are forced to be engaged in blue collar work instead?

You are speaking like blue collar work is something bad. It isn't.

[LaurieAG]

Probably because they are professionals who tell people what they need to hear as opposed to what they want to hear, from where I come from anyway.

[tuco]

Exactly? Education. Now what exactly is it that distinguishes those who gain education to those who don't? Many factors.

Edited March 10, 2018 by tuco

[Alex_Krycek]

11 hours ago, mad_scientist said:

What exactly is it that distinguishes those who are able to gain white collar work to those who are unable to, and are forced to be engaged in blue collar work instead?

• Access to Educational Opportunities
• Willingness to Pursue those Opportunities

 

[Ten oz]

5 hours ago, mad_scientist said:

What exactly is it that distinguishes those who are able to gain white collar work to those who are unable to, and are forced to be engaged in blue collar work instead?

Can you provide your definition of elaborate on your view of White Collar and Blue Collar? I think there are many jobs in STEM that pay very well, require high levels of education, and don't easily fit into the White or Blue category. Also many factors go into why people choose one career over another: pay, geography, hours, commute, work conditions, family tradition, work satisfaction, etc. I don't see it as an able vs unable paradigm.

 

[iNow]

5 hours ago, mad_scientist said:

What exactly is it that distinguishes those who are able to gain white collar work to those who are unable to, and are forced to be engaged in blue collar work instead?

Circumstance

Preference

Random arbitrary other variables

[Alex_Krycek]

12 hours ago, pavelcherepan said:

You are speaking like blue collar work is something bad. It isn't.

If it limits an individual's potential then I would argue that it is a negative thing.  For example, if a person is forced to be a janitor because they never had the chance to pursue their education because of financial reasons, and they have the ability to become a great scientist, engineer, teacher, inventor, etc then that is a societal ill. 

[Phi for All]

9 hours ago, mad_scientist said:

What exactly is it that distinguishes those who are able to gain white collar work to those who are unable to, and are forced to be engaged in blue collar work instead?

In my ideal society, education would be provided to all and paid for with taxes. If you're a blue collar worker, it would be because you chose it, you wanted it, not because you were forced to by lack of knowledge or adverse circumstance. And a blue collar job should provide a good living without having to work two of them. 

5 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Can you provide your definition of elaborate on your view of White Collar and Blue Collar? I think there are many jobs in STEM that pay very well, require high levels of education, and don't easily fit into the White or Blue category. Also many factors go into why people choose one career over another: pay, geography, hours, commute, work conditions, family tradition, work satisfaction, etc. I don't see it as an able vs unable paradigm.

If you're on the crew of a small moving company with three trucks and six employees, you're considered blue collar. What if you're the owner of the company, who is still part of the working six person crew, are you a white collar worker now? 

[Ten oz]

3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

If you're on the crew of a small moving company with three trucks and six employees, you're considered blue collar. What if you're the owner of the company, who is still part of the working six person crew, are you a white collar worker now? 

My understanding is that white collar typically is anything in finance, administration, Human Resources, and etc which do not involve labor while blue collar is anything that involves labor. That broad definition doesn't really speak to pay, education, competitiveness, or anything specific enough for me to take delve too deeply into the OP's question.. Design Engineers for example make great money, have high levels of education in numerous engineering fields (aerospace, electrical, civil, etc), yet still often put on hard hats and turn wrenches. Asking a GE wind turbine engineer who makes 3 figures what's holding them back from white collar work would be silly in my opinion. So I assume the OP has a specific salary, experience, education, or etc starting level or range in mind. Not all labor is low pay and unskilled just as not all office work is high paying and highly skilled. There is highly skilled labor and lowly skilled office staff.

[CharonY]

4 hours ago, Phi for All said:

In my ideal society, education would be provided to all and paid for with taxes. If you're a blue collar worker, it would be because you chose it, you wanted it, not because you were forced to by lack of knowledge or adverse circumstance.

Financing is only one aspect. The other is societal. A number of countries in Europe offer high quality tax-financed education. However, the associated social mobility varies a lot. In Germany, for example, access to higher education and social mobility was barely higher than in the UK and worse than Canada, both countries with significant tuition fees.

Reasons include structural elements (the school system, for example), societal inequalities and associated class-consciousness. I am certain, there are more.

[pavelcherepan]

9 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

For example, if a person is forced to be a janitor because they never had the chance to pursue their education because of financial reasons, and they have the ability to become a great scientist, engineer, teacher, inventor, etc then that is a societal ill. 

I think you and I have different understanding of what a blue collar worker is. You seem to imply that it's mostly some sort of unskilled labor while in fact a lot of blue collar professions require just as expensive and long education as a white collar jobs. Take mechanical/electrical/mining engineering, geology (that's me), processing engineering and whole bunch of other highly skilled professions that are considered "blue collar".

[naitche]

The O.p  can be read ;  What ability exactly defines a person able to gain White collar work,  from a Blue collar worker dissatisfied with that position.

Exactly nothing. The Working environment is a single unit. Those parts are so far,  interdependent. The value is subjective. Any number of conditions can direct a person to the area they will contribute. But nothing exact in a shared environment. It depends on subjective conditions.

What exactly defines a person who is able to gain Blue Collar work from those who are unable to and forced to engage in White Collar work instead?

Assigning interdependent but opposing values  won't work without demonstrating opposition to the lesser valued. 

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by naitche

[arc]

18 hours ago, mad_scientist said:

What exactly is it that distinguishes those who are able to gain white collar work to those who are unable to, and are forced to be engaged in blue collar work instead?

   I would counter that question with; What would make someone who is a low level white collar worker (an office worker among many in a vast cubicle work station environment for example) accept a title only promotion to "assistant manager" that entails additional responsibilities and work hours without substantive compensation? 

   I personally believe many young white collar workers are taken advantage of in this regard. They are naive and optimistic believing they are going to be lucky in life or that they have something special that the other workers don't. (Why else would they be picked for this and the others weren't?) There is also a long history of movies and books that have given a fairy tale version of such promotions. The movies; "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" or "Working Girl" are just two examples of the many more that reinforce this idea of a fast and easy rise to the top or at least somewhere up there. 

   What I have seen in my interaction with people in many white collar positions is they misjudge the quantity of available positions and their chance of obtaining one of them, they imagine a corporate pyramid to rise up in but in most smaller companies it looks very flat with an absolute minimum of tiers, many just three levels, with those few in the middle desperately vying for the one spot at the top by putting in long hours without proper compensation themselves. I know of a restaurant manager that put in 25 years starting at the age of 20 in hopes of getting one of just a few middle manager positions that reported directly to the chains owner. At the age of 45 he realized he was passed by because those positions were now being filled from outside the company. He had been with the company almost from the beginning and was the only one of the original group that was still there hanging onto that illusion. All other first tier managers at that point were all under 30, most under 25. 

  

   

[Ten oz]

13 hours ago, pavelcherepan said:

I think you and I have different understanding of what a blue collar worker is. You seem to imply that it's mostly some sort of unskilled labor while in fact a lot of blue collar professions require just as expensive and long education as a white collar jobs. Take mechanical/electrical/mining engineering, geology (that's me), processing engineering and whole bunch of other highly skilled professions that are considered "blue collar".

Exactly, the OP isn't clear with what they mean. Many people would prefer to be a mechanical engineer over a comptroller.