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Blue and White Collar Jobs – Currents and Undercurrents

by Gary Davies - 11/23/2011

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You probably have a stable job already. But if made to choose just for the sake of discussion, which is better for you, blue collar jobs or white collar jobs?

Do you notice how people prefer white collar jobs over blue collar jobs? Or is it really preference? We have been raised in an age where the basic educational system points to the direction of landing onto a white collar job. Pre-school, grade school and up to secondary school curricula are that of feeding the mind with basic knowledge on language, mathematics (or arithmetic), humanities, the arts, written and spoken prose and poetry. It slowly moves into the practical aspects of life as the "kid" steps higher on the educational ladder. Exposure to the hard facts of practical education is reinforced when we reach collegiate school when we decide which course to take defining our future careers.

To the serious thinker, college education is supposed to determine the job we will enjoy and excel in. But real-life job market has a different view. It has pre-determined assignments for the academically mass produced graduates. Somehow, this job market rule tends to defy and stifle expectations of the graduate. The new graduate loses some points in terms of pleasure in landing onto what has been imagined as the ideal job.

The workplace is another story. Viewing it as an outsider, detached but purposively objective in analytical research, do you notice how the big bosses who are the most highly-paid officers are doing white collar jobs, and the blue collar jobs are given to the least "educated" personnel like the janitor or the maintenance personnel paid the lowest in the salaries-and-wages scale? The supervisors of the blue collar jobbers are hybrids that do both blue and white collar jobs due to the nature of their employment. Note that their salaries are at the mid-range. What message does this convey? It becomes a psychological workplace environment fact that loudly and clearly states that blue collar is lesser or lower than white collar in stature and value.

This is probably the reason why, even if blue collar employment is a subconscious dream job, the average employee chooses a white collar employment because of the "prestige" it offers over his subconscious blue collar dream job where he would have derived internal gratification and fulfilment in life.

It is unfortunate, though, that people no longer have the chance and time to seriously think of his true happiness in terms of employment and career. The average person just flows with the "current".

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