Summary Of Blue Collar Brilliance By Mike Rose

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Mike Rose describes his first-hand experience of blue collar workers in his monograph “Blue Collar Brilliance”. Patiently, he observed the cooks and waitresses whilst he waited for his mother’s shift to end. He noticed how his mother called out abbreviated orders, tag tables and so on. Mike Rose describes how his mother, Rosie, took orders whilst holding cups of coffee and removed plates in motion. Rose observed how her mother and other waiters worked and concluded that blue collar work “demands both body and brain” (Rose 274). He describes that Rosie devised memory strategies and knew whether an order was being delayed. She was assiduous in sequencing and clustering her tasks and solved any technical or human problem simultaneously. Managing …show more content…

After describing his multi-talented and skilled uncle, Joe, Rose strives to provide generalised argumentation about how blue-collars apply knowledge, skills, and efficiency to their workspace. Mathematical and Verbal skills, Rose suggests, is applied regularly by blue-collars. In addition, Rose describes the academic education of his family over generations; remarking that only he finished high school and went to university. Later, he became a faculty member in a school of education after completing his graduate degree in education and cognitive psychology. Rose claims, “we also often ignore the experience of everyday work in administrative deliberations and policymaking” Contrary to Rose’s experience, I have observed the arduousness of white-collar workers. As a research assistant, I have observed the intricacies of white-collar work. I worked under a Professor Pratt, who was a doctorate in chemistry; his work encompassed …show more content…

He claims to relate his mother’s quick and effective decisions, customer interactions, memorisation and problem solving, and his uncle, Joe’s, learning, planning and management skills to that of a white-collar worker. “Preposterous”, some might argue. “You cannot possibly compare waiters and conductors with boffins.” However, the dichotomy between the blue-collars and white-collars are subtle. Regardless of Rose’s claim that blue-collar workers are more efficient and carry a broader skill set, there exists no comparison between the two categories. Granted, the social biases about one’s occupation are irrational; however, blue-collars cannot substitute white-collar workers merely because of their “diverse intelligence”. Given Rose’s experiences, he has colluded blue-collar intelligence with white-collar intelligence. Id Est, he believes that social discrimination against blue-collar workers is fallacious from his observations; thus, their skills are the analogous to white-collar workers. In sum, blue-collar workers are intelligent and important in their respective and applicable fields, and white-collars in theirs’; drawing comparisons between them are like comparing apples and

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