Class Consciousness and Self-Sufficiency in Society

In the early years of my life I became very class conscious, in that I was aware of my position in society, through observing materialistic markers amongst my peers (Brym and Lie 2012). My class consciousness led to my belief of being self-sufficient in social structures like wealth and education. In order to attain wealth, I asked my brother to help me get a job at Canadian Tire because he worked there. The experience of getting the job, from the interview three years ago up until now, have allowed me to analyze life from a functionalist’s perspective.
At the interview, I was asked several questions relating to cars to test my knowledge and to see if was suitable for the job. I had gotten every question wrong and still managed to get it. This

A social structure can be defined as stable patterns of human interactions and behaviours (Innocente 2015). Canadian tire possesses these characteristics because their employees go to work and commit to hands on labour for the common goal of earning income. I asked my brother for a job in order to have a source of income, which illustrates the manifest function or the intended effect from a social structure (Brym and Lie 2012). The reason why I and countless others are in the workforce, is for the clear and intended purpose of earning money. In addition to earning money, other unintended benefits, such as skills and knowledge are attained by simply being in the workforce. This is known as the latent function, which is the unintended effect from a social structure (Brym and Lie 2012). Although I go to work to earn money, I unconsciously increase my cultural capital, which is the set of social skills that individuals possess (Brym and Lie 2012). This makes me an efficient worker through interactions with coworkers and customers, consequently widening my social network, which is a set of individuals who are linked together by the trade of information and material (Brym and Lie 2012). A widened social network has made it possible to attain new and higher positions in