OpEdNews - Diary: "Working" Studs' Way

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September 5, 2009 at 16:33:43 Permalink
Promoted to Headline (H2) on 9/6/09:
"Working" Studs' Way

Diary Entry by Margaret Bassett (about the author)

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How will one determine how to both enjoy work and be rewarded enough to take care of family needs? Think about it! Better yet. Write some stories about work and read those which others write.

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The professor, tasked with teaching a bunch of graduate students how to understand the nomenclature of jobs (as defined by the Department of Labor), chose to assign us Studs Terkel's latest book "Working" published in 1974. (Of course we had a textbook about the US DOT (directory of trades, as I best remember).

In a class of mainly Chicago public school teachers, hankering for promotion, we studied vocational guidance. I was on a different path, never having been certified to teach, yet able to instruct post highschool students in the programming and operation of computers.

When the topic for our semester paper was announced, I felt I had landed in a bowl of cherries. Like most of those in Chicago, I was entranced by Studs' work of interviewing folks about the subject he chose. I can still hear the drone of his voice reading the results of his earlier work on public radio--a voice so soothing that I considered him an old friend.

Our assignment: Take two persons from the book on "Working" and develop an analysis of the two occupations. I chose waitressing and public school teaching, only because I was familiar with both jobs. It happened that the characters representing the work had a way of showing how meaningful they considered their work to be. My angle was that the one nurtured the body and the other, the mind."Creative!" she said.

Creative is what work is. We make something or fix something. To help someone or to sell someone a thing of value. All work--labor, if you will--must have a meaning, at least to the one who pays your check and most likely to the ones who receive some benefit from what you do.

On Labor Day (September 7, 2009) there is a certain portent caused by an economic catastrophe which has many scrambling just to be able to put food on the table. At the keyboard, itchy fingers are at the ready to explain which phenomenon takes precedent. Are we having a "jobless recovery?" Do the Labor Unions need to assert their rightful place in helping the jobless? Should government be more aggressive in promoting meaningful work? And, sorry to say, is it possible that there are just not enough jobs which can pay a living wage?

Through it all comes Studs' voice. He, born in 1912, would have been college age when FDR was inaugurated. Even with a legal education, how did he see what lay ahead? It's for sure no employment agency was there to help him find a paying position in freelance journalism, dependent on the technology of radio.

Of course, for those who do repetitive tasks in highly organized businesses, a labor union can be a person's best friend to offset the overpowering strength of corporate employers. However, having a union card is really only a way of being connected to yet another organization.

How will one determine how to both enjoy work and be rewarded enough to take care of family needs?

Think about it! Better yet. Write some stories about work and read those which others write.

Margaret Bassett--OEN editor--is an 87-year old, currently living in senior housing, with a lifelong interest in political conumbra. Bachelors from State University of Iowa (1944) and Masters from Roosevelt University (1975) help to unravel (more...)

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