Caitlyn Oliva The Blue-Collar Perspective

The meaning of work is very versatile due to ones perception of the term. Work ethic and values can be passed down through generations in a family through memorable messages and experiences shared with one another. In order to make sense of my own beliefs about the working world, I interviewed three generations in my immediate family: my grandfather, father, and my younger sister. As I was conducting the interviews it was interesting to see how the thoughts and values we hold, pertaining to work trickled down through all three generations from the oldest to the youngest. I thought it was necessary to interview my 15 year old sister to see what she thought work meant and what it entailed, given she has no experience. Her ideas on this matter would highlight the memorable messages and ethics we are instilling in her through our work experiences. Overall, the interviews conducted helped me realize what shaped my ideologies about working. Interactions with others at any age help us socialize and adapt to new situational norms. From lecture and class readings it came to my understanding that socialization is, the shaping of individuals, either directly or indirectly, to the norms, roles, expectation, and culture (among others) of a given society(Shenoy-Packer, 2013). There are many components that play a role in ones vocational anticipatory socialization. This specific part of socialization refers to the expectations or beliefs we develop about organizations and communication in particular occupations and in formal and informal work settings, prior to organizational entry(ShenoyPacker, 2013). Vocational anticipatory socialization comes from many aspects in our life such as family, educational experiences, part time employment, peers and friends as well with media. Personally, I believe that what we hear from our family members has the most impact on us, especially from our elders. We tend to respect their viewpoints and advice because they have

Caitlyn Oliva The Blue-Collar Perspective more experience in life than we do. Therefore, the anticipatory socialization we receive from our families has a huge impact on our feelings about the working world. Defining the terms work, job, and career seems like a simple task. Although, on the first day of lecture I found it very difficult to assign one specific meaning behind each term when I was asked to do so. This sparked the curiosity inside of me; I began to wonder how the rest of my classmates would define these terms and more importantly, my family. During the class discussion I noticed answers varied due to the type of households they grew up in, blue-collar or white-collar. My definition of work pertained to doing something physical in order to receive compensation. When I was interviewing my grandfather and father I asked, How do you define the term work? It didnt come to my surprise when both of them had similar responses, about how working contains physical labor in order to receive money or compensation of some sort. Both my grandpa and my dad are blue-collar workers; all they know is performing a task physically as a form of work to receive monetary compensation. Consequently, this is all I knew from growing up with a blue-collar perspective, therefore swaying my definition of the term work. When it came time to decipher the meanings between a job and a career it proved difficult to draw a parallel between the two. I always thought that a job was something you had in order to get by and that pretty much anything would suffice. On the other hand, I always thought a career was something you worked towards and it was more of a permanent occupation. It seems that my grandfather has a similar view because of his following statement, just get any job you can obtain in order to make some money when its needed, you dont necessarily need to enjoy it. He continued to justify that answer by saying jobs arent permanent, you just get one until you find something you like. My father had a similar viewpoint. As mentioned before I also interviewed my 15-year-old sister, in order to get a perspective of a generation that has not

Caitlyn Oliva The Blue-Collar Perspective entered the work force yet. Kelseys definitions of the terms were quite similar to mine. Especially when I compared our definitions for career, she stated that in order to get a career you had to plan for it and that its when you aspire to achieve more than just working there for a short amount of time. I believe our answers are so close to each other because we both are presented the opportunity of a college education in order to pursue a career we love. In this aspect I think we are starting to shift away from our older generations ideologies about the necessity of just getting any job until we learn to like it or find something we like because they were not presented the opportunity of a higher education. Figuring out how my family and myself defined those terms it started to help me put reasoning behind my hopes and dreams for my future career and working experience. Because we all thought a career was a more permanent thing and that it deals with something you love doing made me understand why I longed for one so bad, instead of just several jobs for the rest of my life. I asked a few questions to my older generational interviewees (my grandpa and my dad) pertaining what they hoped their children would experience when they entered the working world. My grandfathers response really struck a chord with me, We (your grandmother and I) wanted our kids and you grandkids to do well in school, so you can have a better opportunity in life than we did, if youre not prepared enough from your schooling you wont be able to find a job you really love. My dad also said he wants us, my siblings and I, to grow up and find a job that will make us happy doing everyday for the majority of our lives. I always knew that my family wanted me to better myself and go off to college and get a career, that is my main driving force behind finishing my degree and becoming successful. Although, I was curious to see if my little sister Kelsey felt the same way about what was expected of us. Her perspective on attending college and getting a career was very interesting, she stated the following you grow

Caitlyn Oliva The Blue-Collar Perspective up around people and you want to stay at the same level as them, status and career wise, people always want to be better or equal to their families. Kelseys response opened my eyes to how I deem myself successful, I want to keep up to par with my family and have them think Im successful by locking down a career that I love, because thats what they have. A constant theme in the interview with each family member was happiness. As I was growing up I remember hearing, Find a job you love and it will feel like you never worked a day in your life. This strongly impacted me in college when it came to choosing a major. I decided to switch majors, with only a year left in school because ultimately science was not making me happy anymore. When I was making this decision I thought about the values my family instilled in me, and that was happiness trumps all. This is also known as a memorable message, Memorable messages are ones that are vividly remembered and believed to have had a large impact on how we behave, the attitudes we hold, and the decisions we make or anticipate making in the future (Shenoy-Packer 2013). After reflecting upon the memorable messages that influenced me on making decisions about my college and career life made me wonder if any of them were passed down through generations in our family. Significantly enough my father said that he was always told to do something he loved, as well as my grandfather. After realizing this theme of happiness in the memorable messages passed down through generations in our family it made me question if anyone is following that guideline. This brought me to asking them the question, Are you happy with where you are now with your career/work? I was surprised to find that I had differing answers, because they are always telling me not to settle with a job right out of college and to hold out for something I love. My dad said that he was very happy with his line of work and that he wouldnt trade it for any other job in the world. Although, my grandfather had a very differing answer to my dads. He said, Well, thankfully retirement is

Caitlyn Oliva The Blue-Collar Perspective soon approaching because Im over working. I liked it in the beginning, because I was making new things with my hands, but after I got assigned to a new division in the company, sorting through rejected pipe I hated it its been about 35 years since I was reassigned. This saddened me and angered me all at the same time. He is continuously pushing me to find a career I love and to settle for nothing less but he did the exact opposite. This made me realize the importance of what they were saying about finding something that I love to do because they have experience of both ends of the spectrum, where as I do not. This makes me realize why I hold their values and opinions to such a high standard. I also asked my sister, Given the memorable messages we received growing up, do you think that happiness plays a part in deeming you successful in the working life? I think her answer reflected perfectly what was drilled into our minds about finding happiness in working, happiness is everything, youll be more motivated to do better and achieve more when you are doing something you love. Motivation and work ethic were also an apparent undertone in a lot of the responses to the questions I presented my family members. In order to achieve more in life you have to work hard, I always had this mind set that nothing comes easy. With that being said, I believe I do have a strong work ethic. As I was growing up my dad was always a hard worker and he did whatever he had to do to get a job done and provide for our family, whether it be work long hours or travel 6 months at a time for jobs, all the while he never complained about doing any of this. This has driven me to have a strong work ethic and motivates me to give a 100% no matter the task I am performing. I asked my dad where his work ethic derived from, he said that I grew up with nothing, I knew if I wanted to get anywhere in life I had to work hard to achieve it. I find this trait really admirable and I try to emulate it any chance that I get. My grandfather and dad agreed that family drives your work ethic, because you need to provide for

Caitlyn Oliva The Blue-Collar Perspective them and yourself. When Kelsey answered this question it wasnt surprising that her answer was that, you need to work hard now so it prevents you from complaining or worrying about not having enough money in the future. It seems that we all have this idea that having a strong work ethic and motivation is key when it comes to being successful in the work place and providing for the family. Through exploring how as a family we define working and careers helped me understand why I have my own wants and desires for when I enter the work force. The interviews I conducted helped guide my thoughts for what is important when it comes to choosing a career path. It is apparent that I absorbed many ideologies about the work force through the older generations in my family. It is apparent that we are continuing to pass them on to the younger generations, such as my sister Kelsey. We are continuously socializing each other for new experiences we encounter, who knows maybe this is the transition from the blue-collar perspective to the white-collar perspective given the work ethic and desires my family has instilled in me and the younger generations that have yet entered the working world.

Caitlyn Oliva The Blue-Collar Perspective Works Cited K. Oliva. (personal communication, April 20, 2013) M. Oliva. (personal communication, April 20, 2013) R. Lynch. (personal communication, April 19, 2013) Shenoy-Packer, S. (2013, April). Socialization and Memorable Messages. Lecture conducted from DePaul University, Chicago, IL.