An Analysis Of Blue Collar Brilliance By Mike Rose

Most of our society tends to overlook the intelligence it takes to be a “blue-collar” worker. While “white-collar” workers may be perceived as the most intelligent workers in society, “blue-collar” workers make up most of the jobs in our economy and are much more knowledgeable than people tend to believe. Mike Rose, a professor at UCLA, wrote the essay “Blue-Collar Brilliance” to show people that “blue-collar” workers are just as intelligent as others but in their own way. They may not have as much academic experience, but they have hands-on experience, a variety of skills that others may not have, and are always learning and adapting to their jobs.

As a child, Rose would observe his mother, Rosie, as she worked in the restaurant. He would sit in one of the back booths and study everything that the waitresses would do. During his studies, he noticed everyday skills that would be overlooked by the common eye, such as when she would abbreviate order names and areas of the restaurant to help optimize the workflow. Rose describes what he observed from sitting and watching his mother work in the restaurant as “blue-collar” work “demands of both body and brain” to be able to function smoothly in the conditions they work in. While working at the restaurant, he mentioned that his mother “learned to work smart … to make every move count” so she would be efficient with the work she was accomplishing. The experience she gained in the restaurant didn’t just help her with her job, it helped her learn to understand people in a better light. She told Rose, “There isn’t a day that goes by in the restaurant that you don’t learn something.”  With jobs that are physically demanding, workers constantly learn and adapt to the environment, making their jobs easier. From his uncle’s experience in labor-intensive jobs, Joe learned to create routines that were “quick and preserved energy” to survive the demanding environment. Joe once told him working on the shop floor was “like schooling … you’re constantly learning.”

From Rose’s essay, the claim that stood out to me most would be the fact that “blue-collar” workers are considered less intelligent than others just because of “grades in school and numbers on IQ tests.” Both my parents and I are considered “blue-collar” workers and the work we do is critical to the satisfaction of others. My parents work for the United States Postal Service, so they work with all kinds of mail on a day-to-day basis. Hundreds of thousands of letters and packages go through their facility, and without discipline and determination, the mail people get would be delayed or may not even arrive. Many people get bills, money, and all sorts of other things through the mail that they can’t live without, so without the flow and routine they have developed through years of experience, many people’s lives would be very different. Another thing people cannot live without is food, which is what I do. I work in a retirement home, Deepwood Estates, serving the people who can’t serve themselves. While others may be making dinner at home with their families, I am working to potentially make some of our residents that may not have families or loved ones happy and content. 

I believe that my experience growing up with my parents being “blue-collar” workers has been very similar to Rose’s experience with his family. Sometimes, my parents would take me to work with them, since they weren’t able to have someone watch me while they worked, so I would see some of the things they did there. As a child, I wasn’t always able to understand what they did or how it affected others, but I did notice how they would always do their job with precision and detail. They had certain techniques that would help them make their work easier, so they were able to do it more efficiently. Once I was in high school, I started to want to experience the workforce more. I looked for jobs and applied to the ones I thought I would like, and I got hired pretty quickly at a local grocery store. I didn’t think much of it and expected it to be relatively easy until I began working. It took many months for me to gain some experience and be able to learn ways to work quickly without making as many mistakes, but it did take asking for assistance and guidance from co-workers. After I was able to pick up some techniques, I started to notice how some of the skills I had learned from my job helped with everyday tasks. Before I worked a “blue-collar” job, I didn’t realize how much effort goes into creating a thorough and methodical workflow. I do believe that people underestimate the abilities and intelligence it takes to work physical jobs, and until they work those jobs, it’s hard to understand the technique and routine needed for them.

While many “blue-collar” workers are thought of as uneducated or unintelligent from the lack of academic experience, the direct experience they get with working allows them to learn new techniques and skills that will help not only themselves but make other people’s lives easier as well. From the points Rose used in his argument and from personal experience, it takes a different kind of intelligence to be able to handle and succeed with manual labor jobs. My parents working in a physically demanding job most of my life has truly shown me that it takes lots of trial and error to gain experience with a specific job, but once you become more intuitive, there’s so much you can learn from being a “blue-collar” worker.