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TheWarOnWork 8 - 13 Apr 2010 - Main.DavidGoldin
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| | I'm a UAW kid. For that reason I'm sure it isn't coincidental that Mike Rowe, host of the television show Dirty Jobs, has always been a source of constant fascination for me. In case you're unfamiliar with the show, each episode of Dirty Jobs documents Mike Rowe spending one day doing some socially integral job that we, despite having reaped the efforts of the workers, have probably never ever considered. It's fascinating if you have any interest in learning how exterminators kill rats or how old mattresses are disposed of, but there's probably sufficient entertainment value to be found in watching Rowe inseminate sheep or fall in pig shit even if you couldn't care less about the industrial foundations that make "civilized life possible for the rest of us," in the words of the show's introduction. It depends on your entertainment goals I suppose.
After reading the first few chapters of Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class, I definitely was reminded of Mike Rowe, but I started thinking less about what he taught me about how the Golden Gate Bridge gets painted and more about his opinions regarding societal attitudes about industrial work. I think that Mr Rowe, having spent thousands of hours actually performing over 250 different jobs, is in a fairly unique position to comment. | | | “Undercover Boss” fulfills a meeker yearning: if only the sultan or the czar (or, in Soviet times, Comrade Stalin) knew how bad things really were, surely he would intercede and make them better. Many employees prefer to believe that their superiors are well meaning, just misinformed, because it leaves open the possibility of redress. Any worker dreams that good work, once noticed, will not go unrewarded. And the conceit is just as gratifying to those who identify with the top: employers, like kings, gaze into a reflection that glows with compassion and largesse.
StephenSevero - 12 Apr 2010 | |
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I read this article in October 2007. I couldn't help remembering it less than a year later, in September 2008 when Lehman fell. For those who don't have the chance to look at it, it is a profile of Dick Fuld, the man at the head of Lehman Brothers when it collapsed. Both the title of the article ("The Survivor") and the tone of the article seem to venerate Mr. Fuld, despite the fact that even the article's writer acknowledges the many risky steps Lehman was taking and the fact that Mr. Fuld was not a particularly nice person to work with.
I mention this because I thought Stephen's post was particularly on point. We, as a society, venerate our CEOs. We tend to give people like Blankenship and Dick Fuld the benefit of the doubt, despite the gravity of their wrongs. And when things truly do fall apart, they drop from our consciousness pretty quickly. Until Amanda mentioned him, I had never heard of Blankenship and I certainly haven't seen very many profiles of Dick Fuld in the Times lately.
-- DavidGoldin - 13 Apr 2010 |
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