Getting Schooled

     Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.
-Colossians 3:23
     I’m back, and I’m better than ever!  I’m sorry, I can’t avoid the inside wrestling plug, it’s in my veins.  I just had to blog today, but I couldn’t find direction.  I’ve got wrestling on the brain, but I get that out of my system on facebook.  Sidenote: go to the group facebook pro wrestling fans for a good discussion on pro wrestling.  I managed to dig a topic out of the depths of my brains which I had previously committed myself to blogging about but had gotten sidetracked before doing so (surprise, surprise.)  So without further ado, I give you my unholy fury!
     The first job I ever had was in the summer of 2001 as a caddy.  You worked your ass off and if you didn’t, you left on your own.  The next job I had was working in a car shop.  This is another job that taught me the value of good, hard work.  My boss never fired anyone from there because they all pulled at least some weight (He actually did fire a couple of people once, only because his top guy quit and he needed more budget space.)  I held that job from the fall of 2003 to the summer of 2006.  In all those years I have never heard one of my bosses complain extensively about employees’ work ethic.  Near the end of my high school career I started to pay a little more attention to current events.  I have since, especially in the immigration debate, heard many complaints about work ethic and the quality of work.  I heard one small business owner talk about the work ethic of students and of immigrants.  He called students lazy and unmotivated, while praising the immigrants’ work ethic.  I have since heard this argument many times and heard many, deserved and undeserved, attacks on the caliber of students’ work ethic.  This summer I started a job at Subway that gave me a few new insights on the subject.
     First off, I’ll talk about the immigrants.  Keep in mind that we are generalizing.  Generalizations, while not always correct, are not completely unfounded.  Generalizing, making vague assumptions based on experience or popular opinion is not a heinous crime while stereotyping, making long lasting impressions, opinions, or habits based on generalizations, can be extremely derogatory.  Thinking a student might be a bad worker, generalization.  Not hiring that worker because you think all students are lazy, stereotype.  Now I have grown up around immigrants.  My Uncle owned a landscaping company for years and, true to the stereotype, employed a lot of Mexicans.  Most of them were damn hard workers.  My Uncle appreciated the work they did for them and to this day wouldn’t hesitate to help them out.  In my first job as caddy I worked with a lot of Mexicans and they were some of the toughest workers I’ve ever met.  My fellow mechanic and top worker at the shop was Hispanic and he put more work into that shop than my boss ever deserved to get out of him.  I work with a Mexican currently, and she is a hard worker.  Not much with customers, and not the best on punctuality, but a damn good worker.  That being said, there is a valid point that I feel has not been made, these people do this for a living.  I don’t want to come off as arrogant, but it’s going to happen anyways.  A lot of these people either came over or had parents who did.  They don’t have the best start in life, they can only hope to give their children a better chance than they had.  They have a choice between low income jobs with no imaginable success for themselves and a small chance of success for their children in the U.S., or widespread poverty and social injustice in Mexico.  Natural born citizens, frankly, don’t have to face that choice.  Most of us are born into relative privilege and can get by without extensive effort.
     Now I’m not saying we should disregard the immigrant population.  I have felt that the native population has grown ignorant of their plight and afraid to lose their safety buffer, but that’s a topic for a different time.  I’ve worked with a wide variety of students, from high school to college, and seen a varying spectrum of work ethic.  I’ve seen students who bust ass and get no recognition, ones who kiss ass and get a ton of recognition, ones who take a casual approach, and ones who are dedicated to a career.  Ironically, I haven’t seen a student get rewarded for busting ass, but have seen one rewarded for kissing ass.  I’ve heard a million complaints about students not working hard, and to a certain extent it’s true.  Most students have been at least partially removed from their job.  They don’t treat it with a huge deal of concern, but I think there’s a perfectly good reason for this: THEY’RE IN FUCKING SCHOOL!  They have better things to do than focus on some minimum wage job, they’re trying to train for bigger and better things.  If there is one complaint I have about my current job, and believe me there are many more than just one, it’s that they expect their employees to treat it like a career.  They expect employees to be on call 24/7.  They expect them to work every free hour that they have.  They expect them to be working without a real break for eight or more hours at a time.  I wouldn’t have had a problem with this while at my job at the car shop, but there was one difference: THAT WAS A CAREER!  I want to make a suicide/death pact with my fellow employees in the event that any one of us is still employed at Subway five years down the line.  This is not a career; this is a way to get by.  The thing that kills me is how tight these people are.  They will overwork an employee as much as possible, but as soon as that employee hits the 39 hour mark, that’s it.  God forbid you’d pay a hard working employee time and a half.  They will even have employees work at two separate stores.  Because it’s different payrolls, an employee could work well over 40 hours in reality and still be getting paid minimum wage.  They do this and expect employees to give the proverbial 110%.  On top of all that, in the event that you do tolerate this and contribute greatly to the business, you will always still be second to some ass kisser who the boss likes more.  I have heard the, “students can’t work,” argument from my boss and it kills me.  Her students work ten times harder than those not under instruction and they get no recognition.  Not to mention the fact that students have to juggle their schedule with classes and homework, and the fact that little to no regard is given to personal time at my place of work.  If this is any indication of how the rest of the nation treats its students, then it’s no wonder why this country seems to be on a direct route to shit creek with paddles heaved over 10 miles back to cut down on weight.