Dirty Jobs
The TED Talk Learning from dirty jobs, by Mike Rowe, addresses the problem of how people in today’s society have wrongly lessened the importance of dirty jobs.Rowe is a spokesperson for workers and was the host of the show Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. The show portrays the difficult aspect of labor. His argument is to make people understand that ignorance is not justifiable without knowledge. His position in this matter is to portray the idea of the “discoveries that lead to sudden realizations”. Meaning that just because one direction seems more human than the other does not mean it is. Rowe explains this through the example of the castration of a lamb. On an episode of Dirty Jobs he travels to a farm thinking he is going to castrate a lamb by tying a rubber band around the tail and then tying another band around the scrotum region so that over time blood flow will decrease in these areas and eventually the parts will just fall off. However, when he got there the worker performed the castration by using a knife. Rowe was surprised by this inhuman way of approaching the castration of the lamb, but he later learned that the lamb that had been castrated by the knife was in less pain than the lamb that had been castrated in a non-bloody manner. Furthermore he ties this example to peripeteia, which is the sudden change in circumstances. We as a society depict hard labor as the opposite of the American Dream, but Rowe claims that the happiest people he knows are those working in dirty jobs. They are more balanced and open-minded individuals. His theory is basically that people should not look at work as a problem and that people should not find the easiest jobs the most satisfying. We should take responsibility and embrace these dirty jobs instead of putting the responsibility on others. Rowe’s speech is connected to the book Working In The Shadows, by Gabriel Thompson. Thompson also writes about the people that are basically contributing the most to our nations economy, yet they get little or negative attention for it. Thompson goes to Dole Fresh Vegetables Company to apply for the job of lettuce picking, to which the manager says, “Well I can tell you one thing: It’s not easy out there. Every year a few people come in who look like you. They last only two days, sometimes only a few hours. They get out there and realize it’s not for them” (Thompson 5). Just as Mike Rowe goes out and experiences these dirty jobs personally, likewise Thompson has also worked with workers in difficult environments. Both men want to shed light on the jobs that run the nation but get classified as degraded jobs simply because they require distasteful labor. I strongly agree with Rowe’s argument because I think it is important to credit those who put in great amounts of effort in their laborious jobs. Not only do these workers do everything to support their families but they also do the works of those who are to cowardice and ignorant to do them. The message I am taking from this is that the American Dream should not be characterized with the idea that the best way to live is through an easy, good paying job. Instead The American Dream should be associated with those who are responsible enough to do the jobs that are considered degrading in this society. America should be educated about the workers who are the true “backbone of Americas economy” because these are the Americans that have a balanced and grounded life, immigrants or not.