Knowing one's station in life

It seems like manual labor has been stigmatized in the U.S. I've watched some This Old House episodes where they train young people to do construction work and I think in every case, those who completed the program -- male and female -- didn't want to do that kind of work. They wanted to be foremen or contractors, but they didn't want to do the actual manual labor associated with building houses.
 
RambleTamble said:
It seems like manual labor has been stigmatized in the U.S. I've watched some This Old House episodes where they train young people to do construction work and I think in every case, those who completed the program -- male and female -- didn't want to do that kind of work. They wanted to be foremen or contractors, but they didn't want to do the actual manual labor associated with building houses.
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I never minded it. In one summer between 10th and 11th grades one of my carpenter uncles hired me to lower the grade of a lot beside one of his houses. Many truck fulls with just a shovel. I remember distinctly noticing the taste of my own sweat.
 

Wonderful thread! Thank you @Bretrick for starting it. And thank you to everyone else who's contributed to it.

I don't like the concept of station in life. To me it was a concept created by the someone or people in higher stations of like to keep those under them beneath them. I don't know if that's true or not.

All of the various stories and feedback have reinforced a society I'd love to live in but haven't done anything to help us move towards. I would love to live in a society where anyone who is working to their capacity (not everyone can work 40 hours a week) can have a decent place to live, enough food to eat, health care and access to various recreational and cultural activities that are within their budget.

I have lived a fortunate life. My parents were lower middle class when I was born and eventually moved to upper middle class by the time I was finishing high school. We never really had an extravagant life and lived rather frugally most of the time because both of my parents were born during the depression and their early childhood experiences shapes a lot of their values. They were both from lower class or lower middle class backgrounds. Each one of them was the only person from their family to attend college. My father did so after being in the air force on the GI bill and became an electrical engineer. My mother used to work at the Oscar Mayer factory to put herself through college and became a medical technician.

I lived in California for almost the entire time growing up (we moved here when I was 3) and as a result had excellent public schools because this was pre prop 13 and the schools had plenty of money.

My dad would always work on the houses he and my mom bought to increase their value and as a result over the years our living conditions got better and better. In addition my father had a rather unique career path. He got bored with what he was doing and moved from job to job to keep his work life interesting. He started as an electrical engineer working for Bechtel but moved to other jobs over time. He was everything from a truck salesman to the president of a company over his career. He retired as a division head of a major silicon valley company.

We were never wanting for food even though we rarely had anything special. We didn't go out to eat a lot but did so enough that we enjoyed eating at restaurants when we did. We never really had fancy clothing and until I was in high school my mom would buy my clothing at Sears. Most of our cars were the lowest level of new car if we bought one new but most of the time my dad bought used cars. He was a decent mechanic and did a lot of work on our cars. We kept our cars until they wore out throughout my life.

I pretty much always knew that I was going to college and there wasn't any reason to want to do anything different. I enjoyed school and had some career ideas but nothing concrete until I was half way through my first year of university. Since I didn't know what to do I started at junior college Due to pre prop 13 conditions I was able go to junior college for a $15 a semester health fee plus the cost of books and lab fees. I was able to live at home while I went to college and was on a parental scholarship so never had to pay for school.

After four years in junior college I ended up at San Francisco State where the initial tuition was $256 a semester but it went up significantly after prop 13 passed. I lived in the dorms there which was fantastic and more expensive than the tuition.

At first I entered San Francisco State with the intention of getting a math degree and then going into the air force to learn to fly. I already had a private pilot's license that I started in high school on my parent's dime and finished in my first year of junior college. However my first semester as a math major taught me I wasn't cut out to get that degree. I switched to the new computer science degree the offered and finished with that.

I started out as a software engineer and system manager at a small semiconductor equipment company and eventually moved into just software engineering doing programming. I moved exactly every four years for my first three jobs and then ended up spending more than 10 years at a major software company. During that 10 year run I had a little over 2 years in technical support. I loved the work but disliked the management so I moved back into software engineering. I eventually left that company to go into technical support and did that most of the remainder of my career. Unfortunately sometimes due to market conditions and other times due to my lack of desire to "play the corporate game" I experienced a few layoffs.
One of the great things about working in the silicon valley were the stock purchase plans, stock options (that I only got a few times) and profit sharing which increased my salary. My wife and I are comfortable now but certainly not well off or wealthy.

One of the great things about my father is that he had great relationships with almost everyone. One of his favorite people from work was the janitor at one of his companies and we would have dinner with each other's families. We also had dinners with the presidents and CEOs of some of the companies he worked at. I learned by example that a person's worth was who they were not what they did.

My wife worked for a billionaire for several years and as a result we got to experience some of the perks of that sort of wealth. My wife travelled usually in first class to Europe on a regular basis doing things for her employer/client who insisted that my wife live at her level for those trips. On some occasions I was able to go with her or meet her there where I was able to enjoy the perks as well. We also were able to stay at one of their amazing houses several times which was fantastic.

My wife never wanted to enter that level of wealth because of all the negatives she saw with and around the people there. We were able to enjoy the perks without having to deal with the consequences.
 
asp3 said:
Wonderful thread! Thank you @Bretrick for starting it. And thank you to everyone else who's contributed to it.

I don't like the concept of station in life. To me it was a concept created by the someone or people in higher stations of like to keep those under them beneath them. I don't know if that's true or not.

All of the various stories and feedback have reinforced a society I'd love to live in but haven't done anything to help us move towards. I would love to live in a society where anyone who is working to their capacity (not everyone can work 40 hours a week) can have a decent place to live, enough food to eat, health care and access to various recreational and cultural activities that are within their budget.

I have lived a fortunate life. My parents were lower middle class when I was born and eventually moved to upper middle class by the time I was finishing high school. We never really had an extravagant life and lived rather frugally most of the time because both of my parents were born during the depression and their early childhood experiences shapes a lot of their values. They were both from lower class or lower middle class backgrounds. Each one of them was the only person from their family to attend college. My father did so after being in the air force on the GI bill and became an electrical engineer. My mother used to work at the Oscar Mayer factory to put herself through college and became a medical technician.

I lived in California for almost the entire time growing up (we moved here when I was 3) and as a result had excellent public schools because this was pre prop 13 and the schools had plenty of money.

My dad would always work on the houses he and my mom bought to increase their value and as a result over the years our living conditions got better and better. In addition my father had a rather unique career path. He got bored with what he was doing and moved from job to job to keep his work life interesting. He started as an electrical engineer working for Bechtel but moved to other jobs over time. He was everything from a truck salesman to the president of a company over his career. He retired as a division head of a major silicon valley company.

We were never wanting for food even though we rarely had anything special. We didn't go out to eat a lot but did so enough that we enjoyed eating at restaurants when we did. We never really had fancy clothing and until I was in high school my mom would buy my clothing at Sears. Most of our cars were the lowest level of new car if we bought one new but most of the time my dad bought used cars. He was a decent mechanic and did a lot of work on our cars. We kept our cars until they wore out throughout my life.

I pretty much always knew that I was going to college and there wasn't any reason to want to do anything different. I enjoyed school and had some career ideas but nothing concrete until I was half way through my first year of university. Since I didn't know what to do I started at junior college Due to pre prop 13 conditions I was able go to junior college for a $15 a semester health fee plus the cost of books and lab fees. I was able to live at home while I went to college and was on a parental scholarship so never had to pay for school.

After four years in junior college I ended up at San Francisco State where the initial tuition was $256 a semester but it went up significantly after prop 13 passed. I lived in the dorms there which was fantastic and more expensive than the tuition.

At first I entered San Francisco State with the intention of getting a math degree and then going into the air force to learn to fly. I already had a private pilot's license that I started in high school on my parent's dime and finished in my first year of junior college. However my first semester as a math major taught me I wasn't cut out to get that degree. I switched to the new computer science degree the offered and finished with that.

I started out as a software engineer and system manager at a small semiconductor equipment company and eventually moved into just software engineering doing programming. I moved exactly every four years for my first three jobs and then ended up spending more than 10 years at a major software company. During that 10 year run I had a little over 2 years in technical support. I loved the work but disliked the management so I moved back into software engineering. I eventually left that company to go into technical support and did that most of the remainder of my career. Unfortunately sometimes due to market conditions and other times due to my lack of desire to "play the corporate game" I experienced a few layoffs.
One of the great things about working in the silicon valley were the stock purchase plans, stock options (that I only got a few times) and profit sharing which increased my salary. My wife and I are comfortable now but certainly not well off or wealthy.

One of the great things about my father is that he had great relationships with almost everyone. One of his favorite people from work was the janitor at one of his companies and we would have dinner with each other's families. We also had dinners with the presidents and CEOs of some of the companies he worked at. I learned by example that a person's worth was who they were not what they did.

My wife worked for a billionaire for several years and as a result we got to experience some of the perks of that sort of wealth. My wife travelled usually in first class to Europe on a regular basis doing things for her employer/client who insisted that my wife live at her level for those trips. On some occasions I was able to go with her or meet her there where I was able to enjoy the perks as well. We also were able to stay at one of their amazing houses several times which was fantastic.

My wife never wanted to enter that level of wealth because of all the negatives she saw with and around the people there. We were able to enjoy the perks without having to deal with the consequences.
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Thank you for your wonderful contribution to the thread.
I start threads such as this one because I know many of us have a lot to say but do not think about how to get the ball rolling.
As this thread shows, with 80 plus contributions, many members are interested enough and have their own personal experiences they want to share.
 
asp3 said:
I pretty much always knew that I was going to college and there wasn't any reason to want to do anything different. I enjoyed school and had some career ideas but nothing concrete until I was half way through my first year of university. Since I didn't know what to do I started at junior college Due to pre prop 13 conditions I was able go to junior college for a $15 a semester health fee plus the cost of books and lab fees. I was able to live at home while I went to college and was on a parental scholarship so never had to pay for school.

After four years in junior college I ended up at San Francisco State where the initial tuition was $256 a semester but it went up significantly after prop 13 passed. I lived in the dorms there which was fantastic and more expensive than the tuition.

At first I entered San Francisco State with the intention of getting a math degree and then going into the air force to learn to fly. I already had a private pilot's license that I started in high school on my parent's dime and finished in my first year of junior college. However my first semester as a math major taught me I wasn't cut out to get that degree. I switched to the new computer science degree the offered and finished with that.
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Interesting to see those numbers. Like you I always assumed I'd go to college even though neither of my parents did and I started in JC which I thought of as free but the costs would have been minimal. I had assumed I'd go to a Hayward state college after but I had one professor and my wife encourage me to apply to UC Berkeley instead. I just looked it up and the cost in the mid/late 80's was around $800 per semester. Not free but manageable for me at age 30 on what I earned part time doing some carpentry and general repairs at a local psych hospital. Fortunately for me the teen patients really ripped the place up.

My father had been a non commissioned officer in the navy and my mother stayed home with the seven of us so she probably worked harder. Like you I didn't have a definite plan when I started college but near the end I did some vocational testing and everything indicated teaching was for me. Not get-rich money, my first year my salary was only $23,000/year. But my wife who traveled more frequently pursuing her art career was the source of many trips abroad for me too, sometimes at the homes of wealthy collectors.

One thing I learned from rubbing shoulders with collectors and that whole scene is that people I considered wealthy had their own insecurities and probably felt insulated by their wealth in some ways which weren't positive. Of course survival is less on their radar than it was for us but I never felt like my life would be a dream if I could only change places with one of them. What really makes life meaningful isn't wealth, though it is hard to be happy if you have too little.
 
MarkD said:
But too many people seem not to realize you only need enough. You can't take it with you.
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This is true. Unfortunately we can't know what "enough" will be until it's game over.

If DH & I don't end up needing a year or more of 24/7 care, we'll have more than enough.
If one of us does need that kind of care for an extended period, our nest egg will drop precipitously.
 
Bretrick said:
I have never wanted to move above my station.
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I don’t even know what that means. I’m naturally curious, and although the interruptions in my schooling dogged my development, I went to evening classes and lapped up what I could learn. It was like the world opened up to me, and the more I understood, the more opportunities I had. It wasn’t so much ego-expression as being intrigued, and each station along the way taught me something. I certainly discovered that the higher I climbed, the more comfortable it became, but I still felt called to remember where I came from and improve their lot along the way
Bretrick said:
Coming from a blue-collar upbringing I appreciated the values my father's selfless life instilled in me.
I appreciate that many, many people wanted to improve their lot in life. I never had that ambition.
When I studied those who had "moved ahead" what I saw was a hint of falseness, a necessity to fit in, to "better oneself"
Almost as if they were slightly ashamed to come from a working-class background.
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I didn’t feel shame, but I did realise that there were holes in my understanding. When I grew intellectually, I discovered an ability to improve not only my lot, but that of my former colleagues and went about that. I think your framing is to excuse yourself rather than to see falseness in others.
Bretrick said:
No such qualms with me. I am proud to be of working-class stock. To have gotten my hands dirty, to have contributed sweat in an industrialised society.
Maybe my own bias has shaped how I see the world and the classes we are all a part of.
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I am also proud of my origins, and I have always pushed the fact that I was not “better” for having more responsibility, but that I just had a different role. This helped me gain the support of those I was in charge of, and we attacked problems in a cooperative way.
Bretrick said:
Yes, I have looked down on a whole section of society, those "above me", many a time, in my mind I would say of those sitting behind a desk, or a counter, "what you do is not real work."
You do not and have never gotten your hands dirty, you have never sweated or toiled for 10 hours a day, only to collapse from exhaustion when arriving home.
Oh, that sounds a little nasty when I reread it.
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I have never “looked down” on anyone, but that may be because I was a nurse for a while. I have had conflicts, and some were not easily solved, especially the last. When our nursing organisation was bought by a listed company, I was told that my priorities were wrong, and so I decided to leave and retire. Of course, the better qualified you are, the better you can find another job if quitting is the only option
Bretrick said:
But then I am only writing what is inside me. I have no malice to those who strive and have striven to improve their lot in life.
Everyone must do what they see fit to get through life with as little grief as possible.
Yes, my working-class background saw me encounter many pitfalls, almost brought me undone if truth be told.
Would I have wanted an easier life? Sure, but it was never to be. Without the ambition to "move up" I had to make the best of what I had.
Here I am, retired, with no meaningful possessions and debt free.
Life might become a little more trying as I move into my dotage, so be it. It is far too late to change the direction my life's journey has led me because I am not prepared to put in the work required for such an adventure.
What I have written is something that needed to come out. Why not share it with fellow members?
It might engender introspection in some of you.
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It's perfectly normal to want to improve your life, especially if you had limited opportunities when you were younger and can't help your children achieve their goals. I hope that the replies prompt some introspection on your part as well.
 

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