And Society Continues to Change

I feel like the same ideas were running through both the articles "Value-Free" by John B. Judis and "The Creative Class" by Richard Florida. Both discuss society, how it is changing, and how it effects the common person. This seems to be the trend in the reading for the past week or so. The concept of Taylorism was brought up in the Judis reading, where the employees are directed to say only specific things. This allows the employers to closley moniter their working and guest satisfaction.

In the Florida reading, a new class, the Creative Class, was discussed. According to Judis this class is being created by "sifts in values, norms, and attitudes" (Florida 36). The members of this class are creative and intelligent. They value individuality, diversity and openness. This class is being created do to the changing vaules of society. They are blending past ideas with new ones and keeping our society moving forward.

I feel like many people in my generation would be part of this new Creative Class, because we have many new innovative ideas and grew up in the age of technology. I have seen many people with strong opinions at younger ages, and being much more determined to accomplish things. It would appear that this class is full of people who want to make a change in the world. They have strong ambitions, focus more on the good then on the money, and want to make a difference. That is something that more of the world should be involved in!

STRESSED!!

I related most with the article "High-Tech Stress" by Jeremy Rifkin where he discussed how so many workers, especially those in countries like Japan, the employees in factories are facing terrible conditions. They are being forced to make products much more quickly so the companies can make more money. Devices are being designed to put pressure on the workers to spend less time assembling parts, talking to customers, or taking orders at fast food restaurants. Workers will start experiencing "burn out" where they have worked so hard for so long they become chronically fatigued and have to take off work. I feel like there should be limitations on working so that they body is not so worn down from work. Situations like that can take years off of a life, or even be the cause of death. So many more work place injuries or deaths could occur because the employees are exhausted and not able to concentrate as much.

Part of my work experience for the past few years can attest to this. There was constant pressure on us to make the burritos a certain size so we don't loose money and to be able to make them in under a minute, while still being friendly with the customers. On a slow day we would even be timed, and they would only keep the fastest employees on the line. The other workers were to be in the back making food or working the cash register. It is incredibly draining, and my situation wasn't nearly as bad as those in factories across the world.

Why can't you remember to say 'Thank You'?

When reading these two articles: "Scripted Talk" by Adria Scharf and "On the Front Lines of the Service Sector" by Stuart Tannock, I was pretty sure it was written about my life. Many of the things that were said became reminiscent of the memoir that I just wrote.

In "Scripted Talk" Scharf discussed how each business has a specific way that the employees are to communicate with the customers (mostly those who worked in businesses like fast food). When I worked at the water park making burritos, we were to ask how the customer was doing, if they were having fun at the park, and then take their order. When working register is was necessary to say "Thank You" when they left. If you wanted to add a "have a nice day" or something at the end, that was fine, but "Thank You" must be said. In the mornings we would have meeting and the managers would always bring up that we aren't thanking the customers, and it really shouldn't be difficult to remember. We also had secret shoppers, who were discussed in those morning meeting too. The managers told us what to look for in a secret shopper so we could try and spot them, like how they ask a lot of questions and look around the stand more then a normal customer would. Scharf was right in all that she wrote. The fast-food industry is designed to have specific conversations with customers to sound polite, but not waste anytime in taking their money.

The article "On the Front Lines of the Service Sector" by Stuart Tannock, it was discussed that the jobs in fast-food and grocery are high stress, low status, and low wages. This is SO true! Customers will yell at you and tell you that you are too slow, when working a job like that is a huge juggling act. All of those jobs are so much more complicated then it looks like from the outsiders perspective.

I know from working in a business like that for two years, I have a lot more respect for those working in any restaurant or food industry.

Can what happened over 100 years ago really be the cause of problems today?

When reading the article "Technology Versus African Americans" by Anthoney Walton part of me couldn't help but become agraviated. The piece opens up talking about a man who has started a business that design and constructs web sites and how this business is well suited for African Americans. I found that to be great and how they adressed it being a good thing for high school aged students to get involved in. However, I found it agraviating when the author started explaining why it is so hard for African American's to advance in the society.

A good chunk in the middle of the article was devoted to talking about the past of African Americans, and how they have delt with slavery and difficulties for the past 400 years. This however, made it feel like more of and excuse that "Blacks make up 13 percent of the population i htis country, yet in 1995 they earned a shockinly low 1.8% of the Ph.D.s conferred in computer science, 2.1% of those in engineering, 1.5% in the physical sciences, and 0.6% in mathematices" (103). He also makes sure to state that "blacks have traditionally been poorly educated-look at the crisis in urban public schools- ad deprived of the sorts of opportunities that create the vision mecessary for technological ambition" (102). I sit here and question why it is just the black people of the urban communities that are deprived of the good education. There are many white people and those of various other races that live in areas like that also, where they might not recieve the best education and will also suffer from it. There is another passage in the article that also sounds like exuses are being made: "Poor whites, non-black Hispanics, and Asians were not dragged from their native lands to work as slaves and then buffeted for hundres of years by the vagaries of technology and an ecomony that they did not control" (99). These all seem to be an excuse to me as to why they have not been able to advance as far as some of them could have wished. This may seem to be awful, but it was hundreds of years ago and the world has advanced so much since the time of slavery. Although there is still discrimination, and unfortunaly always will be, it can't be an excuse for how the the black community is advance in 2009, almost 2010.

Although there were some excelent points made, and I agree with portions of the article, the tone of how it was written doesn't appeal to me.

Different Worlds

I found the most interesting part of this essay, Getting Close to the Machine by Ellen Ullman, to be how different the writer thought from everyone else. Not going to lie, I was rather confused for the first few pages of this essay. They way the author talking in the language of her field, I just didn't understand it. I knew what was going on for the most part, that they were creating a system for filing information about people with AIDS, but the detail of what they were doing flew over my head. However, when Ullman sat down with the actually people to discuss it, was when the essay got interesting. She had to keep slowing down her thought process in order to communicate with the users. Her mind worked on a more

technical level, while everyone else in the room worked on a more socially aware level.

This is kind of like comparing different areas of work, or even just majors when in college. We are all learning different things and can talk in different "languages" depending on what discourse community we are in. We operate in different ways and speak differently on if we are with those in our major compared to our roommates which can be compared to student activities that we participate in.

Just Add Water Kennedys by Polyestra

Write an essay about the American dream and "class jumping." How are the two interrelated? What is class jumping, according to Polyestra? Do you agree with Polyestra that this strategy for success is seldom successful in America? If you know of a family or person who has "jumped class" or obtained the American dream, discuss the strategies that were helpful in the "ascent."

Polyestra describes the way her parents saw the American Dream as "Two out of millions who erased themselves for the homogeneity of TV-inspired blandness, smiling into cereal commercials like adoring fans" (165). The stratagy for class jumping was to put it on your children to help propel you forward. Polyestra's parents were supposed to become rich to ensure a nice retirment for their parents, and when they had children it became their job. Her parents enrolled her and her sister in a private school for as long as they could afford it, in dance classes to teach them how to be "proper" and trying to push them into a class where they didn't belong. Even when they did come into money where her father was doing well at work, they tried to buy their way into the upper middle class, where they clearly didn't fit in. This is clearly not the best way to try and jump classes, by waiting for your children to make it big. Most people don't make it out of the class they were born into anyway. I believe I learned in sociology this morning that only 2% manage to clearly break that invisible barrier.

In a way you could say that my parents jumped classes. They were from the working class growing up. The city they lived in was know to be rich, but they lived in the poorer area of it, jokingly referred to as the "golden ghetto." My mom was one of 4 kids, and they often ate bread and soup for dinner because it was the cheapest and they couldn't afford much else. My dad grew up 3 streets away, where it was along the same lines, although there were only 2 children in his family.

Now, we live in Dublin, also know to be a rather rich city. My dad has a very successful job and looking at our lifestyle, I would say that he managed to break through to a different class. My mother married into it, but my father knew that is what he wanted. He found ways to work himself through college and has advanced in every career that he has had. Most of this comes from his hard work and determination, which he has continued to teach my brothers and I. It is possible to change the direction of your life.