Employment and Dating Elitism

I have never understood the stigma associated with certain jobs: pink collar, blue collar, white collar, greasy collar, or no collar, whatever! Nor do I understand why certain men in powerful positions believe they deserve something special from the women they deign to date.

I have worked at so many different jobs and found much of interest in them. I've served hot dogs to college students, taught first-year University students, worked with elementary students with mental and/or physical handicaps, and taught intellectually elite students who were being trained in a special classroom where the average student IQ far outstripped mine. My IQ is nothing shabby, but let me tell you, some of those students were totally brilliant. They had a unique way of thinking and creatively solving problems.

I have known professors at the University who would not survive if you put them downtown in a large city and told them to get back to the University. That is a simple task for most, but they wouldn't know how to find their way back without building some nuclear machine to get them there! LOL! And they'd take years to do that much because they'd be arguing over the philosophy of whether they SHOULD be going back there or not. Sorry, I don't mean to be picking on professors! I'm just saying that IQ and life experience do not always equate with what one does for work. Some of the most interesting people I've met don't have University degrees; they have life degrees!

The elitist attitude starts very young. I remember at one point that because of a business failure, my husband and I needed to find an alternative way to earn money to make ends meet. So, we drove taxicab: his parents doing such a lowly job mortified my second son. He thought it was beneath our station in life. We told him that it didn't matter what work you do: you go to work every day with a smile on your face, ready to do your best work, be the best you can be at that job, earn your pay, and then go home with pride. My husband and I were known as the best-dressed, best-mannered cab drivers that company had. Management didn't want us to leave when we found other employment, because everyone asked for our cab when they called. My husband continued looking for other employment because he’d been trained in sales and much preferred the hours and type of work in that industry. Cab-driving for was a good short-term solution for us. However, I’d be hard-pressed to recommend that job to anyone now: aside from the long, lonely hours of driving and hoping for that elusive good fare, cabbies are targets of all kinds of horrific violence. Conditions were somewhat safer for cabbies back in the mid-80's, and we did the best job we could while working for the cab company.

We took ALL calls, even the ones where you had to put wheelchairs into the trunk of the cab after literally lifting the person into the cab; then taking the chair out and lifting the person back into the chair at their destination. Those calls always took extra time and did not mean extra tips because they were for people who didn't have extra money. But we took those calls even though other cabbies would flag them off. We believed you take everything: good, difficult and otherwise. We were the best we could be every day. That was the lesson we taught our sons with that job. It was hard work as the cab was never off the road: it was hard on our marriage, and hard on the children because we never had family time anymore. They only had one parent at a time, but at least our bills were being paid and we weren't on welfare. We were able-bodied people doing honest work to provide for our family.

Interestingly enough, afterwards two of my sons worked full-time for a few years in the food service industry as busboys, dishwashers, waiters and further up that food chain so to speak. In fact, my second son worked his way up to the position of General Manager at a very early age, starting on the lowest rung of the totem pole, working part-time before he was 16 years old. Now, tell me, did he learn something or not from his parents working as cab drivers? I think so: no job is beneath anyone if it is approached with the right attitude. Those who work in the food service industry work long, hard hours, with little free time for family.

So, where does employment elitism stem from? Watch how waiters are portrayed in movies or on TV. Look how different careers are portrayed in the general media. Certain jobs are made to appear glamorous or adventurous, upper crust and all. Give me a break. We are all worker drones making money to pay the bills we incur to live. Don't fool me that because you work in some big company with a title and huge office that you're better than I am. I have confidence in who I am, regardless of what work I do for pay.

I hear of some women, every bit as bright as anyone, being made to feel they‘ve received some special boon from the men they are dating. Trust me, those men are trying to impress themselves that they are doing her a favour by taking her out. It's almost as though they're throwbacks to the days where men with big bucks got pretty women because they could afford to marry them and keep them happy.

Too funny! But, also, too sad. I was hoping men were no longer measuring themselves according to those old yardsticks in the dating game: that whoever has the most money and power deserves to win some special award. I guess that cultural idea IS still prevalent with both sexes at all ages, but WELL, I'd hoped for something so much different in the next generation . . .