What I learned from blue collar workers!

I grew up in a white collar home.  My mom was the daughter of a wealthy doctor.  There were no blue collar uncles or aunts.  I took this type of work for granted for most of my life.  In my family you were to grow up and go to college. I always thought that was the "hardest path".  Today I have two master's degree's, but a whole new appreciation for blue collar professions, the unions, and construction. Follow me over the fold to read observations from a white collar girl marrying into a blue collar world.

Here's some stuff I didn't know about:

1. The pride and inside knowlege that these guys have from having worked in these construction sites is amazing. My husband helped build the aquarium and the rain forest at our local zoo,  he worked at the union pacific train station, he has helped build countless buildings around town.  It is very cool to learn about the insides of all these buildings. A drive around town is always accompanied by stories about this building or that.

2. It takes intelligence. My husband is every bit as smart as any of my graduate friends. But he has a different type of intelligence. He amazes me when he listens to a car and tells me what is wrong, or when he solders a wire on the mother board of our furnace at 3:00 a.m on a 30 below night and gets our heat running again. My father and brother are useless when the car breaks down or when the furnace dies.

3. Office dudes would never tolerate the physical discomfort that these guys go through. I try to picture my white collar sibs living and working in the conditions that my husband does.  It would never happen. My husband has worked in 110 degree heat, and 30 below windchills.  He has done this sometimes day after day and week after week.  He carries huge things up tall ladders.  And yes, it keeps him in pretty good shape.  He does not "bike" or "jog" or go to the "gym".  He gets his work out from his job.

3. He has to keep up a license and pass tests and read books. Just like the guys in college.  He has to renew his license every two years and maintain ceu's just like I do for my counseling license. It costs money to take the tests, the classes and to keep up the continuing education.

4. He doesn't talk like a college grad. He talks like a "construction worker" whatever that means.  Blue collar workers are not dumb, they have their own language. Likely you would know what he does by his cadence, his english, his sentence structure and his loose use of cuss words. Yes, many construction workers cuss. But it doesn't hurt anyone.

5. When all 4 of my kids were toddlers not one of them had a problem with "cussing". Each of them tried it once or twice. I never washed any one's mouth out with soap and none of my kids ever got in trouble at school for cussing. They just knew it was "dad's" language and they weren't to use those words. It didn't make "bad kids" that he cussed in their presence.

6. Blue collar work is dangerous. It's dangerous because of exposure to industrial pollution, the use of big and dangerous tools, falling debris, climbing over piles of stuff, mistakes made by colleagues and contractors, and climbing...lots of climbing.

7. Unions have positives and negatives but when my husband worked non union, he had no disability insurance, no health insurance (as an electrician...for god's sake), the non union shops did not offer life insurance, or retirement funds. They often did not follow safety standards as closely. I learned that the unions keep every one's wages at a standard.  And the union wages are a good 8-10$ above non union. I appreciate the unions and understand that without them, safety standards would be less important, wages would go down and licenses would be unnecessary.

I have learned alot from my blue collar husband and your post just really reminded me of all the things my relationship with my husband has taught me. Now when I see those guys on the side of the interstate holding a flag, or the guys on a sight climbing ladders on a hot day, I think "thank you".

So thanks for all the guys in blue...some of us do realize how hard you work, how you risk your life, safety and health (just like the firemen, and the police officers) and that some of you die in the line of duty.  Thank you...you are the ones who have built america...and the talents and skills you have given live on in your work for hundreds of years. To the builders of the infrastructure--to the ones that Bushco see's as disposable...some of us know better.