31–40 of 153 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In fact, I think that sometimes, companies consider high pay, a license to humiliate. This is easier to think if you haven't had or don't remember low-wage work.
I used to work for Roy Rogers, when we had to call the customers “Pardner.”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone learns to write in school. A waiting job most can pick up but not all. I couldn't get past serving training. Carrying four plates and keeping them straight takes without spilling is for others.
Everyone writes in school, I assume. Not everyone learns to write well, in fact I suspect that most do not.
Not true unfortunately. You would t believe how many illiterate or near illiterate kids are in high school.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
School actively teaches people to be bad writers.
How so?
Turns out, neither great writing nor mathematics work that way. Both are very hard and require non intuitive leaps of inspiration.
On an unrelated note, that final restaurant job was as a bartender at a cocktail bar frequented by white-collar workers. On a slow day I was asked to wait on a table which I'd never done before. They ordered a red Bordeaux blend; I messed up the bottle service by failing to pour a sample to which the eldest gentlemen in the party retorted "Well I hope I like it!" (despite the initial pour being to check for quality, not preference, but I digress). I made it up to him by providing a few minutes of free IT consulting to the chagrin of the rest of the table and ended up with a beefy tip :o). All's well that ends well, I suppose...
That was excellent! > The life of the American worker is inherently undignified This is true, and even goes for highly-paid, high-status gigs. In fact, I think that sometimes, companies consider high pay, a license to humiliate.
I don't know. I never graduated to waiter, but I worked as a busboy a few times. I have much sympathy for wait staff. My recollection is that the waitresses were always decent to me. Still I don't buy, "I suspect it’s easier to teach a waitress to be a writer than an intellectual to be a waiter." One of my other low-paying jobs was as a copy editor, and I have seen how commonly schools have failed to teach PhDs to be…
I suspect you cannot teach that. I mean, you can whip the cur into following basic rules and avoiding egregious mistakes, but you cannot teach taste.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone learns to write in school. A waiting job most can pick up but not all. I couldn't get past serving training. Carrying four plates and keeping them straight takes without spilling is for others.
Everyone writes in school, I assume. Not everyone learns to write well, in fact I suspect that most do not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so?
Because it prioritizes exercises that are easy for a teacher to mark over exercises that develop real writing skills. Everything is broken down into elementary mechanical tasks and marked with rubrics. Writing is taught as if it were mathematics, that you can just follow a simple algorithm and you are done! Turns out, neither great writing nor mathematics work that way. Both are very hard and require non intuitive le…