The Philosophy of Mike Rowe - Dirty Jobs

One of you essays were right when you said there are so jobs where mechanical labor just cannot be replaced.

I give anyone who busts their ass and works for a living to provide for their family credit, whether it's working in a cube farm or delivering pizza. It's the people who are out there looking for "easy" money that piss me off.

I think another thing that he's trying to make as a point is that one of the messages we are ALWAYS being told is that we are not happy unless we are at home, at lesure.

IE- we are not supposed to be happy at work.

Wheras the people he meets are clearly very, very happy at work. Especially the ones who are not doing thier dream job.

Which I can totally relate to, especially WRT this board. Most of you know I work in the auto industry, but, sadly, a lot of my hobbies, which are car related, are suffering. On top of that, I find myself incredibly jaded by new and concept cars, rarely reading the magazines that I used to love so much.

It's interesting how management oversight can do that to you....

Eric

DirtyBird222 wrote: wow way to make a cool thread turn into a discussion of who's got the bigger intellectual kielbasa.

That's what happens to pretty much every cool thread in Off Topic.

alfadriver wrote: we are not supposed to be happy at work. Wheras the people he meets are clearly very, very happy at work. Especially the ones who are not doing thier dream job.

I concur with this 100%.. There is that message that sometimes you should be happy with what you got, cause... we all know..

Now I will also say that the self employed folks on that show should be lauded for their ability to find an underserved market, develop a plan to provide a service and then carve out a niche. Most of those businesses profiled on the program are fairly recession proof... It's really cool to see. Studying some of them and how they chose their business etc would be a wonderful education

alfadriver wrote: Which I can totally relate to, especially WRT this board. Most of you know I work in the auto industry, but, sadly, a lot of my hobbies, which are car related, are suffering. On top of that, I find myself incredibly jaded by new and concept cars, rarely reading the magazines that I used to love so much.

I whole heartedly agree again. I worked in the food industry then went back to automotive because I loved it so much. Now.. I'm losing interest.... Sometimes making your hobby your job doesn't work out.

alfadriver wrote: On top of that, I find myself incredibly jaded by new and concept cars, rarely reading the magazines that I used to love so much.

I gave that up years ago. I used to read Car and Driver, Road and Track, etc. I became really tired of reading about Porsche's new ride that I may never own. Most certainly couldn't at the time. Those cars might as well have been made on the moon. Then I found a car mag that spoke to me and my desire for cool cars that didn't cost too much.

I also realized that I don't need to go into debt to achieve my goals of driving really fast cars. Those magazines sell consumerism more than cars. The idea that you must spend more than you make to achieve automotive contentment. Hell, even the Top Gear guys say that driving crap is as much fun, if not MORE fun, than driving the latest car made from unobtainimum.

Back on topic...

I finally got a chance to watch the whole video. Really, really cool. My Dad is an Electrician. I work on computers. I tell him all the time that what I do requires the same mindset as his job. Methodical problem solving.

To Rowe's point - I agree that we've over-valued some jobs and under-value others. We revere guys that run corporations so much that we can't even see firing them even when they run those corporations in the ground. Case in point - Bank managers. How many of those guys have you heard about losing their jobs?

I respect any guy who can work a job, pay his bills, raise a family on his skills. Guys who can make stuff, tangible things...they have my admiration.