I was sitting in the smoking lounge this morning, drinking my first coffee of the day – I’m actually a tea-drinker, but that is another story – and chatting to a few of the company’s drivers. One of my team, a recently graduated management trainee, was also in the lounge with some other colleagues. She came to my office with a query a little while after we had finished our coffee break and, in conversation, asked me why I had chosen to sit with ‘those drivers,’ rather than her and the others of the team; ‘They speak such awful Russian, you are learning bad words.’
Apart from the fact that I like to be able to speak ‘street’ language when appropriate, I pointed out to her that ‘those drivers,’ are likely to know more about what is actually going on in the company than a great many of the managers. They drive the movers and shakers of the company, they hear their conversations and their phone calls, and, all in all, they are good sources for a security manager to cultivate. (Taxi drivers are other good sources.)
What was interesting about the remark, to me, anyway, was the social attitude it seemed to reveal. The same attitude is often apparent in other societies. Sometimes, the people who do the vital, but less attractive work in our society are, somehow, looked down upon by those who do ‘less demeaning’ work – gay and lesbian outreach workers, children’s play facilitators, carbon reduction consultants, equal opportunities facilitator, european commissioners, and the like.
In my view, it is instructive to consider the effect upon our daily life of say, a bin-men’s strike as compared to a strike by gay and lesbian outreach workers. The latter might be much better paid than the former, and might look down upon them for that reason – or others, but it might be considered that their contribution to our general social environment may not justify such snobbery.
Worse than that, there is a line where snobbery becomes transmuted into social darwinism. The view is formed that the opinions, values and capabilities of the ‘lower classes’ are, somehow, of less value than those of others and that the former must, ‘for their own good,’ conform to whatever fashion dictates is the current value – be it in health, nutrition, social attitude, or whatever the opinon-forming classes decide. This requires that the broad masses must be regulated and that such regulation must be inspected, measured and analysed. In turn, this means that inspectorates must be established, inspectors employed to inspect and bureaucrats employed to measure the results.
Once established, such bureaucracies are then required to justify their existence, so more things that require regulation, inspection and analysis are proposed, more inspectors and bureaucrats of ever-increasing gravity and self-importance are required and…..
And all of this because of snobbery. It’s easy to avoid. All you have to do is remember that there is no ‘they’ only ‘we.’ The chief ills of our societies are not, as many of the superstitious would have it, to be laid at the door of atheist, libertarian, egalitarian and practical people, but at the feet of the superstitious, the centralists and the bigotted, hand-wringing, breast beating chatterati who pontificate and worse, legislate on the basis of what they perceive should be, rather than what is.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Wow, where should I start? No, I’ll just point out that the victims of such snobbery are of course equally capable of bigoted attitudes towards those whom you describe as doing ‘less demeaning work’. Some call that inverted snobbery. ‘Who TF do they think they are?’, etc.
Start wherever you like 🙂
It may also partly be to do with ‘comfort zones’- you are at ease in the company of the men who do the work, she may feel uncomfortable in their company, as a ‘recently graduated (female) management trainee.’
Relating this to my work when in hospitals, I wouldn’t generally go and join a group of ward cleaners for coffee break – nothing to do with my level of valuing the work they do, but just feeling I may not be wanted.
Chuckle – yes, I agree with you Bravo, in the main, part of my job was often better done by socialising with the Tech Sergeant rather than the Flight Lieutenant or Squadron Leader in charge of the installation. Your trainee will soon learn – or else be less ineffective at her job than she might be.
Pseu, it can sometimes be easier for a female to mix between social strata. An apparent bubble-head can extract information that her male colleagues would never hear.
But it’s ‘orses for course, innit? 😀
Pseu. In the line of work she’s chosen, she has to get used to it. She was just an example of an attitude that is more or less wide-spread in many societies.
Bearsy. My other female MT, is, tall, blonde, blue-eyed – and incredibly bright. Your second point applies in spades.
Snobbery is a two way street. Those who avoid their ‘superiors’ are as guilty as those who reject their ‘inferiors’. Successful, intelligent and educated people are often more interesting to others who share those attributes. I am not sure that I would find your stereotypical Sun reader particularly stimulating company. He may be the salt of the earth and a damn loyal and generous friend, but if all he is going to talk about is Page 3 and football, I would imagine that we would bore each other to distraction. By the same token I am not sure I would want to hang around with a bunch of academics who discussed Nietzsche all day or the latest EU regulations on ‘Lesbians in the Community’. Generally speaking we seek to associate with people with whom we feel comfortable but who are also capable of providing intellectual stimulation. There is nothing wrong with your choice of associates and there is nothing wrong with hers. Of course, I would imagine that most bureaucrats of the type you discuss are far less interesting than some of the drivers, so I would probably be inclined, like you, to sit with the latter.
One of the reasons bureaucrats hate farmers is that they can’t be categorised.
They do all the filthy jobs up to their whatsits in muck, but own the business and generally have sufficient money to buy the bureaucrat out of their small change!
And dress like tramps.
And their answer is to attempt to destroy them. the UK is more like Zimbabwe in that respect. The government want agribusiness that they can control, not farmers doing their own thing.
One of my very best friends once bought me a pair of ear rings for a Christmas present. Bless his heart, he spent all of £25.00 and was like a dog with two tails that he had actually been brave enough to go into a jewelers in Lampeter and buy something for a woman, a first in his life. He used to buy all his work shirts from a travelling Paki for £3.00 a piece just like his farmhands. Shall we say parsimony came naturally to him? This guy used to keep a quarter of a million in his checking account ‘Just in case he needed to write a cheque’! and had more farms than you could shake a stick at! Most bureaucrats and liberal PC types would have run screaming just from the look/smell of him and with such he pretended not to speak English, a marvellous technique for keeping the PC well meaning fastidious at bay. (He did scrub up reasonably on occasion and was educated at boarding school, one of the best in Wales)
Interestingly in the local pub, even the Welsh, with their sense of ‘Werin’ (folk egalitarianism) separate themselves into social classes. One long bar. but all the farm owners and business owners of the community one end and the workers at the other. However full the bar, the workers would never have sat in those seats reserved for the bosses. Curious.
And as for your ‘superstitious, the centralists and the bigotted, hand-wringing, breast beating chatterati who pontificate and worse, legislate on the basis of what they perceive should be, rather than what is.’
they are to be avoided like the plague!
God preserve me from PCitis!
Not that I think I am in any danger of being infected.
I too like my friends from all walks of life, I get bored by too many of the same type. Long live eclecticism!
There is a very old joke that I wont repeat other than to say that although the brain may consider itself the superior organ in the body, if the *rse ever went on strike every other function in the body would soon shut down. We all have a part to play in the real world and the silly cow that made the remark about drivers should reflect that without the sh*t shovellers of this world she would soon be knee deep in the the stuff she spouts.
OMG: well said. I don’t know how to fix my car, for example so I’m more than happy to have someone else do the job.
I agree with you about social Darwinism though, Bravo, but I don’t think you will ever eliminate the “us and them” mentality. There are many forms of snobbery, but your young lady seems to be suffering at least two; social and intellectual.
Comfort zones are all very well, but I agree with Tina; very boring, and I certainly don’t choose the company I keep with any reference to their politics, income or social standing. They are a mixed bunch, and all the more interesting for that. That said, I don’t think I’d find the company of my car mechanic very stimulating, but then we don’t have a social relationship, so who knows?
Bravo – Good blog.
By ‘gay and lesbian outreach workers’ I assume you mean BA flight attendants?
While I disagree with the Darwinian epitaph, it is a matter of concern than any segment of society should inure itself in selective discrimination, as much as it might be subconscious as opposed to a wilful and deliberate act. Only in a society of social equality can you diffuse such notions by instead treating people to see everyone as a human being whatever their status or job title. Where is harder to achieve is where there is most to lose, in those circles of social elitism that feel they are justifiably superior to those who would, given a change of circumstance be happy to adapt their thinking to egalitarian views, assuming the resentment hasn’t damaged them in the process.
Everyone has a value given the right circumstances and encouragement, it is all about motivators and drivers and empowerment. Treat people as decently and as equals, treat them as you would wish to be treated and never ask anyone to do anything you’d not be prepared to do yourself – those are my ethics. It does wonders for your relationships with a diverse spectrum of people, but it will never eradicate the inevitable ignoramus, bigot or bone-headed, self-interested, pompous or twee.
I was so enraged to hear that for an annual staff party, free alcohol would be served only at the top table, (at which I was expected to sit) that I joined a table of a dozen or so of our company’s messengers, and made sure they were kept supplied with as much alcohol as they chose to drink. The response I received from the region’s MD when I had asked why alcohol was not being supplied to the 200 or so non-top-table staff, was that they would “just get drunk”. I had always had a suspicion that this was partly why annual staff parties were held, but somehow resisted the urge to respond to the prat, other than by abandoning my seat and joining the happy rabble…the prat was eventually replaced by someone with a keener grasp of how to do these things properly.
Well done CWJ!
Good on yer, CWJ.