Nobody wants to work hard anymore, lamented the tenured professor sitting in his cushy leather chair after teaching almost the entirety of his 50 minute class session.
He was waiting for his bagel, and the delivery driver was a whole fifteen minutes late — oooh, the nerve. The professor was fatigued and hungry after pacing the front of the classroom pensively, dispensing profound knowledge to the next generation. It was so very tiring.
After all, the professor had a busy day ahead of him. Before going home, he had to prepare for a second course and attend a one-hour committee meeting. It would be a hectic day — almost three hours of commitments, plus, of course, office hours watching Youtube videos when no students bother to show up.
Such is life in the salt mines of higher education.
I have worked in higher education for most of my adult life. I’ve done it all-Advisor, Dean, Chief Academic Officer, and even a brief stint as Vice President of Academic Affairs. However, mainly, I have taught in the humanities departments of small and large state colleges and for-profit institutions. I know higher education.
I noticed the people most often complaining about Americans’ pathetic work habits often are those who would never get caught dead swinging a hammer, delivering packages, working a warehouse job, or doing any physical labor which may cause them to break a sweat.
Time for a Change
I decided I didn’t want to be one of those pretentious academic types any longer, even though my career has almost entirely been inside the walls of higher education.
Many people thought I had lost my mind when I started working part-time as a package handler in a UPS warehouse. After telling people I was going to work at UPS in the warehouse, I got a whole of, “you are going to do what?!?” I probably even said those exact words to myself a little bit.
Here are three things I have learned. Surely there are different work environments, and every job has a culture and a group of individuals. Still, these are my takeaways at my warehouse after working in an office for decades.
Blue Collar Workers Have Little Time or Patience for Nonsense
Affluence is a blessing and a curse at the same time. On the one hand, we live a life of relative safety and comfort in America. On the other hand, material and physical comfort inside air-conditioned offices provide an opportunity for high-minded people with lots of time to sit around and complain, justify, rant, and worry about, well, just about everything.
In the warehouse, I rarely noticed time or words wasted over media fear-mongering on woke politics (either for or against), environmental apocalypse scenarios, back-biting silly gossip, or political demagoguery. Nobody gets twisted up in verbal pretzels catastrophizing over every little thing that hits the news cycle or life in general.
People who work for a living laugh at the doomsaying silliness that goes on in the media and the internet.
It was refreshing. I showed up to work. I worked. Then I went home. No drama. No BS. Those that want to bitch and complain are ignored by most.
Office Workers are Soft
Yeah, I said it. Office workers have no idea what hard work is all about. I don’t say this condescendingly, as I am a guy who spent most of his adult life as a university professor. And I let myself get soft as a marshmallow. But to my chair-born warriors, let’s be honest. An 8-hour day in an office is a cakewalk compared to a shift on the warehouse floor. It isn’t even close.
If you don’t believe me. Try it. I dare you.
I don’t know how often I have seen office workers spend 25 minutes at the water cooler or a colleague’s desk lamenting how they have no time to finish their work by a specific deadline. And the gossip or politicking, oh my, I don’t miss that garbage even a little bit.
On the warehouse floor, talk is cheap, and work is required all day, whether you feel like it or not. We have no chairs, offices, safe places, or meditation rooms. Nobody cares about your complaints, your feelings, or your excuses. Sure, people complain, but at the end of the day, at best, the reward for a dissertation on how things suck is usually a shrug of the shoulder and a wry smile signifying ah well.
Then it’s back to work.
There is Unity in Hard Work
Media drones on incessantly about how racist and divided the country has become. Sure, that exists. However, I can tell you on the warehouse floor, I have yet to witness it even once.
On the warehouse floor in a diverse state like Florida, there are Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Whites, and immigrants from almost every corner of the globe. I have seen them all. But nobody cares about how much melanin is in your skin or where you were birthed.
On the warehouse floor, it’s a meritocracy of the purest order-get stuff done and get respect. Don’t get work done and get minimized. There is very little for a DEI Director, Manager, or Administrator to do on the warehouse floor.
In the warehouse, you either finish your assigned task or don’t. I found it incredibly refreshing to avoid the mental gymnastics, excuses, and justifications seen for, well, just about everything in office roles for not accomplishing a task.
There is none of that on the warehouse floor. There is no time for such things at UPS. Boxes must move from point A to point B in X minutes. When we get it done, we succeed. When we don’t, we fail.
Being physically pushed to the limit is a good thing.
I won’t lie. There were many days of pain and soreness, starting at 1:30 a.m. during the peak holiday season or 3:30 to 4:30 a.m. the rest of the year isn’t for everyone.
Yet, my body adjusted, muscle grew, fat disappeared, and mentally, I got tougher doing physically demanding work. Growth of this type doesn’t exist in the modern world of cubicle jockeys and keyboard grinders in white-collar jobs.
In conclusion…
At first, I wanted to do it for about four months to say I did it. I live my life that way, trying stuff out. Yet, I’m still at UPS, and I also still teach college part-time.
A part of me will always study, read, write, and podcast on the humanities. It is ingrained in me. It’s all the other office and politically stupid stuff in higher education that I can do without more and more the older I get.
I may be in the 1%, or heck, the only humanities professor in America for all I know, grinding out a 100% physical job slinging packages in a warehouse ranging from 1 to 130 pounds while walking about 6+ miles daily.
Regardless, my appreciation, gratitude, and understanding are exceptionally high for those doing physical, blue-collar work. In many ways, I now enjoy this lifestyle more than some of the intellectual silliness and absurdity I see in higher education.
Working in a warehouse has restored my faith that not all of America has lost its mind.
Not all of America is physically and emotionally weak.
Not all Americans are entitled children.
Not all Americans are as divided as we read all over the media, Twitter, and blogosphere.
So the next time you want to complain about “those lazy workers,” grab a hammer, get on the warehouse floor, or join a construction crew. “those blue-collar employers” are always hiring.
You might learn more outside the air-conditioned cubicle about yourself and this country than you ever imagined sipping coffee, scrolling social media feeds, letting your inner keyboard warrior fire off mean tweets, reading scholarly books, listening to the press, or eating donuts in the office, etc., etc., etc.
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Nice job David!