In Ocejo\u2019s work, he discusses the rise of the creative class and how their new objective in the workforce is to not find jobs that pay the highest salary with the most benefits, but rather jobs that give meaning to their work. Ocejo specifically looks at jobs like bartenders, butchers, and barbers and tries to understand why these professions were chosen by the creative class and what meaning they provide to their lives. A majority of these individuals who have chosen these service level jobs are well-educated and have degrees from many colleges and universities. Some had previously worked in the \u201cdesk job\u201d life for big corporations and quit soon after starting. \u00a0These corporation jobs, although providing monetary comfort, did not fulfill meaning of work in the creative class individuals. As discussed in class, many believe that these workers are over qualified for these service level jobs, but also who is to say whether or not someone has the education to be overqualified for a job.<\/p>\n
While Ocejo never explicitly says that the higher educated individuals are more likely to get the service level jobs, it is quite easy to assume that owners of these businesses are looking to cater to a very specific type of consumer: the wealthy. These upscale bars, and farm to table butchers are bringing niche businesses into these growing hipster neighbor hoods and their consumers all seem to fit the same mold. Business owners know what type of consumer their businesses are attracting and want to hire staff that will better represent the ideals of the business. For example, an upscale bar in New York will higher the bartender with higher social capital of ending an elite college because they bring a sense of class and sophistication with them. Ocejo mentions that \u201cThe people who fill backstage roles [in these bars] , who have limited if any interactions with customers and clients, are mainly ethnic and racial minorities without advanced degrees or outward interest in the cultural repertoires of the work\u201d (155). These educated workers in these service level jobs have a degree of privilege that their coworkers in the back are not fortunate of. For many of these creative class workers, they left their corporate jobs and high pay to become service level workers, but with no responsibility or expenses following them. The privilege that these workers have to choose to leave a higher paying job to work in a job with more meaning is an opportunity taken for granted. Unlike these privilege creative class workers, many who are working in these same businesses, but in the back, do not have the same opportunity to be able to choose a career that offers them the most meaning in life. Many are trying to support themselves and their families and are happy finding work wherever that may be.<\/p>\n
Being in the generation of the creative class it interests me why these individuals feel the need to work these service level jobs. It seems quite unnecessary for these individuals to pursue a four-year college education to work a job that needed no formal education at all, only time and practice in the craft. Perhaps many of these workers felt pressured by their parents or their high schools to pursue a higher education when all along they knew a formal workplace was not for them. I could also see it as a resistance identity of those leaving college and not wanting to follow the expected path from their alma maters. A school like Bowdoin College markets itself in having the best network of alumni to help with careers after graduation, but the focus of these careers is in the business\/corporate sector. Would Bowdoin ever boast about their alumni working in these service level jobs like they do about those working in finance or pursuing medical schools. It is to my belief they would not because we still are living in a culture that prides itself on success of people by the amount of money they make and their monetary wealth, not necessarily their emotional wealth or happiness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Ocejo\u2019s work, he discusses the rise of the creative class and how their new objective in the workforce is to not find jobs that pay the highest salary with the most benefits, but rather jobs that give meaning to their work. Ocejo specifically looks at jobs like bartenders, butchers, and barbers and tries to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":515,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities-and-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/515"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}