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That’s one of the things that’s really characteristic of working-class jobs. I think much more so than more intellectually complicated abstract jobs You one of the things you you have to be You have to be a good person to be around to do well at a working-class job Because the jobs themselves are quite difficult. They’re physically strenuous. They’re demanding and The payoff for that in part is that it can be the camaraderie that Emerges as a consequence of the shared enterprise and that can make those jobs extremely worthwhile You can make very very good friends in a in a in a working-class environment And it’s also very frequently the case that those working-class environments are characterized by an extremely high level of Sophisticated humor is that they run on like derisive play and it’s one of the things I really liked about the restaurants people are always playing tricks on each other and making jokes and you know and and and have Having a kind of dark fun and everyone was participating in that and it was certainly the case I had a lot of working-class jobs from the time I was 14 till the time I was about 25 I would say and it was definitely the case that that ethos of harsh play When I worked at this railway crew in northern Saskatchewan in the summer one year and I Was a what the hell they call it a peanut pounder. I think that was my job. I had to I had this thing that looked like a lead tin can on the end of a stick and the I followed this machine that went down the tracks and laid down the plates that rails fit in and There’d be a hole that was drilled into the plate and then These things called peanuts held the plate in place so that someone come along and then spike the plate into place and The guy in front of me would drop this little wooden Dowel kind of looked like a peanut hence the name into the hole to hold the plate solid and I would whack it with this Lead can on the end of a stick and that’s what I did all day was just this for like 16 hours out in the hot sun and I did that for months and it was an interesting place to To begin working at I write about this a bit in in Beyond Order. I believe it’s in Beyond Order because there was an initiation ceremony that went along with the with the with the job so when I first showed up at the on the crew No one was particularly friendly it was all men and there were rough guys like a lot of them were native guys from from Cree Cree Indian guys from Saskatchewan a lot of them had been in prison. They were rough guys and they weren’t that friendly if you were new and They gave you a rough time. So everybody who came on board and the crew got a stupid nickname Mine was howdy-doodie, which was this Redheaded puppet from freckled puppet with big ears from the 1950s and I asked one guy why he Called me howdy-doodie and he said because you look nothing like him which I thought was extremely witty answer you know a very funny answer and anyways, it was a bit of a derogatory nickname and Part of it was it was delivered to see if you had enough of a sense of humor to accept it without getting all You know Narcissistically puffed up and irritable about it and so it got shortened eventually to howdy which was a lot better because there was kind of a cowboy chic thing going on with that and that was a lot better and But there was this period where you got ribbed a lot two weeks about and if you didn’t Collapse under the weight of the teasing then and you did your damn job and you know You’re reasonably entertaining to be around then Doors opened and you were now part of the crew. There was one guy there. I Wrote about him lunch bucket was his name. That was his nickname Lunch bucket he showed up on the crew with a lunch bucket and that was a bad idea this is obvious that his mom had packed it and You don’t want to sit you want to show up to a work crew of ex cons With a lunch bucket that your mom packed. It’s a bad look And so he was called lunch bucket from day one and he was a pretty touchy guy and pretty narcissistic and people didn’t like him very much and He was tested a lot and the testing started out with people just throwing pebbles at him so he was the crew would stretch out about a quarter of a mile across the line as we were working on the tracks and lunch bucket would be doing whatever job he had and That the game was to see if you could bounce a pebble off lunch buckets helmet and so he’d be working in these pebbles would be flying out of God only knows where because people didn’t make it obvious and you know, it was a it was a score for your mates if you bounced a pebble off lunch buckets helmet and he did not take to that well and The pebbles got larger as the days progressed and eventually he was driven off and It was because he didn’t subjugate himself properly to the multi-dimensional discipline of the crew, you know because he wasn’t He wasn’t a good guy to have around he couldn’t take a ribbing. He didn’t have a sense of humor He wasn’t able to contribute to the game that was being played socially Well, these men were doing what was pretty tedious and difficult work like we were literally out in the hot sun for 16 hours at a stretch and it was rather mind-numbing work and somewhat physically demanding the the peanut pounding wasn’t particularly difficult but the State despite pounding was and and you need some camaraderie in those positions so that Your life is rendered maybe not just tolerable But even enjoyable in principle and so you’re playing a multi-dimensional game And if you’re willing to subjugate yourself to that discipline, then you learn how to play that game And if you get good at that, then that’s a portable skill Will the lack of a red wave during the midterms lead to more reckless spending by a more emboldened administration higher taxes Deeper inflation if you’re unsure how the next two years will unfold Talk to birch gold group about protecting your savings with gold birch gold makes it easy to convert your IRA or 401k Into an IRA in precious metals so you can own gold and silver and attack sheltered account Here’s what you need to do Text Jordan to 9 8 9 8 9 8 to claim your free info kit on gold then talk to one of their precious metal Specialists they will hold your hand through the entire process With an a-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau Thousands of happy customers and almost 20 years of experience converting IRAs and 401ks into precious metals IRAs birch gold can help you protect your savings to Text Jordan to 9 8 9 8 9 8 and protect yourself with gold today. That’s Jordan to 9 8 9 8 9 8 And so you might ask yourself. Well, what are you doing when you? when you work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing is that you’re you’re You’re molding yourself into someone who can aim at something and move forward with efficiency And skill and maybe if you’re doing that extraordinarily well You’re not only molding yourself into someone who can aim at something and move Towards it with efficiency and skill but you can do that at the same time that you’re helping other people around you do that Right, so you can think about this. Imagine you’re a good athlete on a team and you might say well What does it mean to be a good athlete and you might say well, I’m a soccer player football player and I’m I’m great at at I’m a top scorer and you might say well that’s enough to make you a great athlete The truth is that’s actually not enough to make you a great athlete because you need to have the skill whatever the skill might be and High-level skill is of course extremely desirable in relationship to the goal but you also have to be a Good, let’s say a good sport and that’s a rather Trivial description for something that’s actually quite a profound moral accomplishment So if you’re not only a highly skilled athlete in the technical sense, but you’re a good sport It means that while you practice your skill, whatever that is you also elevate the ability of all your teammates to to to to Make their skill manifest and also to improve their skill and you do that simultaneously right and that’s that’s a high level of athletic ethos is your your good athlete and your good team player and the and the Union of those two things might make you something approximating a good person and that’s transportable I think part of the reason that we admire sports heroes when there are sports heroes in the truest sense is because if they are Ritual models of emulation in relationship to the development of high-level skill and they’re also admirable team players in the highest sense then they actually are Something approximating admirable citizens in the truest sense and that pattern of skilled productive generous cooperation is actually a model that you can extract out of multiple games and it’s a good model to emulate and That’s something that isn’t arbitrary by the way. And so that’s that also answers a question that I posed earlier in relationship to Nihilism and belief it’s like well what should be foundational? and the answer might be something like practice in developing the capacity for skilled movement forward in a manner that simultaneously Encourages the others that you’re cooperating with to do precisely the same thing and that’s not some arbitrary ethos It’s it’s not arbitrary because if that doesn’t happen then nothing flourishes and if it does happen then everything flourishes and it’s not It’s also not relativistic in some sense because you have to do that no matter what you’re doing No matter what it is that you’re doing if you do that well, you’re doing whatever it is. You’re doing well In fact, that’s really in some sense how you would define well, and you know, that’s true You know you you’ll be at home and you’ll maybe you get a plumber to come over or an electrician somebody who’s skilled in the in the working-class technical sense and And they do a good job and that’s a great relief especially let’s say if it’s a plumbing problem because you really need your plumbing fixed It’s not optional. Well, you know what the options are They’re not great. And so it’s really important to be a good plumber and Then you think well what makes a good plumber and one is obviously technical skill The man or the woman generally the man when it’s plumbing knows what he’s doing and he does it efficiently, but that isn’t all If he’s a really good plumber, well He he tells you what he’s gonna do So he can he can communicate what he’s gonna do. He can tell you he can identify the problem She’s good diagnostician. He can tell you what he’s going to do He can tell you how much what he’s going to do will cost you Then he does it then it that’s what it costs Right. So there’s an there’s an honesty in Interpersonal transaction that goes along with the diagnostic accuracy and the skill and that’s reflective of a very deep ethical orientation and so to be a really good plumber then you have to be highly skilled, but you have to be a clear and honest communicator and you have to play fair in the most fundamental sense and if you and Then you might say he’s got me imagine. Yes him employees with him and you might also Maybe you’re deciding if you want to have the plumber come back if you have problems in the future and so one of the things you’re going to do is check out how he interacts with his subordinates and if he’s someone who’s Teaching them because you can watch that and doing that in a fair manner and not talking down to them and not Manipulating them and not tyrannizing over them and is also able to do that in a manner that sort of civilized so that You don’t feel like it’s an imposition to have them in your house because there’s no psychological tension You know surrounding the enterprise then you think well He’s a good boss and and he’s done a really credible job And he’s very honest and reliable and he solved the problem and he did it on time And he didn’t charge you any more than he had told you he would charge you and it was a fair price I thought it’s pretty multi-dimensional space to manage Simultaneously right that’s a very sophisticated Mode of ethical conduct it can’t be just reduced to being a good plumber in the technical field It’s being a good person who happens to be a plumber and that is Success in a microcosm that is truly reflective of society at a much broader level and it’s definitely the case I think this is absolutely clear that the integrity of our society Depends in no small part on the Minority of people and often working-class people who do that sort of thing exceptionally well Who do that sort of thing exceptionally well, right? They’re the people who keep they build everything and they keep everything going