Studs Terkel 8: Working

The two interviews I read were with Mike Lefevre, a steel worker, and Phil Stellings, an auto worker.  Both of these men had very similar stories about their jobs.  During the introduction, Studs said that men working during the 60's and 70's lacked "a meaning to work well over and beyond the reward of the paycheck."  This quote stuck with me and I felt that it described a lot of what Mike and Phil said.  They still had labor jobs which weren't what they used to be during the 20's and during the war.  Mike said, "you can't take pride anymore."  I was wondering if this was because the pay wasn't good enough or because the work wasn't going to anything special like the war.  This was answered when he said, "your doing this manual labor and you know that technology can do it."  Machines being used to build things were becoming much more common and I connected this to outsourcing today because many Americans can't get jobs when someone over seas will do it for a fraction of the cost.  Both of these men also talked about how they were bored with their jobs and that it was the same old thing.  I believe that it is because during this time America started to have to norm of going to college instead of going into the army.  They referred to the business men as "snobs" because these men thought they were better than everyone else.  Yet at the same time Mike was hoping that his son would become one of these men because that is the path most Americans were taking to be prosperous.  What these interviews taught me is that America changed into a much less labor dominated working country partially because of peer pressure and how attractive wealth was.