I agree, which is why I was pointing out that my bodybuilder friend would prefer sweating his balls off to working in an air-conditioned blockbuster. I know him and his wife b/c when we first moved here, my then beau took a job sweating his balls off doing lawn maintenance. Ray was his crew chief. I couldn't understand it. He was a musician. There's a huge music store down here. He probably could have found work there, for more money and less physical exertion so he'd have the stamina to put in some hours at rehearsals/practicing. Or, as a book lover, why not work at any one of the slew of bookstores? The rest of the guys with whom the then beau worked were black. They said they'd rather do the work because their alternatives were McDonald's, Walmart, etc. For them, too, it was about machismo and about feeling they had some choice, however small, in what they did for a living. They didn't feel they were stuck. They felt they _chose_ to do that kind of work.
For the then-beau, it wasn't as straightforward as taking pride in his work, in the machismo of it. If he attended faculty cocktail parties with me, he'd be asked what he did for a living. He found it very embarrassing. I could go on and relate similar examples re my various exes (a cook, Navy, delivery truck driver, auto mechanic, welder). And please don't tell me it was all in my head. I remember when I got divorced in grad school. My professional colleagues looked down their noses and became awkward in the presence of someone who did manual labor. They just didn't know what to say. I guess they must have assumed that they had to be dumb. I have no idea, but their discomfort was palpable. And, I didn't just have to guess at their discomfort. I was outright TOLD that I ought to move up the social status ladder and try to find someone in my station--from three different faculty members no less!
If you live with, marry, or date guys who do manual labor, you will also find that they feel a deep sense of shame underneath all the outward machismo they feel they must exhibit--or, as Hidden Injuries of Class puts it, wear on their shirt like a badge of honor. It's a mask for their sense that they lack intelligence or lack that certain something (education, talent, skill) that will attain them economic success --which is also where antipathy to intellectuals comes from.
I guess you could chalk it up to the guys with whom I end up, but there's too much evidence out there that points to far more social-psychological complexity than that they are satisfied with their work, end of story. They are, but that doesn't mean they don't feel the pressure to do something with far more social status and what they perceive as better pay.
They are simultaneously proud and ashamed. For men, what you do is who you are and it's pretty hard to escape a social judgement that says, "loser." YOu can run around all you want and feel macho about your manual labor job, and even feel superior to desk jockeys, but at the end of the day, you're the one standing there in your dirty work clothes with your dirty fingernails and your hair slick with sweat, feeling inferior to the guy with the nice office attire, the slick briefcase, jabbering on a cell phone talking important business stuff with someone, and getting into his BMW or Cadillac Escalade. You can try to avoid it all you want, but everything in the world around you is telling you that you're a loser: you're a racist. you're not successful. you're not educated. you work with your hands b/c you didn't come from a family well off enough to send you to college. you're the typical beer swilling dumb ass who sits on the couch getting fat and getting disgusted with your fatter wife. you're the guy who's the problem in Kansas, the proverbial construction worker or plumber or factory worker.
Kelley
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'