>> mmm. i've been a dishwasher before. i can't fathom why dishwashing is
>> preferred to union organizing -- even under current conditions!
>
> Really? My radical/elite/intellectual ass has spent plenty of time
> washing dishes, and I would definitely prefer it. Set hours, can be
> fairly slow-paced, plenty of time for smoke (in the double sense)
> breaks, plus it doesn't completely colonize your brain, leaving you to
> obsess about things like why Seth thinks Brenner and Fitch and Chomsky
> have worthwhile things to say about capitalism but Deleuze doesn't.
oh. we have worked in completely different places then. slow-paced? no, can't say as I've ever experienced that.
smoke breaks, sure. but there's plenty of time for that on my job. in fact, if i really want, i can go nap on one of the sofas whenever i feel like it. as long as the work's done, no one complains.
as for having time to obsess about Seth, again, can't fathom how since the job has involved listening to cooks scream at you, wait staff bitch at you, customers bitch at you if you have to bus tables, etc.
about the only advantage i can see is, maybe, comraderie which tends to be more prevalent.
what i guess i find loathesome is the macho bullshit about how "real" work is found on the shop floor, kitchen floor, etc. and anything involving your brain and sitting at a desk is not really work.
now, i do have a rant about the difference between academia and other kinds of labor -- as in, shaddup to all the whiners in academia who talk about how equally haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard their work is -- but that mostly has to do with control over the timing of when you actually work, not the actual strenuousness of it.
so, all in all, about the only thing i can recommend to myself about manual labor over non-manual labor is that, with manual labor, you get your work out on the job which, for a busy person like me is pretty cool because it would cut down on the time needed to get regular exercise otherwise.
there is a literature on the supposed "free space" to think bit, supposedly a feature (not a bug!) of manual labor but it turns out, at least for some (such as factory work) this doesn't turn out to be true. your mind is colonized by the endless drone of the machinery, the loud noise, and what most people do is find themselves unable to think about Seth's obsession with the drone of Deleuze. Can't recall the book. Brave New Workplace? Maybe it was covered in Burawoy's Manufacturing Consent? Can't recall at the mo'.
shag