Michael Street
English 101 CA
October 23, 2011
Word count: 1,032
My opinions of the workforce based from “No long Term”
To find a job today requires thinking outside the box and being creative, like finding a unicorn. People become more desperate to find work in today’s economy, making it a job itself to make sure the bills are paid on time. The difficulty of finding a nice paying job isn’t the only thing that’s changed though. The hierarchy of the work environment is something that has also gone under some improvements, especially for those who work under their own roof. People are clinging to their work because the economy today is giving them no alternative, causing a lack in social interaction with the people they care about and changing the way family values portrayed. Richard Sennett’s article “No Long Term: New Work and the Corrosion of Character” uses two people, Enrico and his son Rico, to convey that idea. Because of the rapidly changing economy today, a job becomes scarcer and causes a lack of interaction and hierarchy within family households along with businesses.
People are becoming more and more desperate to grab a job when they can in this crippling economy. My grandparents, whom I will call Deen and Cindy, are still working the same jobs that they’ve had since their mid 30’s. Cindy was able to obtain work as an accountant for Kalama Exports. Five days a week, she works the same schedule, from six in the morning until five in the afternoon. While she might just be getting home, Deen is already gone to his job as a security guard for a retirement home. His job requires him to work from three in the afternoon until midnight, leaving him tired and worn out when he arrives home at about one in the morning the next day.
During Cindy and Deen’s generation, it was easier to find work, thus allowing for a more flexible choice in what options someone had for a job, like who someone worked with, what they did, where the
Cited: Sennett, Richard. “No Long Term: New Work and the Corrosion of Character.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum: Brief Edition. 4th edition. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. Boston: Longman, 2011. 150-158. Print.