The Obliteration of Alienation

According to Leyton, the Industrial Revolution and the more recent technological revolution intensified the sense f alienation among many workers from different classes in society. Elliot Leyton states that the Industrial Revolution was positive in that it liberated people and freed them from "unthinkable slaveries of caste, race, gender, and class. On the other hand, however, they were alienated from "the product of their work, their fellow men who had become competitors in the market, and from their own selves".
MSF is an organization that stands for Medecins sans Frontiers, which literally means doctors without borders. It is an international groupof physicians who dedicated their lives to helping victims of genocide, war, disasters, and epidemics, often occuring in Third World countries. The alienation motivates MSF doctors because they can relate to the alientated persons. They too felt like non-persons when trapped in their dull, previous lives. Membership into the MSF program actually disalienates individuals. It liberates them as human beings, allows them to explore fully their potential as they seize the opportunity to act. They also construct their identities by witnessing atrocity and fear, treating vile diseases, healing terrible wounds, digging the latrine, and delivering clean water.
It is important that they do not consider themselves heroes, even though they very well may be. Since they do not brag about what they do, it is easier for people to be more appreciative of them.

The Next University Drive Thru U: Higher Education for People Who Mean Business

Online universities such as the University of Phoenix transform the meaning of the word campus. People who attend online universities do not have a campus so to speak. Their "campus" is their home. They will never fully understand the feeling of attending an actual college or university.
Negatives and downfalls of online universities aside from the college experience is the distractions. I can only imaging how distracting taking college courses at home would be. When in class sitting at a desk it is so much easier to concentrate. For instance, think how distracted one may get while doing homework. Now imagine not only doing the homework at home, but also taking the courses at home as well. Also, having an online college degree may not look as well as an actual college or university degree when it comes to looking for a career after college.
There are also many advantages for the online universities which are as follows: time, affordable, accessible, etc. The online university is accessible throughout the day and night, while an actual college or university has hours of operation. This allows the student to work on papers and take class when it is convenient for them. Also, while the average college student pays close to $22,000 a year for college, the online university is only $12,000 which adds up to a $10,000 difference. Also, online universities are usually a two year degree, instead of a traditional four year program.
John Sperling was the creator of the University of Phoenix. He made the University of Phoenix with the working parent in mind. Working is hard enough to do while attending college, let alone having a family on top of that. Now parents can have a full time job and still have the time to take college courses online when it is convenient for them.

Media Magic: Making Class Invisible

When reading this selection, it was extremely shocking to me that there are forty million people living in poverty in America alone. To think that forty million povished Americans can fill seven northeast states is mind-blowing. Gregory Mantsios states "in those instances when inequities are revealed, we are provided with messages that obscure the nature of class realities and blame the victims of class-dominated society for their own plight."
Who provides these messages? Mainly, the media. Another astounding statistic is that the average American will watch twenty-eight hours of television a week! And this number does not even include watching movies. The media also hands out messages in the form of periodicals, newspapers, journals, and magazines. While there are forty million povished Americans, the middle and upper class are, for the most part, unaware of how serious the situations actually are. This is done by the media desensitizing the information provided to us.
The media desensitizes the poverty in America by reducing the poverty to a number. In this way, it is providing the "wealthy" with quantity, but not quality. We have no idea how serious this situation actually is. We do not live through the suffering, indignities, and misery that they live through each and every day. The only way we would have any slight idea is through information from the media. Since they desensitize the information, we think of the issue and nothing, and that provides for a list of more troubling issues. Also, by giving reducing the issue to a quantitative number, it makes the povished Americans faceless.
The media also portrays the idea to Americans that the poor only have themselves to blame for their life of misery. They focus in on typical black urban communities or women with attitudes that lead to divorce or single-motherhood. While these examples can sometimes be true, the idea as a whole is not realistic. Many Americans work just as hard, they simply did not his the genetic lottery or had the money to afford college. This is not their fault by any means. Telling the poor that they are the ones to be blamed puts a negative image in the minds of middle and upper class Americans. If only the media would be more realistic in their explanations and choices of words, maybe the poverty number could be lowered in some instances, or at least be more recognized by the wealthy in America.

The Creative Class

According to Richard Florida, the Creative class is an economic class in which the individuals do not have property necessarily, but what they physically own is what they use in their head; their creativity. This class is based purely on economics. Richard Florida makes it known that "it is not an economic class in terms of the ownership of property, capital, or the means of production." The Creative Class is not yet seen as part of the working class, but as one class that is on the rise in America.
The first component of the Creative Class is the Super-Creative Core. It includes careers such as scientists, professors, poets, artists, entertainers, actors, analysts, designers, and architects. The second component of the Creative Class is creative professionals "who work in a wide range of knowledge-intensive industries." These include but are not limited to high-tech sectors, financial services, the legal and health care professions, and business management. These two categories of the Creative Class differ in that the Super-Creative Core component is "less professional" than the creative professionals component. For example, in many of the careers in the Super-Creative Core, college degrees are optional, while most in the creative professionals component require college degrees at a minimum. The categories of the Creative class are similar in that they both are "earned by a strenuous effort of discovery in which curiosity and originality are indispensable." You cannot be born into the Creative Class, one must work toward becoming a member.
Values of the Creative Class include individuality, meritocracy, and diversity and openness. These values are interesting, because in America years ago, one may not think of these values to be so important. Workers are finding themselves wanting more individuality, rather than working as a union or an institution. Also, the Creative Class favors hard work, challenge, and stimulation. Workers are now putting forth the effort not only to make money to survive, but also to get ahead because they are good at what they do. Openness is a huge value in today's society simply because change is occuring more frequently nowadays. Employees strive to be able to pack up and move without the worry or unknowing of losing their career. The values of the Creative Class enable workers to be more free and unique in today's society.

Is Your Job Going Abroad?

"Outsourcing, before acquiring its current incendiary meaning, was referred to the practice of turning over noncritical parts of a business to a company that specialized in that activity". Now, outsourcing is more commonly known as sending the labor overseas, so the labor costs are cheaper than those of America. This could be an extreme negative for the future of work in America. The jobs we used to send over were simply "running the cafeteria or cleaning the office. Then it started moving up to corporate-service functions." With foreigners getting the American jobs, it not only is causing Americans to become unemployed, but also is building up those third-world or developing countries, such as India.
I believe this has been so utilized by Americans for one main reason. It's all about the money. If they can find cheaper labor, that means more money in their pocket, which is just what an employer wants. America will not lose jobs all together that are medical or educational. We will always need teachers, and we will always need someone to take care of us when we are sick. I believe these two types of careers, along with maybe a couple others, are safe from the constant outsourcing between America and foreign countries.
This trend is almost impossible to stop. There are a few ways to minimize the amount of outsourcing, but many would require major laws, unsure results, and upset people. In the end, it would be extremely difficult or next to impossible to completely end outsourcing altogether. However, something must be done to minimize outsourcing or America will continue to economically decrease.

Scripted Talk

Taylorism, also known as scientific management, is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows, improving labor productivity. Frederick W. Taylor was "the originator and foremost proponent of taylorism." He advocated a strict separation between thinking and doing, and was able to cut down unnecessary body movements. This made the working force much quicker in carrying out actions, thus saving manager's time and bringing them in more money.
Scripted talk fits into this type of management because it cuts down unnecessary words, allowing the flow of labor to quicken. For example, when eliminating full sentences and only speaking in phrases or short questions, a drive thru at McDonalds is able to move quicker, thus bringing more cars in throughout the day. It is for this reason thatso many businesses organize their companies in this fashion, making their employees use 'scripted talk'. It saves time and money, and that is every employer's dream.
In my opinion, and from my personal experience as a employee at Skyline's drive thru, I feel that scripted talk does improve the rate at which cars come through, thus making skyline more money. After using scripted talk so much, it got to the point where after a while I was able to rattle off questions or read back an order with no hesitation at all. This, however, can also be a negative, in that the employee has to know how to be quick, efficient, and polite all at the same time. Overall, I believe that scripted talk is very beneficial to employers in the working force.

At the Edge of Poverty

In this essay, Shipler argues that poverty in America is not easy to define. He says this because there are so many factors that go into determining the poverty line, such as income, number of people to support, etc. For example, if one makes $30,000 per year, one might say that the amount is living in poverty, or not well off. However, if this person is just supporting their own being, then they are actually able to provide for themselves, while also getting certain wants as well. Another way people may be considered in poverty is due to their frame of mind or self-confidence. If an individual always wants more than what they have, they may consider themselves poor, even though others may not have as much as they do.
It is a proven fact that once a family hits poverty or rock bottom, it is very difficult if not next to impossible to come out into the middle or upper class. I believe this is because of the "snowball effect". Once one thing goes wrong in life, it costs money which causes something else to go wrong and more money to be spent, and so on. It is extremely challenging to reverse this effect unless family or close friends help out with the situation.
Despite the national War on Poverty that occured in 1962, the financial gap between the 'rich' and the 'poor' is constantly growing. In 1962, the poverty line was based on food. In the 1960's, this may have been a legitimate way of measuring the poverty in America. In modern day America, however, this is not an accurate measuring tool. The price of food has lowered, and the number of families are increasing.
It is more difficult to be poor in America than a developing nation, Shipler argues. This is due to the fact that "the skills of surviving in poverty have largely been lost in America." I very much agree with this statement. When visiting a third world country, you will find people or tribes with not a lot to their name, but a smile on their faces. Also, they work long, hard, laboring days with little or no income, just to survive. In America, the electricity would go out for a few hours and we would all go crazy. To them, our less important items mean the world. It is astonishing at how little they NEED, and how much we WANT. This is a troubling issue that must be fixed, or America is going to get itself into more problems than it's ready for.