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What is Work? – Weber

Denisse Hines
Sociology of Work
Dr. Elizabeth Bullock
4 September 2016

What is Work?

I am working as an Assistant to the Associate Provost for Research at the City College main campus. I have been working at this job for a little over two years. Before this job, I worked for various companies doing office management.

All four of my grandparents lived in Dominican Republic. On my maternal side, my grandfather worked as a heavy equipment operator. He specifically he operated the asphalt roller during the times when highways and roads were being paved all over the country. He along with my grandmother who was a stay at home mom, would travel to different cities for months at a time while he worked at specific locations.

On my paternal side, my grandmother worked as an embroiderer for a men’s suit store. She embroidered men’s shirts, scarves, and jackets, Pocket Square etc. She did this most of her short adult life. My grandfather used to work as the social security ambulance driver. Both paternal grandparents passed away in their late 30’s from cancer.

My parents both work in education. My father started of his career as engineering in Dominican Republic. Our whole family migrated to the United States and he began to work as a mechanic to make ends meet. Later he finished his masters in Science and Mathematics and started working for the Board of Education as a Junior High School teacher. My mother was a stay at home mom for most of my childhood. As my siblings and I got older, she finished her degree and began working for the Board of Education as well. She works as a family worker in a Junior High School. They both found jobs with a steady paycheck and a bit more job security.

I think the work history of my parents specifically has instilled good work ethic in me. Unfortunately, this has also made me fearful of making career decisions that would make me happy rather than to seek financial independence perhaps as a business owner. This has affected me by making me a disciplined employee. I believe working and being compliant had been instilled into my parents from my grandparent in order to fulfill materialistic needs. I do think it is important to have steady income, but I do not agree with being tied down to whatever pays the bills if you do not feel any joy while working. My goals for my future is to find work that make me feel pleasant at the end of the workday that also fulfills my financial needs. I also hope to pass on good work ethic to my daughter without enforcing a strict view about working somewhere that may not make her happy.

Based on my understanding of Weber’s take on the ethic of work, I do think that we there are to very clear paths to work ethic in people. Based on some religions, people are disciplined workers with a typical capitalistic mentality where material things and power motivate their work ethic. Other religions have beliefs of a higher calling and that would be what motivates their work ethic.