“Work ethic” and “Human matters”
In the reading by Studs Terkel (1972:xxvii) he states how work is very important to people and their “human matters” because it allows you to feel accomplished and gives you self value. Although a job may be tough, rough and tiring to achieve, finishing and completing that job or task gives a person a lot of positive emotions within. From my understandings, Studs Terkel believes that those positive emotions that completing a job offers is what “work ethic” should be about and considered. Terkel will like for people to change the views of what “work ethic” is; from being just about making that money to enjoy the emotions you receive by working and completing a task.
Studs Terkel shows through his readings a lot of stories about workers that had different types of labors. In those readings, we could notice that those workers felt proud of the type of job they did and how hard they worked. With the jobs they had they were able to feel accomplished, satisfied and proud of themselves. They were also able to learn day by day more. Terkel wants people to allow themselves to work for meaningful purposes. He states that maybe a job can not satisfy the human spirit of a person but people can turn that around and use their human spirit to make that job into a meaningful work. It is true we all work to gain money, but our priority should be our passion. Work for our passions and integrity and not the gain of money. Doing so will get you discipline and determination to be able to succeed in your career.
In the story of Joe and Susie Haynes, we saw how Joe followed the family tradition to also work at mines. While working at theses mines and being around the land which he learned about, he increased his knowledge in many aspects. Although working at the mines affected his health in many ways, Joe remembers very well all the hard work he did at the mines and everything he learned about the land and the machines. He was also about to notice how other people were about to use their knowledge to buy off land which would increase their money. He shares his story about how he worked for money and so did his father. By doing that he remembers that he did not get to spend time with his dad just like when he began to work, he was mostly at work the entire day.
Overall, Terkel believes that people should not work so hard to just gain money but instead work hard to gain their success and other positive emotions that come with those.
