5 Assignment 01

Hello, Class!

My name is MariaIsabel Gallardo; mostly everyone calls me Maria easier to pronounce. I was born in Ecuador and move to New York with my family at the age of eight, from the day one New York became my home. This my third semester at CWE and this class is part of my curriculum at first I wasn’t sure of what to expect from Sociology of Work except for the fact we will be learning about the history if work and the ethics that come with working. I look forward to learning the history of labor and the ethics that go with it throughout the class.

My family owns a Jewelry store where I currently work. I have been working there for about five years already. I used to work for an ESL school as administrate assistant and had to take a leave of absence due to an accident I had while vacationing in Cabo. I was not able to work. Therefore I took a leave of absence and with live always changing I ended up moving to Ecuador for about eight months. After the eight months I move back to New York, and when my father ask me to help out at the store, I accepted and from the day on I been working there, while going back to school to obtain my degree. My dream career would be to become a psychologist or a counselor for Middle School.

My fraternal grandparents who I have always been close were both hard workers in Ecuador. My grandmother who I’m named after Maria is an orphan and from a very young age had to work to earn a living to be able to support herself. While working for a wealthy family who she remembers treated her like a daughter, she meets my grandfather felt and love and marries him at the age of 18. From them on she was always finding ways to make a living from having a bar at a soccer clubhouse, where she would cook breakfast, lunches, and dinners. My grandfather worked doing administrative tasks for the city and the bull fighting Association since Bull fighting was pretty big deal in Ecuador. Sadly, he passed away ten years ago. My maternal grandparents, I don’t know much about them, not much there to tell. My father has worked his whole life back in Ecuador he had his own business, it was a coffee shop. When we move to New York, we started to work in the family store and has been a jeweler since then. My mother has been a housewife most of her life, with some period of times, she is always in the jewelry business.

I believe the fact I see how hard my grandparents and father have been hard workers; it has imprinted on me also to be a hard worker. Also the fact to see my mom been so dependent on her husband has made me want to be independent and be able to support myself. I moved out of my mother’s house and owned my own at the age of 18 years old while I was able to support myself and work at the ESL School, never looked back. Having to support myself made me put school on hold and just work, now I have decided to go back to school and get my degree. Having to listen to how my grandparents and parents didn’t have the chance to attend college and get a degree has defiantly impacted my decision on going back to college and get a degree. While I love to work with jewelry, I also love to help people out, and my dream career has always been to be a counselor or psychologist. I think having different plans and not putting all your eggs in on basket. To see your loved ones struggle to make a living is a huge motivation for me and to be able to provide for my future kids keeps me going and try to improve in my work, education and life for the better.

From reading Weber, I would say he believes in having a strong work ethic will help you achieve your goals and be wealthy. He believes that time is money and should not be a waste. Therefore if you are working and earning a living, you are not wasting your time. You are working for a better life. It was interesting to see how he used religion to compared to work ethics; I helped me have a clear view on the work ethics work.

Hello my name is Mariela Eduardo . I am currently working in the Child care business , I am the owner and provider of First Bloom Group Family Day Care . We have 6 locations in the Bronx , two under First Bloom Day Care name and 4 under other names.

My grandparents were and are hard workers . My grandparents on my father side and my grandfather are and were farmers. My grandmother on my mother side was the towns sewer , she was the first to be able to alter pants and clothing .

My parents have demonstrated to me what hard work can lead to and how it looks like. My father was a chef at an Italian restaurant. My mom was a supermarket owner . She owned Luisa Mini Market from 1993-2012 , when she sold/lost her business due to 9/11 , she returned to do what she did before which was home attend/ home health aide. She is currently a Nanny to autistic child.

My ancestry has made me a more appreciative of my heritage and the knowledge to know hard work is necessary life. They showed me that the more knowledge you had of your profession the more you will be paid for, and the less you will have to work and live life. This has pushed me to work hard and do what I knew the best, child care and business, learn the most I can and work hard to success. Have enough to live life and leave meaning behind it.

Work can be one of three things for me. First, it can be a means of survival and hate or complaisant life. In this scenario you only make enough to pay bills and, if you cut back and save enough, you can take a budget vacation which you hate. OR second, it can be a passion where I work hard but I love what I do and anything that it permits me to do is great by me. This is why I pointed myself to a career I love already doing and brought me a lot of happiness. This brought me to happiness with everything it came with, Long hours, underpaid at time and life changing scares and still look forward to the next day at work.

I agree with you when you say Human Capital or Knowledge capital should be considered for Central Education plan . I just also understand that it has a lot of work to be done to it for it to be equal for everyone. It discriminates and underfunded some schools while others are over funded . Some neighborhood have better chance for student succeeding and other don’t just because of income, but all these are problems I consider to be economic and discrimination, if all given the same opportunity of education we will be all in better neighborhoods.

Toniann German

Assignment #1

Sociology of work

Introduction to work ethic

My Name is Toniann German, I signed up for this course because I enjoyed taking the sociology of family last semester and was interested in learning about the sociology of work. I also signed up for this class because I enjoy taking hybrid courses.  I currently work as a preschool teacher in the south Bronx. I previously was an environmental high school teacher however I decided to switch paths due to the fact that I was obtaining my degree in Early Childhood Education. I always wanted to be a teacher from a very young age, I feel that the only way to see change in the world is to start to enforce change in the younger generations. My mother always enforced the importance of education and going to college. My mother was very adamant about her daughters working at a very young age and understanding what it means to make your own money, not having to depend on anyone. My grandparents taught me the importance in other things such as caring for your home and appreciating nature. My grandmother was never much of a worker, her work was in her garden among the hundreds of flowers and plants that she adores more than anything. My grandfather on the other hand has always been a working man, never able to sit still and always up on a ladder fixing something. Reading Crawford’s reading this week I can honestly say that my grandparents taught me the importance of building and fixing things on your own. Technology was never allowed during summer vacations, gardening and house work was not an option. I feel that my education has prepared me to be a knowledge worker however my parents and grandparents have taught me the importance of physical labor.

What I got from Weber’s reading is that sometimes your affiliations and where you rank in life can affect the work choices you make.   I also feel that Weber is trying to say that when one works with purpose it increases economic growth. I feel personally that my work ethic is based on morals and happiness not so much financial gain. My grandparents would say “The best kind of work, is the kind that you find fun.”

I am currently working as a Senior Case Manager for a non-profit organization called Safe Horizon, which serves crime victims across New York City. My office specifically works with survivors of domestic violence and I really love working there and what I do.

As I shared in class, my grandparents and parents all worked at ‘blue collar’ jobs, as have many other family members.  The fact that all of my grandparents and parents did not go to college, really pushed them to encourage me to do so.  They felt that a higher education could lead to a better paying job and I would not have to struggle financially as they did sometimes.  They also had good work ethics and were very responsible.  They did not complain about their jobs or having to go to work.  I believe that all of this was passed down to me and how I approach the idea of working and my goals for the future.

In Part 2 of the Introduction of The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber states that modern capitalism has risen out of people being so consumed with making money just for the sake of making it and not to buy things they need to live (Weber, p.xi).  In the sense of people who work in fields that are known to pay well just for the sake of making a lot of money, I certainly do not share that work ethic.  The field I am in, social services, does not often pay very well and is not easy to do unless you really love it and want to help people.

Weber goes on to analyze the origins of capitalism and asses how capitalism related to Protestantism and Catholicism in “Religious Affiliation and Social Stratification”. Weber argued that the religions people followed were based on an individual’s economic status and that wealthier people were more inclined to follow Protestantism and to be supporters of capitalist ideals (Weber, p.4).  Weber further posits that the types of education people chose were those favored by their families and their communities and it was typical for Catholics to learn manual labor and to not prepare to be businessmen, unlike their Protestant counterparts, resulting in Catholics working in lower-paying industries and being less inclined to support capitalism (Weber, p.6).  I do agree with Weber that most people fall into practicing the religion they are born into, which is also usually what is popular in the communities in which they live.  If one’s religion dictates the type of education and job one will have, it can then be said that religion determines economic standing and therefore one’s views on capitalism and even their work ethic.  I agree with this to an extent.  I feel that many people who come from wealthier upbringings who do not  have to work as hard, if at all, to earn money, may have a less stronger work ethic than people who do not come from money and who have to work hard to earn the money that they do get, may have stronger work ethics.  Of course, this is not the case for everyone.

I do see this in my personal experience and work ethic.  I do not come from a wealthy family and have had to work since I was 15.  I was taught to work hard and do well to help ensure my employment and reputation and the money that I earn is needed.  I have also been taught that when one does earn beyond their means, giving it to less fortunate people is the right thing to do.

Hello everyone,

My name is Maggie and this is my second semester at CWE. I have so far taken all of my other classes at the uptown campus but have had to start taking classes downtown due to my work schedule changing.  I really enjoyed being downtown last semester-the classes are smaller and the students are closer to my age and seem a little more serious and excited about their education.  I wish I had known this earlier so I could have taken all of my classes at CWE!  But I am graduating in the winter so this will be my last semester…yay!

I had two reasons for being interested in this class. I took Professor Bullock’s class last semester and I really liked how it was set up.  Like this semester, we were assigned readings from different books and articles.  I feel that allows students to not just read one textbook by one author, but gives different points of views and insights of different authors, and allows us to read things we may normally not.  I also just thought that learning about the forces behind why people may choose the work that they do would be really interesting, especially in a place and time where there are certain professions that are known ‘money-makers’ but that may not necessarily require as much skill and effort as those which are not as lucrative.

I am majoring in sociology and minoring in psychology. I am very interested in the way people think and behave and feel that learning about people on an individual level as well as looking at them in groups on a more macro level gives the best picture of why we do what we do.  To continue my education, I would like to go to Hunter’s School of Social Work.  I finally reached my goal of working with the population I wanted to-survivors of domestic violence.  I would like to further my knowledge in counseling people by studying social work.

It was nice meeting you all last Wednesday and I am looking forward to everyone’s presentations and more class discussions!

Maggie Wiesner

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.

Hi Class,

My name is Janeth and I migrated to this country at the age of 9 with my parents and younger brother from Colombia. As an immigrant who has always been surrounded by a very hard working family, I hold a great deal of respect and admiration for all those who have paved the way for us all. I received my first job at the age of 16, as one of m High School’s teacher recommended me to a colleague who was looking for students to work at her costume jewelry shop on the weekends. I recalled taking the Long Island Railroad with three other classmates to Amityville, long Island on Saturdays, for an entire school year. I enjoyed that experience very much. I feel for the most part, that I have been very fortunate in most of my jobs that I have held. I believe that this Sociology of Work class will give us a better understanding of what is currently happening in the work force. I Especially believe it will help us decipher what our current politicians are trying to persuade us to believe about the current work markets.

I was recently promoted to administrative manager of personnel and academic affairs to the division of Cardiology at Columbia Medical Center. I have been working for Columbia University for about 10 years and have been very fortunate to have wonderful working environments. As for the work history of my grandparents, both sets of grandparents worked in Farms. My fathers’ parents own their own land and my mother’s parents were field workers. Both sets of grand parents were both very hard working as they often told stories of how early they were up working. As for my parents my mom was a stay at home mom and my dad worked as a mechanic. When we moved to the states they both when to work in factories, my mom as a seamstress and my dad as a technician who repaired the sewing machines.

I believe that my grandparents and parents have always stressed the importance of giving your all in whatever we were doing. My parents didn’t get a chance to go on to college because they were busy making a living and supporting their family, but they have always stressed the importance of finishing what we have started, therefor I have always wanted to finish my degree as I had to stop going to school to raise my kids. I give my parents thanks for being my role models and for teaching the importance of working hard.

In reading Max Weber’s excerpt, the statement that stuck out to me was when he quotes a writer trying to show the difference of the attitudes between the protestant and the Catholic religions, towards the economic life:

” The Catholic is quieter, having less of the acquisitive impulse; he prefers a life of the greatest possible security, even with a smaller income, to a life of risk and excitement, even though it may bring the chance of gaining honor and riches. The proverb says jokingly, “Either eat well or sleep well”. In the present case the Protestant prefers to eat well, the Catholic to sleep undisturbed” (p 8).

This statement very clearly states how the Protestantism believes largely influenced people to work hard to be able to accumulate wealth and live well. As per Catholicism influence people to take care of themselves and live peaceful lives, without stressing and killing themselves working. My parents raised us with Catholics believes that have influenced my work ethics. I do work hard because it’s the right thing to do not because I will get rich. My parents worked hard to make sure we had a roof over our heads but they stressed the value of our family and providing a good foundation for their children.

I was 11 years old when I first started working. I worked for a party store; I helped with party arrangements, corsages and manned the phone. Now, I work as an Operational manager for nine charities and counting. I oversee all of the internal administrative and marketing aspects for our clients. Currently, I’m in the works of expanding the office and obtaining two new charities.

My grandmother has spent the majority of her life as a battered housewife. She raised 5 children. Once she was able to leave my grandfather successfully she worked as a crossing guard for a Jewish elementary school. No one knows for sure her real age—she has three birth certificates from Ponce. I believe she still works as a crossing guard 30 plus years later and recently graduated with her masters in English Literature.

The oldest of the five was my mother. She was definitely the black sheep of the family, both figuratively and literally. She was frowned upon and brought shame to the family because of her skin color. (This explains why my father is Irish/Italian) For thirty years she worked as a Court Reporter for both family and Criminal court. After her first divorce, she reclaimed her maiden name. Her boss found out that she was Spanish and attempted to make advances towards her. When she refused, he threatened her job. My mother became blacklisted from her profession when I was nine years old. She currently works as a dog groomer after retirement in the hopes of remaining useful and occupied.

From my understanding, Weber states that as long as Capital encourages its workers with a reasonable compensation, the employee will view their time spent working as more valuable than time spent elsewhere. I feel this more or less the mindset of any driven business person including myself. I am only 25 and yet I’ve spent 14 years with constant work. The purpose I’m continuing my education is a farsighted promotion. In a sense, these are values the women of my family lived by, even if that meant never being home for their families.

I work as a Youth Program Manager at a non-profit organization in Washington Heights; Northern Manhattan improvement Corporation. My experience and career has focused in the area of workforce development. I have held positions in the field as a case manager, a facilitator, developing curriculum, program management and director. While each of these areas of experience has provided me with various perspectives of workforce development, I believe my work ethic comes from my father and his work history.

Growing up, I had known my maternal grandmother to be a childcare provider (babysitter) since she took care of me and my cousins. She cared for 8 of us to allow our parents to work; so her “work” was caring for us. I don’t know my grandfather’s work history since I did not get the chance to know him; he passed away when I was 2 years old. From what my mother tells me, he was a tailor in the Dominican Republic and by the time he came to the U.S., he had a brief work history in a factory before he passed. I also did not get to know my paternal grandmother, since she passed away giving birth to my dad. My paternal grandfather worked as a driver for a major radio station in the Dominican Republic and after Trujillo was assassinated in the 60’s, he came to the U.S. and worked in a factory.

My mother worked briefly in a factory where her brother was a foreman; she worked for about 5 years and then became a stay at home mom taking care of my sister and I. My dad worked at a printing press for over 25 years. His work history had been in factory work, but settled in the printing press where he would stay the majority of his work history. My relationship to work does come from his work ethic. Visiting him at his job instilled the ideas and principles of work. I learn that he put in hard manual labor to earn money, which paid the rent, gave us food and provided our basic everyday necessities. My father made sure I understood that this is what needed to be done in order to make money. But he also let me know that “my” job should be my education. His rational was that I should work just as hard in my studies as he did in the factory. He also let me know that my education would be essential in my life in order not to work as hard as he did. Basically, If I treated education as work, and worked hard; I would be able to provide for myself and my future.

I believe Weber’s idea of work ethic is what we know it to be today; The idea of economic growth combined with the morals and values of how we do it. It was pretty interesting to see how he used religion as a way to help the reader understand the idea of work ethic; Catholicism to represent values, ideas and beliefs of prosperity, while the Protestant perspective brought on what we know as capitalism and earning money to provide the material aspects of life. As I use my history and work experience to reflect on this idea, it fascinates me that my perception of work ethic focuses a bit more on the morals and values side than the “material gain” and economic growth. I believe this is derived from how I interpreted work ethic in my own personal work history. As I reflect, I see that my ethic of work may come from the idea of day to day survival, rather than long term economic growth. Interesting.

I am Jamaican I spent my summer there It was amazing. I have associates in human service from Bronx community college in 2015. This class is a requirement for me to graduate but I am a social welfare major so I am interested I giving back and helping those who are not able to advocate for themselves. My dream job is to work for Administration of Children Services.

To answer the question do I work? well, it’s quite complicated I got fired in July but I will be rehired next week where I will be working at City College the uptown campus in the College Now department. My grandparents were farmers. My grandfather worked the land and he planted yam, banana and other types of produce and also raised cows and other cattle, while my grandmother took them to the market and sold them. They worked very hard to provide for his ten children. My mom is the second child out of 10. She worked as a music teacher before I was born she then continued until she had my little sister. With two children she had to acquire another job she then became a live-in home health aide. She has been with the same employer for the las 20 years. Her dedication and drive inspire me to work hard so that she could live comfortable.

I believe that knowing how hard my grandparents and my mom had to work gives me a different outlook on what I think work is today. I think today’s job market is great and now it has variety compare to their time. I believe that education is the key and without it, most people would be lost. If my mom had an education she would have had a different option but because she did not have more than a high school education she ended up being stuck and had to struggle to make ends meet.

My goals and hopes for the future are to go to Hunter college and acquire my masters and work for ACS. File for my mom and sister so that they could come live with me in New York city and have a few children marry my high school sweetheart and live happily ever after.

In understanding Weber’s meaning of “ethic” of work. it is something that you have to do for the rest of your life that determines your place in society, it also determines your economic growth and prosperity. He spoke about the relationship between the catholic and the protestants.  where one work for economic stature and gain and the other more for leisure. People only want to make enough to live comfortable. I believe that is true we work to only to accommodate our type a living so to me work is a means of survival. in this world that we live nothing is free and I was taught that if you want it you would have to work for it as my grandma would say “if you want good yuh nose have to run” meaning everything in life that you want requires work and dedication if you want to keep it.