í Assignments

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.

I stared working since I was 19 years old. My first job was at the Family school of Manhattan as a teacher assistant and staid at the school for thirteen years. After that I moved on the Montessori school of Manhattan. I been there for nine years,now as a co-teacher in a toddler classroom.

How did my grandparents and parents worked back in my native country Dominican Republic. My grandparents worked as farmers they had rise and plantain farms. They where able to make things better for my parents because they where able to send my parents to college and as a result my parents didn’t have to work as difficult as my grandparents did.

I think this history struck my sense of what work is, my relationship to work,and my goals and hopes for the future. It has stirred me a great deal because i didn’t have to work at the farm I only went to wash the horses, play with the pigs and cows and for camping for fun. It made me see how hard and arduous life was for my grandparents. I think growing up and observing this made me want to work hard to better myself ,go to school and have a career and help future generations of my family.

Because I worked at different schools for many years,I consider that a person needs to invest in their future by educating themselves. Working at a school I have to further my education in order to better my career and pay check. In this day a age educating our self is the only way I think we could modify our self for a better paying job.

What Weber means by “ethic” of work .On one hand Weber thinks that having a strong work ethic determines your economic growths and prosperity. Weber had the notion that when you work with intention it raises your morals and value. He also beveled that protestants value work more than people from other religions but there were never any supporting thesis that supported his believes.

My reflection: I was raised to think that if we don’t work for what we want we won’t get anywhere. My grandparents where hardworking, they where farmers and had to do hard labor in order for my parents to go to college and not have to farm like they did. Seeing how hard they all had to work made me feel I have to make something of myself . I need to have a career not just a job. Now that I have kids I want them to have the same work ethics me and my family have.

I am currently a Substitute Para-Professional in the Department of Education. I work as a one-on-one teacher for students with special needs. My family is from the Dominican republic. My grandfather was a soldier in World War II and my grandmother was a stay at home mom, until she came to the United States and worked in a hotel. As far as work ethic, my mother as well as the history itself taught me to work hard if you want nice things, because nothing in the world is free.

In order for anyone to do the job I have, in my opinion, one must love children. All types of children in all different types of situations. You must be calm, organized, you must know when to step in and to step out, and finally you must have a positive attitude. This is very important because students with special needs need to feel a connection with you. Being a para-professional is one of the toughest jobs I have ever had. It has helped me understand that we all come from many types of situations and we have to make the best of them. I love my job and it has taught me to be patient, strong, learn to appreciate life and my children. Work is what you make of it and I enjoy my job. I have great relationships with the staff members and it makes work more enjoyable. As for my hopes in the future, I want to live happily with my children, because its all about them. To continue to learn new things and contribute as much value as I can to the world.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Weber is in a way similar to what history is in today’s modern life. Weber tells how Catholics and protestants are very different. Catholics are about knowledge/ higher education, Where as to Protestants wanted positions of ownership and management. They wanted their own high statuses and wages.  In a way they are similar to today’s world because we live in a capitalist society. Where there is private ownership and production and finally the exchange of our work for money. In a sense its saying that we have always labored to our needs. This is what holds us together.

Due Sunday, September 4th, by midnight.  Word count: 400 words.  Please make sure everything is in your own words.  Do not include any quotes and if you paraphrase make sure to include the proper citation.

Write an introductory post that tells the class who you are and about your interest in this class. Then, in no less than 400 words, write your own labor history by reflecting on the following questions: Do you work now? If so, where? How did your grandparents and your parents work? How do you think this history has affected your sense of what work is, the relationship of education to work, and your goal and hopes for the future? Given your understanding of what Weber means by an “ethic” of work, reflect on your sense of what work means to you.