In Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s story, The Little Prince, the titular character ventures across a multitude of planets encountering a variety of individuals in his travels, including a wealthy merchant, a powerful king and a simple lamplighter. Interestingly, of these three characters, the Little Prince possesses the most respect and admiration for the lamplighter, an individual whose job can be considered by our society’s standards to be the least financially successful and prestigious of the group. Essentially the prince reveres the lamplighter the most because the prince is not judging him by the size of his wallet or the weight of his title, but instead by his devotion to a job that actually has a positive impact on other people and beings beyond himself.
Unfortunately, in modern society, we have a strong tendency to judge people primarily by their job, rather than their quality of character. Likewise, we judge jobs primarily by income and prestige, rather than their impact on others. The result? In these types of judgments we often diminish the value of the person working a less favorable job, such as a McDonald’s cashier or a school janitor, and forget any additional possible meaning the job may possess. Let’s challenge society’s stigma against individuals working lower paying and less prestigious jobs through examining why the individual should not be judged by his work alone. Let’s reveal the positive impact these negatively viewed jobs can have on others.
Although as humans we are naturally prone to judge others, we should realize that we are not warranted in these judgments because we do not know the entire story of another person. This same idea applies to our assumptions about a person we see working as a landscaper or a garbage man.
When we watch these individuals mowing someone’s lawn or collecting our trash, we only see them doing jobs we would probably not want to do ourselves. We do not see what their lives are like outside their daily work. We do not see the education levels they may possess, the loving father or mother figure they may be, or the dreams and aspirations they are working to achieve.
In addition, these individuals may have had a higher paying and more respectful job in the past, but unfortunately, lost it or had to take on another job because of circumstances any of us can one day face. These circumstances may include being laid off due to cutbacks or having to take on a second job to pay for a loved one’s newly diagnosed medical condition.
You may be asking me right now “What if that person is just too lazy to go out and get a good job? Isn’t that their fault?” My response to that statement is that we cannot just automatically assume a person has an unfavorable job because they are lazy or unambitious.
We need to remember that landing that dream job in today’s world is more difficult than it ever has been in the past because we live in a world with an increasingly competitive and cutthroat job market. In this market we are competing with individuals from across the globe where obtaining an ideal job depends just as much on luck as our own efforts. The question becomes how does one obtain a good, secure job in this environment?
Beyond not knowing a person’s background, we should also refrain from judging individuals who work less favorable jobs because if we were born into another family, we could also be working a less than ideal job. What I am referring to is the “parental lottery.”
The family we are born into, a matter of pure luck, has a major impact on our success in life. Even Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, recognizes this truth when he states that he was born into what he calls “The Lucky Sperm Club.”
Regardless of the individual effort that one may use to “pull himself up by his own bootstraps,” a person may be incredibly hindered in his efforts by the scarcity of opportunity and severity of circumstances in his early environment. For example, the young diligent student from an impoverished family living in a dangerous neighborhood lacks the same educational and financial resources as his counterpart from a financially stable family that lives in a safer community.
The first student is worried about his safety in his neighborhood and can only access what his school offers to prepare for his SAT. Who knows if the student will even make it to college, let alone make it through high school? In contrast, the second student, who always knew he was going to college, can devote more of his attention to studying for the SAT, with more expensive resources outside his school, and his parents can financially help him attend a more expensive college.
The end result? The person who was born into a more financially affluent family in a better environment has a higher chance of achieving a higher paying job than the individual who faced more crippling adversity in his youth.
Another reason why we should abandon our social stigma towards people working lower paying and less prestigious jobs is because what these individuals do through their jobs has more meaning and is deserving of more respect than what we give them.
Throughout my first few years of college, I have met a local bus driver named Jake. Although Jake’s job obviously does not require as much thought as a lawyer’s job, Jake’s job is still meaningful in its own right. We still need good bus drivers. While it may not require as much education as more prestigious careers or transform the world, it does have the noble impact of brightening the days of passengers.
Countless times Jake has struck up a conversation with passengers who were experiencing a difficult day. Jake made them smile. Moreover, in some ways what Jake does through his job has more of a meaningful and positive impact on the world than a Wall Street banker playing chess with money. While Jake may make people smile each day, the only face the greedy banker paints a smile on is his own.
