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Comment by enraged_camel | Hacker News Reader

I think the top commenter ("cobo") nailed it. The main problem is that a lot of people see their job as their identity. When someone suggests they adapt themselves to another, more modern industry, they see that as an attack on their identity and way of life and dig in. The result is almost always a political mess, as those running for office come up with protectionist, regressive policies to appease those people to be able to get or retain their votes.

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People tend to be much too glib about this. Megan Mcardle nailed this:

"Moreover, people invest a lot in building up a professional identity, which helps make the work more bearable (and, by giving people pride in what they do, probably ensures that the work is better done). Suddenly abandoning something that has constituted a major part of who you are, and taking a job at the bottom of a new field, is not any easier for a machinist or a coal miner than it would be for a professional."

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-06/some-blue...

> Suddenly abandoning something that has constituted a major part of who you are, and taking a job at the bottom of a new field, is not any easier for a machinist or a coal miner than it would be for a professional.

As if blue collar workers are not professionals.

By the usual definition, they're not – the noun "professional" means a white-collar worker.

Well, color me surprised, I always figured the usual definition of 'professional' means he or she who is schooled in their art and using that knowledge professionally, not 'those who don't get their hands dirty'.

I find it hard to see a machinist not as a professional but fine, I'll change my internal dictionary.

Reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional it looks as if this is a cultural difference.

Edit: thinking about this a bit longer, it seems clear that the distinction was made by those who don't get their hands dirty at the expense of those who do, and it seems extremely demeaning to me. As if the 'white/blue collar worker' distinction wasn't bad enough now people who spend a lifetime acquiring the knowledge to do their jobs are not even allowed to be called - or call themselves - professionals.

And then there's the sense of professional versus amateur. I suspect your internal dictionary is just fine, and we're running into different senses of the use of professional.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/professional

Doctors are professionals, miners are tradesmen, artists are craftsmen. They're just legacy words. If there is any cultural respect or stigma, it's mostly tied to income not the work itself.

> it seems clear that the distinction was made by those who don't get their hands dirty at the expense of those who do

That doesn't seem clear to me at all.

Check the coalminers dictionary on your shelf.

I don't understand what you mean.

It's more than professional identity: it's social identity too. Conservative society has an answer for everything: how to be a man or woman, who is appropriate to marry, why you shouldn't worry about death or global warming and what is a socially appropriate job, so retraining to do something that comes from outside society is an even bigger identity threat.

>>Suddenly abandoning something that has constituted a major part of who you are, and taking a job at the bottom of a new field, is not any easier for a machinist or a coal miner than it would be for a professional.

It's not sudden. At all. The coal industry has been on the decline for quite a while now, and green jobs have been on the rise.

I remember my first exposure to this as a child in the early 80s, a friend of my parents was long term unemployed and I couldn't understand it. My mother's (somewhat unsympathetic tbh) explanation was that he wanted his old job back and that it no longer existed. He did eventually find gainful employment, but in another field.

A little off topic, but a functioning welfare system has the potential to allow people to take the time to find the right job, rather than be pressured into taking the first thing that comes along. It's a question of balance

>A little off topic, but a functioning welfare system has the potential to allow people to take the time to find the right job, rather than be pressured into taking the first thing that comes along. It's a question of balance

So does having 6 months of income saved up, but we don't teach any type of finance in high schools.

I understand that some people with jobs don't have that ability, but the vast majority do.

Interesting. In the tech sector we are always being bombarded with needing to be hooked in socially, have a github presence, etc. So, I guess we are not immune to that either. In order to get a good job, our career cannot be separate from our identity. We have to eat, drink and pee technology.

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