Have you ever been to a car dealership? Have you been on the sales floor or the mechanic’s work area? Well I work at Mitsubishi and Suzuki in White Bear and there is a significant differentiating aura between the Salesmen and the technicians. I work as a Lube technician on the mechanic’s side of the building. I do not want to be biased here, but the romantic that I wanted to emphasize in my blog would be the rich over the poor and hands over heads or manual labor over intelligent labor.
The mechanics are not necessarily “poor” but when you think of someone who does manual labor, they are somewhat synonymous. They work with their hands all day long. They are dirty grease monkeys, must have knowledge of cars and their general functions, as well as trying to constantly figure out how to fix customer cars, half of which can’t even tell the mechanic what is wrong or what they need in the first place. The other side, the salesmen or the “rich”, intelligent labor, are only inclined to talk to customers to entice them into buying a car. They do not get dirty and when they don’t have a customer, they stand around waiting for customers.
We are classified and categorized by what we do or what we are deemed as what we are “suppose” to do and or be. The individual who does the manual labor is assumed to not have as great an education or financial capabilities as the intelligent labor that is supposedly more educated and well-off. It is romantic in that the mechanics have a quality of streets smart and the salesmen are more books smart. This divide is characterized and seen as romantic in that the mechanics are accepted as people who are more hands on, physical, while the salesmen, more mental. They offset each other in that sense, depending on how they are perceived. Then again, of course, this structure of feeling is not universal.
I have a lot of respect for this post. I have gown up in a home where every two-three years my mom gets a new lease, and never has to get car maintenance. I on the other hand purchased a very old car, and end up in the repair shop all of the time. I, personally, hate going with my mother to look at the new cars and talk with the dealers - but I actually enjoy getting my car repaired and figure out why my car is having the troubles it has, etc. I find it interesting the way you use the romantic terms and the way the categories are divided. I think that is the most common view in a materialistic/broad view, but once getting to learn about everything the mechanics must know and their jobs perspectives change. Or should change at least.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of your agruement of the poor vs rich and manual labor vs intelligent labor, I feel that doing manual labor takes a lot of very hard, strenuous work and plenty of hours as well. I feel that saying salesmen are book smart, and not street smart isn't quite correct since they have to have a good sense of communicating with others and convincing them into a deal, which leans more towards street smart rather than book smart.
ReplyDeleteI had never really considered the politics of the car dealership world to be of 'the romantic'. However, you made a very interesting case that I agree with mostly. Your situation as a car mechanic and placing hands over heads, reminds me of some of the most basic melodramatic movies.
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