Class affects so much of life, and it’s galling how it affects how pleasant your work environment can be.
I work at a university, so there are minute sub-stratas of classes in the staff. Your class is partially indicated by how much privacy you have. The top tier have large, beautiful offices that mostly sit empty because they are not expected to be at work every day. Then there are those who have small or shared offices, the cubicle inhabitants, and the poor, oppressed masses of ‘open office’ and ‘reception desk’ workers, whose domains are constantly policed and whittled for cost-cutting that somehow never affects the all-wood-furnished executive suites.
Then there is dress code. People who are never seen by the public who are forced to wear uniforms are not being outfitted for display. They are wearing a uniform to set their class. Their lack of benefits, usually, as the university has outsourced many of the uniformed classes, ensuring they don’t accidentally get tuition benefits the wealthier workers end up not using because their kids want to pursue an obscure degree at another school.
When the university closed down for severe weather, “essential personnel” were required to still come in. Who was essential? JANITORS APPARENTLY.
(Read that last as a shout through gritted teeth.) The university has since fixed their policy, but for years, who was “essential” was strictly class-based. Work hourly? Wear a uniform? Chances are, you are “essential.” It took the university issuing a much more detailed definition to stop every poor hourly worker having to risk life and limb or take an un-paid day.
I asked about moving to a larger cubicle in my work area, that is currently empty, and was told “but that’s for a manager!” SRSLY. I have to sit in a smaller area with no cube walls just because I don’t manage anyone?
And when, exactly, did being a manager become our class deliminator? Because it is. I was filling out my job description (for my boss who was allergic to work and therefore wouldn’t do it himself) and he said “Woah woah you can’t us the words ‘manage student employees’ you aren’t a manager.” “But I manage them. I file their hours and I give them their tasks and they report back to me.” “Yeah, but I’m their manager on paper. If we said you managed anyone, we’d have to pay you more.”
Do y’all realize how completely arbitrary this is? Managing my students was simple clerical work compared to the complex problems I had to deal with as a programmer. Why would one be paid more than the other? Why is it less valuable to society to greet and direct people than manage the people who greet and direct? One person is providing a necessary service with high-touch people skills, the other is filling out forms.
This is not to denigrate the great profession of managing, and I learned a lot managing my gaggle of students– how to delegate tasks, separate tasks, how to manage problem people and encourage better behavior. BUT… these are not the management skills that seem to be rewarded. The skills rewarded are, near as I can tell, org-chart location.
I could write pages and pages about class at work. It’s best summed up by a brief exchange I had once with a fellow office-worker as we left for the day and I said farewell to the desk guard.
“Wow, Marie! You know all the security people and all the janitors.”
“Of course I do. They’re our colleagues.”
“Huh. I never thought of it like that!”
“Aren’t I your colleague even though we don’t do the same job?”
“Well, yes, but…. you knoooow.”
We didn’t work in the same office. I was IT, she was HR. BUT we were the same CLASS. We wore clothes we wanted to and we were paid salaries.
MMHMMM
So, I guess I’m writing this to say: whatever you do for a living, look at the people doing different jobs for your company. They are your colleagues. Look at the subtle ways class boundaries are enforced and fight them in any way you can. Fight for a chair for the person at the front desk. Demand the janitors be invited to the baby shower. And it may never work, but keep asking why the person who does confidential HR paperwork is in an open office setting while her supervisor is in a private office.
by 
by 
