Anonymous wrote:Serious question here. What does it mean to be "blue collar"? Not just in terms of profession and lack of college education, but what kind of values are considered blue collar?

Wikipedia says that blue collar workers in battleground states helped to elect Trump. Ick! So, as Trump said "he loves the uneducated" ... they are stupid and voted for a dictator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-collar_worker

Anonymous wrote:It depends OP. A lot of blue collar people have no books in their homes and don't speak properly/have poor grammar. It would drive me nuts if someone said "ain't" or something along those lines. If he reads and can speak well -- give him a chance. If he comes from a depraved background...tread cautiously.

Depraved people come in all income brackets. I'm not sure why there is a special PSA here for blue collar depravity.

Serious question here. What does it mean to be "blue collar"? Not just in terms of profession and lack of college education, but what kind of values are considered blue collar?

I'll take being friends with a plumber over being friends with the person calling them trash. We have a 7 figure HHI. We have friends with wide ranges of income, but we have no interest in being friends with snobby people. It's one of the reasons we left the DC area. People are so obsessed with status they care more about that than the quality of the person. It's so strange

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend and her (HS educated only) started a PORTA POTTY business. They make at least double what my DH and I make (doctorate and MBA- and both in high paying fields)

People have no clue.

It doesn't matter how much money they make, they still have a disgusting job and no education, which was the whole point.

Those people will never, ever fit in with other UMC/UC people. They have absolutely nothing in common with anyone else in that income strata beyond HHI. On the other hand, a couple with advanced degrees, even if they are literally unemployed, would still have many, many things in common with well-off people, because they shared so many of the same life experiences (private schools, top tier colleges, postgrad experiences, etc.). Whereas the other couple literally shovels sh!t all day. They'll never be respected, they'll never be seen as a leer, as an equal, because they aren't. They're just poorly educated trash with money.

I know 3 ivy educated lawyers who left biglaw (gasp) to (i) buy a Subway franchise and then buy 10 more after that first one; (ii) buy a UPS store over 15 yrs ago right when ecommerce was just starting and there weren't tons of shipping options; and (iii) buy a regional trucking company. All of them are making serious money and because they've owned these businesses for a long time now, they aren't sitting at work 40-60 hrs/wk, rather they spend their time investing their money/expanding into more businesses etc. It may shock you that they are making biglaw type money and certainly MUCH more than their biglaw peers who left to take up a GS 14 atty job. They most certainly aren't using their ivy educations now, yet they are making $$$. So you'd associate with them just because they are ivy grads and as you say even if unemployed, those with advanced degrees have many things in common with well off people? Somehow I think you're full of it -- you'd look down your nose at them as a mere truck driver . . . and not want to acknowledge that they own these businesses.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends OP. A lot of blue collar people have no books in their homes and don't speak properly/have poor grammar. It would drive me nuts if someone said "ain't" or something along those lines. If he reads and can speak well -- give him a chance. If he comes from a depraved background...tread cautiously.

How do you know this? Please explain.

I know this because I grew up in Ohio! There is a lot of mixing of blue collar folks and white collar folks.

I live very very close to Ohio and have never heard someone honestly say “ain’t,” not as a joke. How many homes do you go in to check for books? You sound very weird and unusually judgmental.

I'm very normal actually. My mother was an English teacher so it hurts my ears when someone says "ain't" or doesn't use proper verb tenses. And, I've been in a ton of homes ... I did canvassing as a college student all over Ohio. The thing about the DC area is there are few real "blue collar types" here in DC. One has to drive 30 more minutes each way into VA or MD to find a blue collar person.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends OP. A lot of blue collar people have no books in their homes and don't speak properly/have poor grammar. It would drive me nuts if someone said "ain't" or something along those lines. If he reads and can speak well -- give him a chance. If he comes from a depraved background...tread cautiously.

How do you know this? Please explain.

I know this because I grew up in Ohio! There is a lot of mixing of blue collar folks and white collar folks.

I live very very close to Ohio and have never heard someone honestly say “ain’t,” not as a joke. How many homes do you go in to check for books? You sound very weird and unusually judgmental.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends OP. A lot of blue collar people have no books in their homes and don't speak properly/have poor grammar. It would drive me nuts if someone said "ain't" or something along those lines. If he reads and can speak well -- give him a chance. If he comes from a depraved background...tread cautiously.

How do you know this? Please explain.

I know this because I grew up in Ohio! There is a lot of mixing of blue collar folks and white collar folks.

Anonymous wrote:It depends OP. A lot of blue collar people have no books in their homes and don't speak properly/have poor grammar. It would drive me nuts if someone said "ain't" or something along those lines. If he reads and can speak well -- give him a chance. If he comes from a depraved background...tread cautiously.

How do you know this? Please explain.

It depends OP. A lot of blue collar people have no books in their homes and don't speak properly/have poor grammar. It would drive me nuts if someone said "ain't" or something along those lines. If he reads and can speak well -- give him a chance. If he comes from a depraved background...tread cautiously.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend and her (HS educated only) started a PORTA POTTY business. They make at least double what my DH and I make (doctorate and MBA- and both in high paying fields)

People have no clue.

It doesn't matter how much money they make, they still have a disgusting job and no education, which was the whole point.

Those people will never, ever fit in with other UMC/UC people. They have absolutely nothing in common with anyone else in that income strata beyond HHI. On the other hand, a couple with advanced degrees, even if they are literally unemployed, would still have many, many things in common with well-off people, because they shared so many of the same life experiences (private schools, top tier colleges, postgrad experiences, etc.). Whereas the other couple literally shovels sh!t all day. They'll never be respected, they'll never be seen as a leer, as an equal, because they aren't. They're just poorly educated trash with money.

There’s one person in this post who is trash and it’s not either of the porta potty people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve recently started seeing a guy who’s wonderful. However, I have an advanced degree and he’s thoroughly blue-collar. (We’re both in our thirties.) Can it work?

It can work if he has ambition. But if he is someone happy to make $50,000 a year and sit around in the evening drinking cheap beer then I would pass on him.

There are plenty of white collar alcoholics who come home from work and shirk their family responsibilities to wallow in the sorrows of their own miserable existence.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve recently started seeing a guy who’s wonderful. However, I have an advanced degree and he’s thoroughly blue-collar. (We’re both in our thirties.) Can it work?

It can work if he has ambition. But if he is someone happy to make $50,000 a year and sit around in the evening drinking cheap beer then I would pass on him.

You are right about ambition to do better...but the situation your describing could just as easily be a white collar guy as well. It's not the color of the collar but the degree of excellence the person demands of themselves. And that is something independent of working class.

Anonymous wrote:I’ve recently started seeing a guy who’s wonderful. However, I have an advanced degree and he’s thoroughly blue-collar. (We’re both in our thirties.) Can it work?

It can work if he has ambition. But if he is someone happy to make $50,000 a year and sit around in the evening drinking cheap beer then I would pass on him.