Cowboys and Truckers, Part 4

“You would be hungry, naked, and homeless without truckers.”

—Slogan painted on the back of a truck I passed recently—

Job (n): a piece of work done for pay

Work (n): effort exerted to do or make something

Americans are obsessed with identity.  Just wander through a self-help section at a Barnes and Noble or library and it’s pretty obvious what I mean.  Psychologists across the country make bank every year by encouraging people to embrace their “true selves.”  Even without tapping one of these resources, chances are good that the average person has wondered, “Who am I?  Who do I want to be?” at one or two times in life.  Perhaps one of the largest influences on identity is the work that we choose to do.  Even when we’re little, adults constantly inquire, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Have you ever noticed, though, how the question changes throughout time?  As children, we are asked what we want to be.  As teens and young adults, we are asked,  “What is it you want to do with your life?”  At some point, it stops being about who we are and starts being about what we can do.  Despite the fact that changing that one word really does change the context, society seems to take no notice because there is a strong association between what we do for a living and who we are as individual people.  In the eyes of most of society the two questions are identical.

(Note: Throughout the following discussion, I will use the words “job” and “work” in very specific contexts.  Make sure you’ve read the definitions above before moving on.)

One of the central questions that has been buzzing around in my mind during these last few weeks is “When did jobs start carrying stigmas?”  Throughout history, there have always been ignoble jobs.  These include jobs that are morally wrong with a person being paid for an immoral act or through immoral means (like prostitution or thievery).  Ignoble jobs also included those where a person was working to repay a debt or that specifically defined a person as property (like indentured servitude or slavery).  There are clear reasons why an average worker would have felt “too good” for those jobs or why they would never have done them at all.

Outside of those types of “employment” (the term is used loosely), though, jobs were jobs.  If a particular job put food on the table and it wasn’t illegal or immoral, working people were all too willing to do the labor for pay.  It was a matter of survival, not identity.  An example of this comes from stories I’ve heard of my grandpa.  When he came over from Ireland, he said that a man could approach the foreman of a ditch digging detail, let’s say, and ask if he could work for the day.  If the foreman agreed, the man could grab a shovel and work for the day, receiving payment when the day’s work was done.  A job was a job, and by doing it, a person was able to make the necessary income to survive.  Furthermore, survival was a community idea.  Each working person was able to provide a service to another working person and a community of working people was a building block of society.  Blacksmiths helped shoe horses for farmers who grew produce for shopkeepers who sold necessary goods to the general public in towns across America.  No one in the working class would have “looked down” on other workers because they all needed each other to function in society.

Then, at some point in our history (I would venture a guess that it was after the Depression and the end of World War II), work took on a different value in America.  No longer were people judged based on how they did their jobs.  Before this change, a person who was a hard worker was someone of value; people judged other workers based on their quality of work.  After this change, a person of value was someone who had a prestigious job or a high salary.  Obviously, being a hard worker is how many people gain prestigious jobs, so it’s not as though the actual usefulness of hard work changed.  Something else changed.  Instead of work being a part of our lives – what we do to survive individually and as a part of a community – the jobs we hold are our whole lives – what define us as individuals and set us apart from our community.  The collective identity was traded for the individual identity.

Essentially, Americans decided to give jobs the power to say something about who we are as individuals.  Review the definitions up top again.  A “job” is an isolated concept, one piece of work.  We focus on jobs these days – the piece of work a person does every day to make a living.  Now re-read the definition of “work.”  It’s the effort a person puts into a job.  In America’s past, I believe that the value of hard work was a part of our collective national identity.  It didn’t matter as much what job a worker was doing (as long as it was legal and moral), but how he did the work told the community something about who he was.  Now, it’s not as much how we do the work that matters, it’s the title behind the work that gives validation.

Now, to cowboys and truckers…

I believe the job vs. work idea combined with America’s national identity make up one of the major reasons why the cowboy has been mythologized the way he has.  At the time cowboys were working, they were helping to build and expand America.  Society viewed the cowboy’s job as critical to the growth of our nation.  Because the work of the cowboy was noble, the cowboy was noble.  It didn’t matter that he was doing a “blue collar” job or that he was a common laborer.  His work contributed to the greater American community, and therefore it was important.  Had the cowboy come along at a different part in our history, perhaps he wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but because the heyday of the cowboy was, in many ways, also a heyday of America, the two end up hand in hand.  We have created and sustained cowboy mythology because it is also the mythology of America.

The job vs. work idea also contributes to the lack of mythology surrounding the trucker.  The actual job of the cowboy and trucker are pretty similar – take a product from Point A to Point B so it can be sold and a profit can be collected.  As I read about trucking, I was amazed at how hard the work can be.  I always figured that driving was pretty easy work, so truckers had it pretty easy.  However, there is a physical labor facet of trucking since trucks don’t unload themselves.  Overall, the job of a trucker is exhausting.  So, the “hard work” aspect of being a trucker isn’t much different than that of the cowboy.  Also, truckers are crucial to American commerce.  The statement I read on the back of that truck about all of us being hungry, naked, and homeless without truckers is pretty true.  Truckers take necessary goods from where they are produced to where they are sold.  Many of the foods and products we enjoy are available only because a trucker was willing to drive across the country.  So, they can be viewed as essential to the American people.  Finally, even the “open road” on which truckers drive connects them with the image of cowboys.  In literature, the “open road” is usually a symbol of possibility, freedom from social bonds, escape, and individualism.  Like being on “the range”, being on the “open road” suggests that the trucker is a man who is embraces adventure, freedom, and a spirit of independence.  So, with all of these similarities, why aren’t truckers the new mascot of the American identity?

It’s because the actual job of being a trucker isn’t viewed as a desirable form of employment.  Our priorities in terms of work have changed drastically.  Jobs that don’t provide the rewards of money, prestige, or a certain lifestyle are considered “not as good as others.”  Society feeds right into this idea.  I just had a conversation with a friend the other day where he was pretty adamant that Starbucks baristas needed to go find “a real job.”  I’ve said the same phrase myself about a variety of jobs.  We equate a person’s job with who they are, so if the job isn’t what’s considered a “great” job, then the person doing the job must not be much to talk about either.  Maybe that sounds harsh.  I know there have been times in my 20s when I’ve been ashamed to tell people what job I was doing because I felt the job title reflected poorly on me.  I’ve never held a job that was truly shameful, but because I wasn’t doing a job with an interesting or important job title, I felt that I needed to hide what I was doing.  At the time, I wasn’t even sure what type of work I wanted to pursue, and I didn’t see that what mattered was that I was working.  It mattered to me that people around me thought I was important because of my impressive job title.

Just as a person’s image to those around them plays a part in how they view their work, a worker’s self-image ties into the whole issue, as well.  We desire to hold jobs that help support the view we have of ourselves.  In Lawrence Ouellet’s book about truckers, Pedal to the Metal, I was really fascinated by his discussion of how truckers view themselves.  This specific self-image brings me to my final point on this whole big topic I’ve been exploring for almost a month.  One of Ouellet’s major questions about truckers was why do they seem to put forth such high effort when the extrinsic motivators that usually push workers forward aren’t present in trucking.  Most truckers aren’t entrepreneurs, so they don’t have the positive pressure that comes from working for themselves.  Ouellet also found it wasn’t because of the money, nature of the work, or access to high-end equipment that comes along with trucking.  When Ouellet studied truckers at two different trucking companies, he noticed two distinct factors.

First, there seemed to be a specific class consciousness about the work.  These men wanted to do enough to be competent and achieve their work goals without completely being under the thumb of their employer.  For these truckers, they didn’t want to be completely sold out to their companies because it meant they were just pawns to the companies that employed them and they were no longer the independent men they wanted to be.  Secondly—and this brings in a point I just discussed two paragraphs ago—they also had a high sense of honor about the work because they realized that their jobs held a great amount of sway over how they were viewed by others.  When these truckers did their jobs excellently, it boosted their self-esteem.  I think this is true for everyone.  When a person knows they’ve done a quality job, it brings with it a “pat yourself on the back” sort of feeling.  A job well done brings with it quantifiable results that provide a tangible identity.  This same effort also qualifies the worth of the labor and makes sense of the work.  Perhaps work that requires high effort is worthwhile.  Basically, these truckers were willing to work hard to prove to themselves (and others) that they had a meaningful job, even if the job title wasn’t one that was often coveted.  Like cowboys, these truckers were hoping that by ennobling the work they were doing, it would ennoble them, as well.

And they were also completely willing to tout their own importance – even without an endorsement from society.  Ouelett indicated over and over that truckers see themselves as the best of the best when it comes to driving ability.  They believe they fit the picture of “traditional men” in this country: strong and confident, hardworking and tough.  Truckers embrace the symbolism of the open road and many view themselves as “cowboys.”  Because they do their work on the stage of the highway, truckers see the attention from other drivers as proof of their importance.  Even though I’d argue that no job in our country sums up our national character and the work of a trucker doesn’t hold the same national significance as the work of a cowboy did, truckers clearly see themselves as holding a job that symbolizes something greater.  Truckers choose to assign meaning to their work, even if no one else is going to do it.  It’s this factor that makes me respect truckers more than I used to.  Obviously, this book was one man’s experience with truckers and there’s no guarantee that all truckers can be tarred with the same brush.  But I like to think that there are people in our country who still care more about their work than their job, and based on what I read, truckers seem to fit that category.

The American identity has changed drastically since the 1800s, when the cowboy rode over the open plain.  The cowboy was viewed as an icon of who we were as Americans – independent, brave, hard-working, and adventurous.  His work meant something because his work helped grow the United States.  Nowadays, someone who is a hard worker, like a trucker, no longer seems to have much of a chance of being the icon of our national spirit because we emphasize what our job title is over what our work means.  We want our jobs to provide us with an income that helps us live up to a certain level.  Or, our job description must fit with what we believe we deserve and—if we MUST work—what we’re willing to do.  Or, our jobs have the duty to create an entire identity so we can chirp our fascinating job title right after we introduce ourselves and thus feel like we’re someone worthwhile.  It goes back to the original idea that we are obsessed with our identities in this country.  Our non-work selves can be so cloudy sometimes, and jobs often bring with them a particular subculture or specific activities.  It is concrete and seems real to us because of its concreteness.  It’s easier to create a defined work self, and therefore we look to our jobs to tell us who we are.

The challenge I’d like to extend is that we each consider the meaning behind the work we are doing rather than just the job title.  Maybe you don’t feel like the work you do is worthwhile.  But, if your work provides you with a home and food, it means something.  If your work helps to support a family, it means something.  And if your work, no matter how menial it is, gives you a chance to set and achieve goals, it means something.  You may be smarter than your job, but that doesn’t mean the work you do isn’t important.  Just doing the work well elevates the role you play.  Maybe it’s a stretch, but I was thinking the other day about MLK, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and how he pled with the American people to judge people not based on the color of their skin but by the “content of their character.”  Ultimately, if we are quick judge ourselves and others based just on job titles, we are completely forgetting that it’s the way the work gets done that truly paints a picture of who is behind the work.

New topic next week!  J