Real work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Real work - Essay Example The ‘simple insight’ that Rodrigues has during his experience of working as a manual laborer is that he would not learn in three months what his father had meant by ‘real work’. He realized that his keenness to experience the sensations from the regular motion of shoveling, even when he was doing it for several hours at a stretch, was because he knew that this experience was only a temporary one for him. Rodrigues’ sweating chest and painful shoulder did not lessen his enjoyment of the work; and he was unwilling to learn from an older colleague who wished to show him a different manner of shoveling, to avoid making his back work too much. He realized that because he was not bound to the job, the sensations of exertion and fatigue were something to be savored, according to him. On the other hand, people like his own father and uncle who had done similar work at his age out of sheer necessity, would have feared fatigue because of its different toll on t heir bodies and minds. undertake for the purpose of making a small living. According to Rodrigues’ mother and father, ‘real work’ involves working with one’s hands at manual jobs. Their only purpose for doing such work for little pay, was to make ends meet, and to find a foothold in the foreign soil of America where they hoped to make a living. Thus, his parents would think of the author’s enjoyment in experiencing of the sensations of manual labour as far from the truth about ‘real work’. Rodrigues’ mother and father may not consider as ‘real work’ white collar jobs related to desk work, and working in comfortable or plush environments. The contemporary mode of working at computer systems may seem to them merely as pleasant pastimes, not to be regarded as actual work. Rodrigues doubted his ability to understand real work because even if he worked in some kind of factory, like his father’s last job, it would be a different experience for him. His long years of education