Marabelli brings up some very interesting points in his article, "Learning to Serve." In it, Peter Drucker asserts that "interactive service workers lack the necessary education to be 'knowledge workers'" (Marabelli 145). This is a very generalized statement that I do not agree with. Service work is not a job that everyone can handle. I have worked a few food industry jobs and I never want to go back to. I tried it and can say I have seen what that industry is like and know its not for me. My job now as well as those summer jobs all strongly focus on customer service. If you've never had to deal with customers in a direct face-to-face interaction before consider yourself lucky. The people that I have met in the service industry, for the most part, are all people that i would say could be "knowledge workers," but had something holding them back. For a lot of service workers I think the thing holding them back would be furthering their education so they can be "knowledge workers." This isn't necessarily a drawback for them, but being a service worker is more of just a job to have while to work to become something more. I have many friends who are servers and waiters who I know will someday be "knowledge workers." Does having that particular job make them any less of who they are or who they will become? No, I don't believe so. Maybe to others who didn't have to work as hard as my friends do in order to have a better job might think so. Sure there are some service workers who just aren't meant to become "knowledge workers" but to say that all service workers cant become such, is a bit of a stretch.
I agree with you when you say that these particular "service jobs" don't make people any less of who they are. I actually say something similar in my blog! Peter Drucker assumes that people work these jobs because they don't know how to do anything else, but maybe they're still in college like us, or maybe they're saving up money so they can go to college. I think Drucker jumped to a conclusion too quickly about service workers. Just because someone is a service worker does not mean they can never or will never become a knowledge worker. Just because someone works at a fast food chain or at a retail store does not mean they aren’t capable of performing as well as “knowledge workers”. These jobs don’t determine a person’s capability
ReplyDelete- Joan Laygo