The Cold War: I never knew it, but I miss it. That shared fear—of unified annihilation—now minutely individualized. A billion solitary fears, alone with the cold, on one side or the other of a thousand Berlin Walls—that's America, sittin' pretty. Here lurks the terror of the One Wrong Move. A move like taking the wrong job, rubbing shoulders with the wrong "folks." Implicitly, it's typified by a comment I saw on a LinkedIn item. Why workers born in '80s are poorer:
I can’t speak for all 80’s babies, but I can assure everyone that I’m not looking for the blue collar position where I could potentially pick up bad habits at the bottom. I’m looking to utilize my skills acquired in the classroom and to be groomed into the model employee by an employer.
In other words, blue-collar rubes don't go to heaven—not first-class heaven, anyway. And blue-collar jobs (where they exist) are, at best, sin-adjacent. Right next door to some bad habits—even, for example: drug habits. Now, I have a feeling that the corporate world sees its share of drug use, not that anybody asked me. We've already settled on the bedtime story of the rural meth-head menace. It's just the way it is. If you're looking to be a model employee, then it's better you don't ask questions about how anything came to be the way it is.