Actually a recent bestseller nonfiction book is devoted to this topic.. It is very informative and also quite funny. It is "Nickel and Dimed", by Barbara Ehrenreich. In it the author who has a PhD in biology and is a political columnist with Time and other magazines goes under cover to work as a waitress, a Walmart employee, a maid and other minimum wage blue collar jobs. She works ,if I remember correctly, 3 months at each job and reports her daily experience in great detail in each of these jobs. To really have an understanding and developing a respect for these jobs and the people who do them it is the next best thing to actually working the job.
My own pet peeve about lack of respect is for the employees at fast food restaurants and grocery store checkers. When these places are busy, watch how hard the employees work and the stress from the customers they endure all for minimum wage. It really pisses me off to see self important yuppie types fuming or even making insulting comments because the checker/ fast food worker, who probably works harder than the yuppie, is momentarily confused or a little slow.
Refinery operators Everyone takes gasoline for granted. Well, someone has to make it! $25 an hour is simply not enough to keep America moving.
My wife is a teacher and she would kill me for saying this...but I think it is way too cliche to say that teachers are underpaid and unappreciated. Take the average elementary school teacher...at 3:30, he's going home. maybe he stays till 4:30, but if he needs to leave earlier than that he can. he has 3 months off during the summer. 3 freaking months!!!! he also has two weeks off at Christmas break. are you serious?? teachers starting in houston today make around $30-$34K/year...for working about 8 months out of the year. That still leaves another 1/3 of the year they can find employment...either as a summer school teacher or something else. I don't think paying a teacher $34K/year for working 8 months out of the year is all that rough considering we have first year attorneys working at significant law firms and corporate legal departments for just over $50k/year...and they put in 3 more years of school...and work 12 months out of the year...and generally work until the evening hours after arriving early.