Blog #8 - Service jobs

Honestly, I don't think like stated by Paul Drucker's that "interactive service workers lack the necessary education to be "knowledge workers". Personally, I would phrase it differently: "interactive service does not require "knowledge workers" to satisfy job requirements". Drucker's statement is wrong because it draws a conclusion on a person based on the type of job that they hold without giving any importance to outside influencing factors.

For example, when I worker at Jack in the Box, most of my co-workers were Mexicans who lived across the border in Mexico and worked here during weekends to make some extra side income. Most of them held a job that definitely required them to be "knowledge workers". For example, one of them was a bank executive, other was a secretary, and other one was a air conditioning technician. These are jobs that arguably require at least some type of "knowledge workers" but just because they also work an "interactive service" job, does not mean they "lack education to be 'knowledge workers'".

It is true interactive service jobs don't require much of a "knowledge worker" to work them. The job itself is the exact same routine every day. Take orders, take them out as fast as possible, and every once in a while when there was a complaint, offer them a free cheesecake and if they were still mad, a free milkshake. In other words, I don't think it will take long until these type of jobs become completely automated, and hopefully it is soon, because they are the most stressing type of job in the world.

But back to Drucker's argument, it is wrong because it makes an assumption about the character of a person based on the type of job they hold, but like I said it undermines outside factors. The basic assumption in his argument is that jobs that require "knowledge workers" make you a better living than those who not. For this same reason, a person who has the necessary education to become a "knowledge worker" would then work at a job that requires "knowledge workers" and not at a "interactive service job". But besides the fact that a lot of "interactive service jobs" in the USA pay a lot more than some "knowledge jobs", there are many other reasons why one could have the necessary education to work a "interactive service job" while still having the education to be a "knowledge worker".