Garbage Man
"They call us truck loaders, that's what the union did. We're just laborers, that's all we are. What the devil, there's no glamour to it. Just bouncin' heavy cans around all day. I'm givin' the city a fair day's work. I don't want to lean on anyone else. Regardless if I was working here or elsewhere, I put in my day. We're the ones that pick up the cans, dump 'em in the hopper, and do the manuel end of the job. There's nothing complex about it." (103)
Washroom Attendant
"I'm not particularly proud of what I'm doing. The shine man and I discuss it quite freely. In my own habitat I don't go around saying I'm a washroom attendant at the Palmer House. Outside of my immediate family, very few people know what I do. They do know I work at the Palmer House and let that suffice. You say Palmer House, they automatically assume you're a waiter." (108)
Janitor
"I carry on my jacket, it says: Hoellen, Building Engineer. But I'm a janitor. An engineer is just a word that people more or less respect. I don't care. You can call me a janitor. There's nothing wrong with a janitor. A lotta guys that work in high rises, he'll carry the same card as me but, man, he don't want to hear the word janitor. He's an engineer. He's even got "building engineer" written on his mailbox and his bells."(119)
I found it really interesting that these three jobs are doing very similar things but yet that all have a different outlook on what they are doing. The washroom attendant does not let many people know exactly what he does besides his immediate family but then the janitor does not care if anyone knows exactly what he does. The garbage man does not take his job very seriously, he just looks at it like picking up the garbage but the janitor is proud of what he does and does not look at his job as a disgrace and just a job that he was given.
The 3 quotes that Shauna put is a good example of what i define work. The washroom attendant and the garbage men didnt really like their job. While the janitor was proud of what he does. This makes me think that for the janitor he does not consider his job work. He might just consider something that lets him receive money.(Jonathan Mieses)
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