For better or worse, many of us derive a good amount of our self-worth from our jobs.
After all, depressingly, we spend most of our waking lives working! It makes sense that we'd want to find some meaning in it.
Just ask any kid what they want to be when they grow up and you'll hear about prestigious or heroic professions like doctor, firefighter, actor, or, just maybe, famous TikToker.
But how about garbage collector?
Probably not one of the top choices.
A 24-year-old garbage man recently took to Reddit with a conundrum: He likes the work and the pay, but he can't help but feel embarrassed telling people what he does for a living.
Photo by the blowup on Unsplash
"I’m a 24yr old guy ... I’ve been a garbage man for the past 2 years and I feel a sense of embarrassment doing it," OP wrote.
"It’s a solid job, great benefits and I currently make $24 an hour. I could see myself doing this job for a long time. However whenever someone asks me what I do for work I feel embarrassed. Should I feel this way?"
There's definitely a stigma around a lot of blue collar work, especially "dirty" work like, well, anything to do with sanitation.
The comments were overwhelmingly positive, but not all in the way you might expect.
The extremely clear sentiment at the very top of the thread was this:
Garbage collectors are essential works, and OP should be extremely proud of both his employment and of his service to his community.
"You shouldn't be ashamed of having an honest job," said u/nottoomanysalad
"Garbage men are far more valuable than most jobs out there and I'll die on this hill. If I were running a country the people I'd hire immediately after a proper cabinet were sanitation workers," wrote u/Reddit-Lurker-
"Dude, I work for a health insurance company that makes it's profit by denying people life saving care. I'm ashamed of my job. You have nothing to be embarrassed about, you do honest work that benefits your community. I would love to tell people I worked in sanitation," said u/beefymennonite.
A few commenters playfully teased the original poster, too:
"not sure why you'd be embarrassed about being an Excess Material Logistics Manager," wrote u/Correct-Sometimes
Photo by Nathan Cima on Unsplash
Others brought up a really good point: If any job could be future proof, garbage collector might be the one.
"The good thing is your job won't be off shored. The over 60,000 people in tech who got laid off in tech this year wish their former jobs could not be off shored," wrote u/DougWong1980.
TechCrunch has the number of tech layoffs in 2024 at more like 130,000 — yikes.
Engineers and programmers quickly chimed in to say that, yes, finding and holding a "cool" job in tech is a nightmare these days.
Finding steady, stable, non-office work that you enjoy and that pays enough, even if it's "embarrassing"? That's the smart move these days.
Big-picture-wise, the tide is turning on so-called blue collar jobs. More and more young people are choosing trade schools or going right into the work force over spending six figures on a college education.
Being a plumber or electrician, for example, can be incredibly lucrative, and those trades won't be outsourced or given over to ChatGPT any time soon.
Working in sanitation isn't so different. It's stable, essential work — and it's harder to land a job there than you might think, especially in big cities where openings can get seriously competitive.
Indeed pegs the average garbage collector salary at about $52,000 per year.
That's not big money, but again, it's reliable, comes with government benefits, and won't have you answering emails at midnight on a Saturday.
Younger generations are looking for something different out of their careers. Hopefully one day soon we won't even have to ask whether being a garbage collector should be embarrassing — we'll all know that the answer is a resounding No.
