Burns 1 Danny Burns ENGL 1101 Ms.

Hinnant September 10, 2013 Work Affects More Than Your Wallet Forcing myself out of bed every morning at the crack of dawn, five days a week, the same thought went through my head every day. There is no way I want to do this for the rest of my life. My parents own a construction company, and Ive worked every summer and winter break for the past two years. I spent most of my days pouring concrete; so between the curing of concrete and the hot summer sun, the heat was unbearable and the chill of winter was just as bad. Although work was full of pain and misery, I never thought it would make such a large impact on my life. Work gave me a new motivation for school; it made me realize that if I didn't take school seriously then I would be working construction for the rest of my life. I never noticed until I stopped to think about it, but my job is a major social force that impacted the way I read, write, and even speak. Ever since I was in elementary school, I have never read a lot outside of the classroom. I had only been exposed to the types of text that my teachers had assigned like text book readings, novels, short stories, and so on. These texts that my teachers would assign for me to read all had something in common, despite the variety of genre, they are not written in the context of text I will most likely encounter in a professional job. Work introduced me to two new styles of reading that I was previously not familiar with. Most people probably dont think that there is a lot of reading that goes along with a construction job; and ten to twenty years ago they would be right. Now a day safety is such a big part of everyday operations, each job requires employees to

Burns 2 read safety regulations once or even twice a week. These safety regulations are not just a short checklist of what to do or not to do, they are very lengthy detailed processes of how to safely do something, either as simple as walk the job or as complex as operating a massive machine. Anytime these regulations are changed, a new copy is issued and each employee must read through the entire packet again. These safety packets are written very formally and to the point, and before working I was very unfamiliar to that style of writing, because teachers never assigned those kinds of readings. This formal type of writing escapes an average curriculum because teachers may not find educational value in texts like memos, emails, and safety regulations. Those types of texts lack a plot line and characters to evaluate and analyze, which is why most teachers do not assign them to read. After being exposed to this formal type of writing, and reading it multiple times a week, work has helped me grow as a reader. Work helped me improve my reading skills by making me more familiar with formal text, but it also taught me an entirely new, very unique, type of reading. When I started working, I had little work experience, and didnt know a lot about construction at all. Since my first day on the job almost two years ago, I have come a long way and learned a lot about the industry. On a construction job, every company needs to work in sync, for instance if a company was doing work on top of the concrete we were pouring, they needed to trust it was on the spot it needed to be. The way this is made possible is through scaled drawings. Every company has a set of drawings made by the engineer, so everyones work fits together to build the structure. Scale drawings are hard to interpret, and to a normal person might look like a bunch of lines on a paper. Work has taught me to be able to interpret scale drawings into the structure they represent. Now when I walk onto a job, I can look at the drawings and map out the work that needs to be done for the day. Being able to read scaled drawings has helped me in the classroom, and will

Burns 3 continue to help me in the future. Reading scaled drawings has a lot of geometry and trigonometry involved in it, even more than I knew when I was learning. After becoming familiar with scaled drawings, I associate a lot of graphing I do in math classes to scaled drawings and it gives me an advantage to people in the class who may not be familiar with what we are learning. Being familiar with scaled drawings can help my future because it widens my skills set and is something interesting I can put on a rsum that can give me a competitive edge. Work has made me more familiar with a reading formal writing, and introduced me to an entirely new form of text, to shape me into the reader I am today. I have never seen myself as a strong writer, and it has only discouraged me as a student. I have been so stubborn about it in the past, and not received help because I grew to dislike it. My stubborn personality had left me rendered, because all the time I ignored help I have just fallen behind. Last year when I attended East Carolina University, I took English 1100 but got a D in the class. The English credit did not transfer, so I felt like I failed the class. Working construction made me realize that I need to put more focus on my school work. In the construction industry I rarely came across a part time worker out on the job, almost everyone I worked with worked full time, year around. Most of my co-workers did not go to college, and were not in school. They would always tell me to learn from their mistakes and to value my education by staying in school. One guy I worked with in particular, Mr. Buff, whenever we were doing something hard, would look at me and say Think about this next time youre about to skip a class, or not study for a test and remember you do not want to come back and do this for the rest of your life. All the advice I got suddenly turned into a new reality for me, I needed to take school more seriously. During every English class I have taken, I have never tried any of the writing techniques my teachers have taught and I have followed the same method I always do. The

Burns 4 method I used to write my papers was more of a bad habit. I would wait to work on my assignment for the night before it was due and write a draft, revise it once, and then turn it in. My new focus on school has led me to try and improve as a writer, instead of just trying to scrape by. After this summer I know that writing is definitely something I need to focus in on as a student, because I have ignored it for so long. This semester I look forward to practicing and becoming a stronger writer, and I am glad work gave me the motivation school never has to improve my writing. Working in the construction industry, I had to learn to change the way I speak. The way I speak at work, is not the same way I do at home or with my friends. Before working concrete construction, I had never had a real job before so I didnt know how to talk in a professional manner. In a work environment I had to adapt the way I speak to my fellow workers, superiors, and other people on the job. If I was talking to my fellow workers I could talk casually, but in most cases the language barrier limited conversation. When talking to my superiors, I would talk formally and with respect. If I was conversing with another worker out on the job, I could speak casually but I had to sound educated about construction because I was representing the company I worked for. Work taught me how to speak in a way I was previously not familiar with. I learned that I need to speak to my co-workers differently than I talk to my superiors. Although my parents did own the company I worked for, most of the people I worked under did not treat me any different than a regular worker, and expected my respect just as they did from everyone else. This is a useful skill, because in my future jobs I know how my superiors are going to expect me to talk to them. I plan to work for a corporation of some sort in the future, and I will most likely be working under someone, and I know that they will expect to me to speak to them professionally and with respect. Work taught me how to speak to different audiences, but more

Burns 5 importantly it improved my ability to speak in a second language. Most of the people I work with are Hispanic men, who do not speak English very well. When I first started working, I barely knew what was being said around me or even to me. In the past two years my Spanish vocabulary has increased more from work than my high school Spanish classes ever taught me. Although I cannot speak fluent Spanish by any means, I can now understand most of the conversations that my co-workers have either with me or around me, and can respond (to some extent) to them. The Hispanic population in the United States is higher than ever before, and it is only increasing so being able to understand any Spanish is useful. This is a very important skill to have, as employers like employees to be able to speak a second language. Being familiar with the Spanish language will be useful during my next years working for my parents, and for the rest of my life. Construction has always been a dreadful experience for me and I never thought it would impact my life the way it did. Accepting my job was one of the most important decisions of my life, I have no idea where I would be today if I never endured the plight of a hardworking man. Work has inspired me to focus on school, it has made me familiar with two styles of reading, and it has taught speaking skills that will be useful for the rest of my life. Work is no longer just a source of money to me; it has become a major social force that has changed me for the rest of my life.