“Who’s Gonna Feed Them Hogs?”

The resolution of Tom T. Hall’s mournful song about a hospitalized pig farmer set me to thinking about work, the dignity of work, and perspectives on work*. The song ends:
“Well, the doctors say they do not know what saved the man from death
But in a few days he put on his overalls and he left.”
(All to feed and care for them hogs!)
The song’s about work’s dignity and its life-giving purpose.
Given work’s power, it’s positive influence on all of us – but for the most derelict – why is one type of work presumably better than another? Why the demarcation between blue collar and white collar?
Blue Collars are the people who do things. They work with their hands, mind and muscle, yet, somehow our culture diminishes the importance of their contribution.
The most important worker, I was told by the deli counter manager at NYCs famous Zabar’s deli, was the guy hauling away the trash!
These are the people that grow food,  keep your car running, clean your office, paint your house, clear the stuck drain, and renovate your house.
Sure, you might think you can do it yourself, but most of us can’t nor do we want to.
We want, if we can afford it, for someone to come in and do it right the first time.
And, if a blue collar career is managed right, one can make a living from doing what others don’t want to, don’t have the time, or are not bit by the DIY bug.

The Wall Street Journal focused my attention on the topic of celebrating unheralded work, “The Thrill of Victory in Welding, Baking and Bricklaying.” The article talks about going for workplace gold: with over 1200 young workers showing off their vocational skills” in 51 jobs.
Bricklayers, cooks and florists may be unsung jobs, for sure, but are they not mainstays in our economies?
In my business, I was most drawn to the “support staff” doing the work. I turned to them for ways to improve.
While some, due to overbearing leaders, were reluctant to speak up, I was able to convince a few to share what they thought.
These ideas, coming from the people doing the work, helped clear major roadblocks and bottlenecks.
Certainly, a professional – those someones we pay, optimistically, to think – may come up with an idea, but often, lacking urgency it may go unimplemented or, worse, it may, when adopted, only aggravate the bottle neck.
Have you found yourself marveling at how a craftsman can quickly, skillfully, assess and zero in on a problem?
I recall a leaky roof.
Replacing the roof did not fix it. Nor did caulking or creative ways for draining the roof water.
The leaks stopped when a master roofer traced them to their source by deftly lifting up rows of shingles, and then looking for evidence of water: rusty nail heads. I was alongside on the roof and got to see what he was doing.
The first row of shingles did not reveal what he was looking for, the second ditto, but the third row, was the Aha!
There were the rusted nail heads, driven though the rubber plenum.
Once the heads rusted out (from earlier leaks), the water trickled down the nail shaft into the house.
That skilled craftsman solved a chronic problem and I was able to sell the house with a clear conscience. I did not have to be like Frank Lloyd Wright who famously responded to an owner complaining about the leaky roof:
“So? It’s a Frank Lloyd Wright house!” In other words, get used to it.
Getting back to my line of work, I often wonder what it was that I brought to the organization.
Many people I supervised did things far better than I ever could.
So, how did I add value? Well, there were my big picture ideas on what we should be doing.
I demonstrated and promoted innovation.
I made a contribution, but as for the day-to-day, the bread and butter of our work, I contributed seemingly little.
I was an asker of questions and I queried what customers were thinking and brought their answers to the workplace. Sometimes those questions and answers led to improvements, but only if the people doing the work did something about it.
Unlike most of my peers, I was not very good at exerting the types of power that come with a title on the door.
One way my leadership helped was through freeing up some people to think about what they did and how to improve it, no small accomplishment.
When those ideas were forthcoming, they made a big difference to what we were trying to accomplish.
How does an organization quantify the results of a leader who frees up people?
Or does the organization – made up of would be experts – recoil at the very idea? As experts, my freeing up workers was giving away their jobs!
So, I am left wondering if those of us who liberate workers are not perceived to be like the comical slacker philosopher in Jerome K. Jerome’s novel, Three Men in a Boat: “I can’t sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can’t help it.”

*With declining college enrollments, tales of 6 figure salaries for plumbers and electricians, and an increasing respect for those who can fix things, I thought it was time to revise and bring back this blog from 2018.

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And for my book of fables (cover above) tied to leadership and the workplace, a 25% discount to celebrate the blog’s move to a new platform: Link HERE to BUY

And, my book (cover above) on democratic workplaces and what leaders can do with limited resources and unlimited imagination, Leading from the Middle, is available at Amazon.</a>

N.B. For other essays on numerous other topics go to my Nucleus archive from 2010-early 2025.

© Copyright John Lubans 2018 & 2025