Reader-Response Essay On Black and Kirn In "Summertime Dues" by Walter Kirn

Introduction

Work represents a significant and significant part of our lives nowadays. I assume that our primary purpose of working is to get money. However, there are also other purposes. One of these purposes is gaining experience that prepares us to the working world in the future. In "Summertime Dues" by Walter Kirn, the author wrote about work and shared his experience of working in summer when he was a teenager. Kirn said that working taught him numerous lessons that he would not have learned in school." But is there a gap between what a young worker is supposed to learn and what he or she encounters in the world of work?" said Kirn. I understand from this question that learning lessons are through working is inevitable. He said through working we build our character and responsibility and we also learn work ethics. However, what he learned was not what he was supposed to learn. He learned to deceive people, to pretend working when he is not, and to steal. Whereas in Bob Black's reading From The Abolition of Work, Black believes that work is a source of suffering and distress in this world. In the reading he wrote about his definition of work and why should work be abolished. He said that we should stop working because working is similar to being a slave. We are told what to wear, what we should do and how long we should take to finish it. I like and disagree with some of the two authors points. Here is why:

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Kirn said that he learned to cheat at his first summer job. Cheating is a big word, and when I had read it in the text, I assumed that the example would be negative. However, I don't think what he was learned was cheating. I believe that for all shop owners, their main purpose is making a lucrative work and boosting it with any possible way. An example of these ways is the wrist technique that the shop owner's taught Kirn, Kirn was disappointed as he felt guilty for not making an ice cream ball that is full from the inside and called that cheating. " I would give them globes of air that collapsed inward the moment they were licked" from this sentence I understand that it was so easy and obvious to figure that the ice-cream ball is hollow from the inside. People could've complained about it, and the owner might've quit using this technique. It is the owner right to use any business technique as I call it, to boost his profits especially if nobody complained about it. Numerous developing companies use different business techniques. For instance, every time I order a drink from Starbucks, I notice that they fill three-quarters of the cup with ice. That way they don't have to use the full amount of juice before adding the ice. Another example is Lays's potato chips company. What they do is filling each packet with air, so it looks bigger. Once you open the package, you will see that the amount of chips is just third if not quarter the package. As long as people can figure and notice these tricks, we cannot call them cheating or deceiving. In Kirn's example and the two previous cases, anybody can notice the companies' tricks, so it is not something happening behind people's back.

Work is the primary source of about all the misery in the world (Black 1). This is how black described work. I don't think that is true. I have a different definition of what work is. I define work as making money to survive by doing what we like. Work has numerous benefits in our lives even if there are some rules to guide us. Practice teaches us to be more serious, to feel responsible and independent and to manage our time. Labor has the power to change a person's personality. I had a friend who didn't get bored of playing games. He could play for a whole day, and that affected his life negatively. He used to sleep in the morning and to play the entire night. His vision was changed as well, so his mother advised him to get a job. She wanted him to spend less time playing. That was not a good suggestion for him as he was a games addict. Anyway, she convinced him. A couple of months later and after his work experience. He changed completely. His manager was strict, and he learned self-discipline. He became more mature and better at managing his time. Therefore, work is not the source of misery unless we hated what we are doing.

For me "Summertime Dues" was easier to understand because the author used simple words. He demonstrated what he learned by using real examples from his work experience, and that made his writing appear stronger and made it more interesting to me. While in Bob Black's reading From The Abolition of Work, the author used complex words and that made me struggle to understand every sentence or paragraph in that reading. Also, my history background is limited, and he gave many examples from the past, and that affected my understanding of the interpretation negatively as well.

Kirn talked about what he learned from work that school didn't teach him. He learned to cheat. To pretend to work and to take others' properties. Black talked about his definition of work and why we shouldn't work. He demonstrated that working is misery and makes us slaves, as we are to, told what to do the whole time. For me, work has many benefits, and it can help us have a better life.

On the abolition of work Black has taught us on the various forms of work, which he refers to us to rethink the basics assumptions on the work on the value of work and the importance of the job, whereby he makes an argument with seriousness and jokes. Bo lack has been a lawyer who has been involved in various political activism in the 1970s before being a leading proponent of one of the groups know as Zero work movement. Hence, it has been challenging us on the work in the modern world.

As Black challenges us on how the world will resemble if there was no work. He, therefore, refers to the work as being a source of all the misery which is in the world. To stop suffering, he suggested a lot of ways that is by being creative, festivity, commerciality, and also on the art, which he termed to as being a ludic revolution.

The ludic life is more compatible whereby, it is incompatible with the actual truth. Curiously or maybe not the old ideologies are majorly conservative due to their belief in work. But the liberals have the tendencies of accepting in ending on the employment discrimination, but he believes in terminating the employment. He also says he supports being lazy and agitates in being a permanent revelry. But if all the ideologues as usually do advocate for the work and not only tries in making people do theirs thus they are reluctant in saying so. This person endlessly carries their endless wages, working conditions, profitability, exploitation, and working hours. Hence, Black says that this expert usually offers us rarely in thinking on our own on their conclusions about work for all its saliency in their lives to all of us. But, they only argue only on the details. In giving out the advice, Bob Black says that life should be all about the game but wants it to be a game with high stakes to play for keeps. The alternative of work is not just by being middle but by being a person of substance who is ludic, and leisure is nonwork for the sake of the work. Which he referred leisure as being a time spent recovering from the work in a hysterical environment ut a hopeless attempt I forgetting on what is work. The difference between entertainment and work is that at least work someone can be paid from your enervation and alienation.

Conclusion

Conclusively, the minimum definition of work he gave was that work is forced labor, which should be a compulsory production. With both elements being essential. It is also enforced by political and economic means. But all the work is not all creation.