The most important quality is how we push ourselves to improve our knowledge every day. Mike Rose writes, “We assume that the use of a tool does not involve abstraction. We reinforce this notion by defining intelligence solely on grades in school and numbers on IQ test” (62). As he said, most of the time we believe that intelligence only comes from education and we think that a simple job doesn’t require a cognitive effort, but the true is that we accumulate our own knowledge by experience. 

Assuming that you are not intelligent enough based on the position you work, is just a generalization that looks down on a Blue-Collar worker.

By Cristina Gonzalez

Quote Sandwich Blue-collar Brilliance 

 I work at a restaurant, so I have the knowledge of how hard and stressful it can be by working in this industry. In “ Blue-collar Brilliance” Mike Rose states, “ if we believe everyday work to be mindless, then that will affect the work we create in the future” (59). We have to look at our work as an opportunity to learn and develop skills that in the future can help us to have more opportunities for a better job.      

Quote Sandwich Blue-Collar Brilliance

In any work we work we need to learn new abilities by ourselves to be successful in our work no matter if we have academic skills. I relate this with “Blue-Collar Brilliance”. Mike Rose states, “Though many kinds of physical work don’t require a high literacy level, more reading occurs in the blue collar workplace than is generally  thought, from manuals and catalogues to work others and invoices, to lists, labels, and forms” (75). In other words, the blue collar workplace doesn't require academic knowledge, but it is more complicated and than it looks, it requires mental and physical work to develop efficient work.    

A lot of people still thinking that everyone who is working in any type of labor job, they are not intelligence because sometimes they didn’t study much. Mike Rose in ¨Blue-Collar Brilliance¨ writes, ¨Intelligence is closely associate with formal education- the type of schooling a person has, how much and how long- and most people seem to move comfortably from that notion to a belief that requiring less schooling requires less intelligence¨ (56). As he said, almost always we have the wrong idea that intelligence is developing from study, but doesn’t matter for easy the job looks like, everybody is using their intelligence to accomplish that job in the best way.