Good jobs and bad jobs...

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We're familiar with the 'burger flipper' argument. Jobs at places like McDonalds of KFC are 'bad' jobs - low skilled and low paid. Which, when you think about it, is rather sticking two fingers up at the kids who go and do these jobs.

But no, we must have high skilled, high paid jobs - you know the ones don't you? The ones that our education system doesn't meet demand for (which, of course, is why the jobs are higher paid). But even were the schools to miraculously transform overnight, there'd still be jobs serving fried chicken and hamburgers to people who want to eat said chicken and burgers.

This is all an example of the way in which the British have managed to turn the idea of giving service into the single most demeaning and menial of tasks. We've got this rather pathetic attachment to grand jobs in manufacturing and extractive industries - steelworkers, miners, machine operators. These are proper jobs in a way that waiting on in a diner or serving the cue at Burger King aren't.

Even in service industry, we champion the jobs in the back room - the bankers, the accountants, the code-writers - rather than front of house. The folk who serve you in the bank, the people on the other end of the phone at the insurance company and the receptionists everywhere - these are the low valued, poorly paid jobs.

It seems to me that we'd be a whole lot nicer place if this changed, if the idea of service was valued a little more highly. And, moreover, we'd have better businesses as a result.

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