The American economy has changed so much in the past couple of decades that more and more young people, as well as many parents, are feeling like college isn’t necessarily the best choice for the future.

Still, even as cultural mores around the importance of a college education shift, long-held attitudes about blue-collar work being somehow “less than” white-collar office jobs seem to persist — even among those doing them.

A 24-year-old garbage man feels embarrassed about his job, despite seeing a bright future in it.

This 24-year-old Redditor is part of a wider trend — Gen Z’ers are going into blue-collar jobs in the trades at rates much higher than the generations before them.

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A 2024 survey by workforce insights platform Intelligent.com found that nearly one-third of Gen Z workers said they plan to pursue a blue-collar career, not just because of the prohibitive cost of education and the cutthroat white-collar job market but also due to fears about AI taking over many jobs.

This Gen Z’er knew college was off the table and enjoyed his sanitation position. Still, his class anxieties linger.

“I knew I was never going to college,” the young man admitted in his post, “so I went to truck driving school and got my [commercial driver’s license (CDL)].” A CDL opens up all kinds of job opportunities nowadays, and he found that it did for him, too — driving a garbage truck.

“I’ve been a garbage man for the past two years,” he explained. “It’s a solid job, great benefits and I currently make $24 an hour. I could see myself doing this job for a long time.” Sounds ideal, right?

But, he added, “I feel a sense of embarrassment doing it.” Despite all the benefits, he said that “whenever someone asks me what I do for work I feel embarrassed.”

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It’s not exactly hard to figure out why — our culture has long looked down on all blue-collar jobs, regarding them as unsophisticated and reflective of a worker’s class or intelligence.

In a word, it all comes down to snobbery and elitism. And the anger it’s rightfully inspired has been very cleverly leveraged to make things even worse — elite politicians play on these sentiments to get elected only to turn around and enact legislation that actively hurts workers at every turn.

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Blue-collar jobs are vitally important, often highly skilled work — and these attitudes need to change.

On Reddit, people urged this guy to change his perspective on his job. “That’s a completely important and respectable job,” one user wrote. “I think we should respect all jobs, but yours, in particular, is one of the most important jobs for society.” 

“I respect you more than anyone whose job is just to push around papers or money for billionaires,” another commenter added. “You are up there with teachers, doctors, nurses, paramedics, social workers, and firefighters, as far as I’m concerned. You might not see the effects directly, but you indirectly save lives daily.”

These people are right — aside from the fact that all work is honorable and worthy of respect, no matter how “menial” it might seem, blue-collar work is what literally keeps our world spinning.

America’s unions have been drastically weakened by decades of terrible government policy enacted by both political parties, so we mostly need to look to places like Europe to see just how vital these workers are. When sanitation or transportation workers strike in places like France or the U.K., for example, those countries grind to a halt.

Here in the U.S., these long-held attitudes about trade workers not being as important or prestigious as those who sit in cubicles making spreadsheets all day have resulted in crisis-level worker shortages in the trades — which has only served to make these jobs even more lucrative than they always have been.

The bottom line is that his fellow Redditors are right: “garbage man” is a vitally important job and worthy of pride. And if it’s keeping the bills paid in a way that isn’t making you miserable? Well, go ask your friendly local cubicle rat with an email job if they can say the same. They’ll probably surprise you.

RELATED: Man Feels ‘Ashamed’ Because He Likes His Job As A Cart Pusher At Walmart & Doesn’t Want A Career

John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.