I don’t know how you feel about it but I’m annoyed that Wired rag, pulp fiction tabloid, fish wrap, magazine finds it to be oh so very tongue in cheek and cutesy-like to refer to sewing factories generically as sweat shops. Just see the title of this article: Clothes Will Sew Themselves in Darpa’s Sweat-Free Sweatshops*. Really. I emailed the hack “journalist” who wrote it (Katie Drummond, email1 email2) and asked how she’d like it if journalists were routinely called “hacks”. So yeah, our labor crisis grows in part due to irresponsible writing and editing like this. Who wants to get into the business when much hipper than thou hacks journalists so blithely insult one’s occupation? I told her:
People who work or have worked in factories may resent your sweat-shop comments because they wouldn’t work at a place like that anymore than you would and if you intimate that they have, that’s an underhanded way of saying you’re better than they are. Some of us deeply admire our former factory employers…
Talk about insult to injury. I hope you’ll comment, write the hack journalist and or editorial staff to make your discomfort known. Before you run off tho, Katie closes with this witty gem: