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The article contributes to the study of the group of white-collars, presenting the history of the employees of one big firm. The analysis of the occupational classifications negotiated in this firm, drawn from archives data and interviews, allows addressing critically the issue of the way these employees were classified in various contexts. The attributional data usually taken into account ignore very often the individual and collective careers, as temporal data. Yet, these temporal data shed light on one important link that has unified the social group of the white-collars, often employed all their life in one single firm. This observation leads also to think about what is at stakes in classifying jobs through collective agreements. Far from being neutral, the occupational classification has not always been synonymous of the consolidation of the status of employees.