Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Morons with Credentials

After I graduated college I got a job as the editor of a small weekly newspaper.

The paper was owned by a medium-sized daily that was located in the county seat. And this was in southwestern Illinois, which is pretty much Nowheresville.

It was an eye-opening experience. I was raised blue-collar middle-class and knew nothing about this kind of corruption. I knew about other kinds but not this.

The editor of the daily was a lawyer and a graduate of Yale. The publisher had an MBA from the University of Michigan.

I thought, “What the hell are these people doing here?”

Their jobs weren’t hard and local people could have done them. But local people were never hired for the top jobs and never stood a chance of getting them.

That’s when I realized there really is an Old Boy’s Network. It doesn’t mean the members are qualified. The best jobs were reserved for the Unqualified Upper Crust.

The MBA in particular was unqualified. He was a second-rater and second-raters hire third-raters and then those third-raters hire fourth-raters.

The whole place was pretty much a catastrophe – and all because the MBA from the University of Michigan didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

The MBA finally "retired" - which means forced out - when another corporation bought the paper and MBA was replaced by a man who used to drive a truck. I'm sure the business is much better-run these days.

Probably the worst thing the MBA did was hire a Castastrophe that he not only hired but defended.

The Catastrophe was caught engaging in some sort of sexual activity on company property. And he was cheating on his wife.

Something like that is immediate dismissal, no appeal. The Big Guns in New York were going to fire the Catastrophe but the MBA talked them out of it.

Still, the Catastrophe was so bad at eveything that the Big Guns were finally forced to lateral him out of state to downtown St. Louis. I think altogether it took seven years to get rid of this POS.

Many jobs require worthless credentials. It takes a degree to teach children? You can train a teacher in six weeks. As for newspapers, remember Jimmy Olson, cub reporter? The last time there were cub reporters was in the '50s.

I graduated from what used to be a teacher's college and was appalled at the stupidity of the education students.

My father was a high-school dropout and started and ran his own successful construction firm. And he first started out as a cub carpenter.

We need more people starting at the bottom and working their way up. Degrees? Many of them are worthless.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll second this. Credentials and a degree these days often just mean you're so unqualified to actually do anything, that you have to wave a piece of paper around trying to prove you have some worth and value.

Anonymous said...

More apprenticeships like the German model should be considered.

Anonymous said...

That's just it, anon @ 153, apprenticeships just don't exist anymore. All the corporate and private owned trade businesses are only hiring friends, family, or friends of family. I know because I went to trade school back in 2010 for automotive service and repair and there wasn't any modicum of opportunity anywhere waiting for me. The trade school even told me up front there was no guarantee of finding employment.

Unknown said...

' It takes a degree to teach children? '

Yes...teachers need at least 4 years of Marxist indoctrination in college so they can pass it on to the children in government run schools. They need to teach kids that the white man is evil, if they are prosperious they didn't earn it, and that creativity and outside the box thinking must be snuffed out. Math and the sciences that aren't social aren't important. It's about what you feel not actually learning something.

Unknown said...

Bob you've been around and experienced a lot. That voice of experience is great in that you have real life stuff to back up what you believe. However, I wonder if you're just being obviously obtuse by claiming you don't understand the enemy or its just all those years in the GOP bullpen where they threw the game and you had to keep your mouth shut to work there.
You really don't have to hold back anymore old man. We're all Nazis now. Even system stooges like Little Jebbie from the Shrubbery Clan is a Nazi when it suits them.
College isn't at all about education. Its basically a Marxist Re-education camp now. I've been there and seen it firsthand. Anyone who believes we won the Cold War should spend a semester at college, cause they're Marxist all the way from top to bottom. The credentials are basically a Communist Party Membership. If you keep your mouth shut and go along with Che Geuvera's fan club, you can be a member of the Useful Idiots Club. Sure you'll be shot, but only after the Glorious Revolution Comrade Sucker.

Shaun F said...

At the large organization I work for, the MBA is mandatory to move up in the rat-race - and it's paid for. It's also a check of sorts to ensure the "right thinking" people are at the helm. And they all lap it up like it's the Kool Aid taking em to the afterlife in Jonestown. They all bought the lie.

Anonymous said...

Did Steve Jobs have an MBA?

Unknown said...

No, and neither did Bill Gates or Andrew Carnegie.