Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Is it me or...

Or are our workplaces riddled with the terminally useless?

It seems to be that about one in eight suffers from delusions of adequacy.

I have spent the last two weeks doing damage control after a wannabe started monkeying with equipment he was supposedly a frickin' expert on. In the real world, it turns out he doesn't know shit from clay. Attempt to teach him the difference have all failed. Not only have I found it impossible to teach him to differentiate the two, but I can't stop him trying to use taste...

Over the years I have seen a procession of these knuckle-draggers pass through and holding qualifications does not excuse one from this list. Quite the contrary- the worst of them have an impressive looking CV- they just can't pick up a screwdriver without sticking it through their hand. They never seem to go short of a job, either.

When will managers learn to actually talk to past employers?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Skills formerly seen in such abundance have moved offshore with the jobs.

Cactus Kate said...

Degrees for everyone has made the NZ workforce think they are actually smart and deserve more money.

I wrote a dissertation for you on why they are not.

sweetpea said...

What do they teach them if they come out with the bit of paper but still be unable to do the job.

No wonder good tradesmen are a dying breed. They learnt by doing.

Unknown said...

Kate makes the solid point.

From my time going back to school I seemed to be only one there trying to get a skill. Everyone else was after a bit of paper so they could "get a well paid job".

The idea was to do the minimum required work and negotiate the rest.

Tellingly no-one seemed to be focused on DOING a job that paid well.

Oswald Bastable said...

"...I wrote a dissertation for you on why they are not..."

Dissertation would be the word for it!

Advanced degrees have been awarded for far less.

Anonymous said...

Did this Fear of the supposedly qualified start about the time a coporal was was posted to pap aand promoted then proceeded to redisign a 250,000$ optics system??