Posted on 05/25/2006 2:39:34 AM PDT by KneelBeforeZod
A new generation of the serenely clueless is ready, willing and able to destroy your company.
-- Your livelihood and your future are both in peril.
The threat you face derives not from any external factors that may affect your company. Instead, it comes from your own employees.
The deadliest business hazard of our time is the result of a sea change in the American approach to education that occurred early in the 1970s. Across the United States, conventional educational standards were tossed out the window, replaced with feel-good theories like "whole-language learning" that emphasized personal fulfillment over the accumulation of hard knowledge. As a result, we now have two generations of men and women who expect gold stars not for succeeding, but simply for trying.
And, sometimes, merely for showing up.
In Great Britain, even primary school students can name all the monarchs of England. How many American children can name the capital of their own state?
In India, the study of mathematics is practically a religion. In the United States, how many retail clerks can make change without relying on a calculator?
In Germany, vocational education is a rigorous and honorable pursuit, producing highly qualified workers and tradesmen. In the U.S.A., people actually boast about their inability to deal with anything mechanical.
But sheer stupidity is not the greatest danger presented by the current crop of blank slates. It is the arrogance bred of ignorance that constitutes an unparalleled descent into goofiness.
In the long-dead past, incompetents generally recognized their own incapacity and behaved accordingly. Today, every jackass sees himself as a genius, and every fool fancies herself a philosopher.
Once, a young colleague at a major firm accosted me in tones of confusion and desperation.
"Mark! Mark!" she called as I walked past her office door. "When was World War II?"
I thought at first that she was joking, but, alas, she was not. The deadliest global conflict in human history had somehow escaped her notice. Yet if I had asked if she honestly believed she deserved her B.A. and felt qualified to perform her job, she would have been gravely insulted and likely kicked me until I was dead.
Like the pod people of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the arrogantly ignorant appear at first glance as normal as you or me. But beware.
The most profound risk they represent springs not from their cluelessness, but from their inability to recognize their own limitations. Such blind hubris can lead to monumental errors of judgment, grotesque mistakes, and the refusal to accept -- despite a mountain of evidence -- that the strategy they are pursuing may be leading your organization off a cliff. When people like that are in your employ, it is you, not they, who suffer the consequences.
These days, the arrogance of ignorance is so pervasive that I feel confident in making a small wager: Ten bucks says that the worst offenders will read these words and wonder, "Who is this joker talking about?"
If characters like that work for your company -- brother, you're in for a world of hurt.
Who is this joker talking about?
Any time I read articles by educrats or teachers proclaiming the uselessness of rote learning and the wonders of students discovering themselves through "creative" learning, I despair. Rote learning is a huge part of a good education. If todays young students aren't learning their times tables or memorizing the names of presidents, state capitals, and significant, historic dates, we're in big trouble.
Also that bit about retail clerks using calculators is a stupid point. When have retail clerks ever tallied up sales totals in their head? I'd like to see even Albert Einstein try ringing modern grocery orders at a modern supermarket in his head without using a cash register. The customers in line will eat this bumbling guy alive.
The art of counting back change apparently is not part of the "new math". It is simply amazing that a 17 year old kid can't break a twenty dollar bill at a fast food counter. In one case, after I questioned my change, the young man just kept trying to hand me more money. I think he thought he could get rid of me for an extra 67 cents.
His reply when I gave him back the money was a shrug and a laugh as he said " I aint so good at math", apparently not so good at english either.
We're in a fairly affluent area on the south side of Indianapolis, In. , great looking, new schools full of kids, but apparently absent of teachers.
I don't expect every kid to be able to crack the atom, but come on..... a twenty dollar bill? Thats a life skill.
I thought this was a thread about the DUmmies site!
Nyuk-nyuk!
However, if they use only Google, they may just get the liberal spin version of WWII...
OMG!
Actually, it's a pretty sad commentary, that breaking a twenty is considered a life skill nowadays.
Imagine trying to make a real decision.
My first "experience" with a liberal was at my college orientation, back in the late 70's.
I had the misfortune of following her in the rotation of "introduction and brief biography". After I said my name, I answered one of HER statements by stating: "I haven't 'found myself' yet, but then again, I never considered myself LOST in the first place..."
I swear there was smoke coming from her ears!!!!
Also, when was WW II for whom?
Some newer English dictionaries do not insist on this distinction.
My youngest son works in the CAD department for a coal mining equipment manufacturer. They have an engineer there from India that BROKE the mailbox trying to open it to mail a letter!
YES. It is indeed universal....
The Japanese probably have a few dozen tools, all looking like a chisel, and all for different purposes.
So do I...and a hammer to compliment the chisel as well....
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