Then You're Wondering ...

Last night it was around 7pm, when I finished all the things I had on my list and had a couple of hours for studying. Studying for me means watching an one hour long mentorship video on trading. I said watching, but here it means studying and that one hour can become two, as you need to digest and learn what you're seeing and hearing. Sometimes I am too tired to get results and choose resting, but when I feel up to it, it means hard work. Last night it was 10pm, when I finished, was amazed I was able to fully focus on the mentorship video, but I felt like I made a huge progress and was ready to test and backtest what I learnt last night. Then I remembered a funny story that I was part of once.

Years ago, I was flying home from Paris and there was a guy sitting behind me, wanting to impress a girl sitting next to him, at any cost. The girl was a biology student, coming back from a student exchange program in France and when the guy learnt about it, he started telling her when he started 8th grade, how much they had to write in class and when he was told he needed to know all that was shared and written down, he dropped out, went abroad to work. At the time of happening, he was working for the road authorities in France, building roads. He meant to be funny and the way he told the story was funny, but dropping out at 14 and never going back to school is not a laughing matter, not by far.

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This is not the main topic, so before I digress, let's get back to what I want to write about today.

Most of the times I'm a quiet observer on Hive, reading and keeping my opinion to myself as what I'd have to say it's not what the posters would want to read and in some cases it's best not to say anything. But as everyone is free to post whatever smart sh*t they want, what do I care, right? However, sometimes, when I've had enough, there's a chance I post about it here and that's exactly what I'm going to do today.

Fair warning, there's a chance this post is going to blow the fuse for some users as they may recognize themselves, but rest assured, I'm not aiming this at anyone, this is just in general, because sadly, there are plenty of cases, to generalize.

Let's start with stating that everyone wants to be considered clever. Yes, "clever" is the expression to use here. For so long, I thought "smart" is the right expression, but then at some point I was told smart and clever don't mean the same thing. You can be smart but not clever, so clever is the best. Are you confused already? Not yet? 😆 Ok, let's move on.

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

So everyone wants to be/look clever and for so many, the way to achieve that is to get a college or university diploma. Having one for them already means they are clever. Is it true though?

Not long ago I read a post about a user who said, in a face to face conversation they are losing focus after a couple of minutes and has no idea what the rest of the conversation was about. This was not some isolated incident for them, as it happens every single day. I personally would freak out to be in such a situation, would be very concerned and seeking professional help asap, but that's me as the poster was not writing this out of concern. The main focus of the post was on how well they can hide it and fake paying attention.

The other case that also shocked me was something similar, but in a different way. The person said they can't read longer texts that 500 words as they lose focus.

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

It is really sad and indicates some kind of condition. I'm not a doctor or psychologist, so I'm not going to mention ADHD, or other diagnosis, but this is definitely not normal.

Both of them (as I can remember) were priding themselves on being educated as they have finished their university studies, which apparently is good, but knowing what they are struggling with, makes you question how they were able to finish their studies or what kind of education those institutions are providing.

This is where half of you would say this level of education is all crap and useless as what they are teaching is not something you'd use in real life. I'm not among the ones saying this, but don't agree 100% with what they are forcing you to study either. Regardless, what you have to learn during these years is besides the point right now. What matters is that you have to pass those exams and if you have such an attention deficit, it's quite hard without cheating.

Getting a college diploma seems to be easy these days, especially in some underdeveloped countries, but what comes after, is a different matter.

During the years, I worked with several interns. They all were freshly graduated from university, because my boss believed in giving them a first chance, but that was just for the show as the real reason was they are cheap.

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I remember there was a guy, who didn't miss to mention how successful his graduation exam was on his first day at work. He got almost the highest grade and he made sure everyone knew. This was a huge warning sign by any standard, as it's never good to advertise yourself, let alone on the first day and soon I found out why he did it.

I didn't want to suffocate him on his first week, so I tasked him with some invoices and one of the task required him to convert kilograms into grams. It's a skill you learn in middle school, if not in elementary school, it's common sense as well, but for him as a freshly graduated economist was too much. Seeing he has lots of shortcomings, I gave him a simple test, first year accounting test, that you MUST know, and he successfully failed it all. He could not solve one right, not one. Kind of new he's useless, but the test was a written proof he was indeed useless.

This is where the problems start. Hiring and firing people was not my job, it was my boss's job, but when I confronted him with the evidence that proved he hired an incompetent, useless person, instead of doing the right thing, which would have been firing the individual, he told me to teach him and make it work. Why? Because the guy's father was his friend.

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

This in plain English meant I was doing the work of two people while getting paid for one. In one month it was clear that the smart guy could not be used for anything that his role required, he wasn't interested in learning wither, after all he was a university graduate with high grades, so I quit.

Would be nice to know he was the only one and I was the only unlucky person to have such a junior, but this is not the case.

Now the question is, what do you do with them? Some companies have high standards and you're out the minute they realize you're incompetent for the role, but how do you stop institutions handing out diplomas like free newspaper at the corner of the streets? Looks like everything has a price, everything can be bought if you have the right kind of money. When and where does this stop?

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