Do business undervalue abstract ideas?

Work, Careers and Money
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*** Mod’s note: Split from

another topic ***

Not to burst your bubble further, but my dual major B. A. degree in physics and philosophy never landed me a well-paying job. If you are going into either, then you’d have to get at least a Masters and most probably a Ph. D. before anyone would want to hire you based on your degrees, and then maybe only if you teach. Undergraduate degrees these days are almost a dime a dozen – though, of course, the school charges you a lot more than that – but of my friends and co-graduates, the ones who made a financial success were either engineers or computer programmers (where a B. S. can land you a good job) or most definitely went on to graduate school and got a practical degree – where they teach you how things are being done on the job so to speak. If you don’t have that, then businessmen just don’t want you, or that is my experience. So, if you go for that philosophy degree – and at the right school it can be a very good education, if coupled with a core curriculum that studies history and arts (liberal arts in general) – you may not be able to put away your midnight oil upon graduation.

I don’t regret the education I got, but there are definitely times when I regret that our economy looks for and rewards people with very specific skills; and I think that is an aspect of rampant pragmatism. And they don’t consider thinking in the abstract as being a skill. Basically, with a liberal arts degree, they’ll look at you and and say something like, “Well, you did very well at XYZ University, but what on earth can you do?” And I suppose that so long as they can find someone with very narrow skills that can do the job with little training right out of school, maybe I can’t blame them; though sometimes I definitely do.

So, if you do philosophy, find a school that doesn’t have a reputation of going for the most bizarre philosophy imaginable; you’ll want a school that has a focus on the classics – Plato and Aristotle and the Ancient Greeks and some of the Renaissance philosophers. At least teachers who teach those philosophers are sane. But you will also want to think about what you want to do with your life after graduation – what type of career you will want and in what field, and find a school that teaches things along those lines.

Economically speaking, I would have done better staying at the job I had before I decided to improve myself by going to college; but in retrospect, I don’t know that I would have changed anything about going to the college I did go to, only in hindsight, I probably should have gone to graduate school or gone to a technical school in order to make money. Too many employers seem to consider a liberal arts degree as advanced high school, and not something that is practical. Of course, I disagree with them on that.

Unless you can run your own business and do well at it or make a living as a writer – both of which I am still trying to figure out – go to a school that teaches you things you can be hired to do. Maybe do that after you graduate, since you seem sincere about getting that degree. In other words, your paying for it, so get the education you want; but you also need to get the education that employers want. And I don’t mean that in any kind of second-handers manner. Don’t go to a school just to get a high paying job, if it is something in a field that you don’t want to do.

And many of my potential employers thought I was over-qualified to work for them; and even though they knew I could do the job superlatively, decided not to hire me. They are looking for a perfect match these days, so find a school that has a good job placement program, because you are probably going to need a salesman to get you a job with a liberal arts degree.

Sorry, just some cold hard facts I found out about the hard way.

This is because most employers would like to live in this Platonic Fantasy World where they *don’t have to train anyone*. I don’t care *what* you do, employees will ALWAYS need training because every freakin’ employer out there does things a little bit differently. At the very least, they need to be shown where the coffee machine and the copier are, not to mention a million little things like where you keep the copier paper etc. etc. etc.

The best job I ever had in this respect was Processing Technician at a tissue bank because they *expected* that you wouldn’t know jack when you started out. They tested you to see if you were *trainable*, then they had a very sophisticated program in place to train you on *everything* you needed to know. It worked beautifully: I worked with the kind of crew you run into at grocery stores and McDonalds, and they were doing sterile technique and cutting precision machined grafts! Sadly, when I left, they were working with a local college to develop a “certificate program” so they could start trying to live in Platonic Fantasy World with everyone else.

A good generic degree to get is one in Business, or one of the many offshoots you see nowadays like Management Information Systems or Project Management. From what I can tell, a Business degree doesn’t net you any more practical knowledge than an English degree, but for some reason it gives you the benefit of sounding like you sort of know something about something that ought to be useful to someone. (You may even be able to get a degree in something like Business Ethics.)

The only real route to job security is to become an entrepreneur of some kind and be your own boss. Both of my parents have graduate degrees and they have a harder time finding work than I do. (I know that sounds hard to believe, considering how much trouble I’m having at present, but it’s true.) There is no surefire ticket to being employed by someone else. If you have skillz, however, that will get you a lot.

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This is because most employers would like to live in this Platonic Fantasy World where they *don’t have to train anyone*. I don’t care *what* you do, employees will ALWAYS need training because every freakin’ employer out there does things a little bit differently. At the very least, they need to be shown where the coffee machine and the copier are, not to mention a million little things like where you keep the copier paper etc. etc. etc.

I highly disagree with this. ONce again we think all employers are morons. More reasonable explanation is that:

a. there’s ready competition out there with the necessary skills. Why should I have to go far afield and take a chance on someone who can “think in the abstract” as Mr Movias puts it?

b. Higher level skills are incredibly difficult to judge in an interview process. If you look at the statistics, entry level interviewing has a very low success rate to finding the long term best and brightest. As a result, the best course is to hire for the job at hand and prune and cull and develop your internal pool over years of service.

c. Most coprorations spend a fortune training their individuals. The idea that they don’t want to do this is pretty far fetched. This is the big part of hte investment mentioned in items b.

3

when I regret that our economy looks for and rewards people with very specific skills; and I think that is an aspect of rampant pragmatism. And they don’t consider thinking in the abstract as being a skill.

Rampant pragmatism?

How about the idea that for any entry level job, it’s an optional and insufficient skill?

4

A good generic degree to get is one in Business, or one of the many offshoots you see nowadays like Management Information Systems or Project Management. From what I can tell, a Business degree doesn’t net you any more practical knowledge than an English degree, but for some reason it gives you the benefit of sounding like you sort of know something about something that ought to be useful to someone. (You may even be able to get a degree in something like Business Ethics.)

If the objective is to get started in the business world, I think a business degree is a much better choice than an English degree for a wide variety of reasons. However, I would still argue that it is far from the optimal degree to obtain, given that as Jenni indicated, it does not really develop any quantitative skills. That being said, if the objective is to get started in the business world, I encourage getting a degree in computer science, operations research, quantitative economics or industrial engineering. Basically, you can still take electives in business to develop some familiarity with how financial markets, supply chain systems or information management systems work, but with one of the aforementioned degrees you will obtain serious quantitative skills. Given my interaction with undergraduates in these fields, I also wish to emphasize the importance of making a point to develop excellent written and verbal communication skills while pursuing a quantitative degree.

Even at the seemingly most quantitative universities, such as MIT, Stanford or Carnegie Mellon, a business major still seems to involve too many multiple choice examinations on silly things and not enough emphasis on being able to abstract the essential issues from a real-world business problem, identifying the appropriate tools to solve your abstract model and evaluating the effectiveness of your model for aiding a real-world decision.

Anyway, this is a bit of a digression from the main thread topic, but I thought this might be useful for anyone interested in such a career direction.

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a. there’s ready competition out there with the necessary skills. Why should I have to go far afield and take a chance on someone who can “think in the abstract” as Mr [Miovas] puts it?

Oh, sure, why should anyone hire someone who can think? I dunno the answer to that one. :thumbsup:

I’ll give you an example: I once worked for a major, if not the major, chemical concern out there. I started by sweeping floors, literally. I wasn’t allowed to do anything else. I worked my way up to the highest level I could go without having a degree. This was done while I was learning Objectivism, you know, that abstract philosophy that has no practical applications. And wouldn’t you know it, I was motivated to do the very best I could, including coming up with abstract ideas that saved the industrial plant over $100,000 every single year in less shut downs. And everyone knew I had done that. They called me “The Professor” because I knew that plant inside and out – I mean the whole thing; all of the chemical processes and all or most of the machinery and the principles that made them work, and how to improve them. I learned all of that in four years at the industrial plant, but had been gearing up to it for most of my young adult life. Because I love to learn, you know, those abstract things called ideas.

Well, all I wanted was a little financial award for my efforts. You know, a few thousand, maybe, since I had saved them $100,000 per year thereafter. They wouldn’t give me a dime. I got some thanks, which was great, but had they paid me for my ideas I’d still be working for them and getting rich in the process; and so would they. But, they claimed, they had an incentive program – basically, you do the best you can and you get to keep your job. Talk about short sighted pragmatism!

I said to hell with that and decided to go off to college.

However, before I left, I decided to have a talk with the president of that industrial plant. He was about to retire, but didn’t want to retire while the plant wasn’t doing well, which it wasn’t. There were all sorts of minor and major problems cropping up all over the place. And the plant workers knew, in the abstract and sometimes in the particular, how those problems could be fixed. I mean, they had very good ideas. But that so called incentive program didn’t include listening to good ideas, not unless they came from engineers. It was supposed to, “in theory,” bring out the best in people, but they saw that they were getting paid whether or not the plant was up and running, and that they weren’t going to be getting more pay for coming up with good ideas, so they didn’t offer any. Oh, they did for a while, but it was easier just to do your job than to fight the internal bureaucracy. And nobody really got credit for it anyhow. So, I told him about that problem, you know, the abstract idea that a person ought to be rewarded for coming up with productive ideas. And I gave him a few of my own. I told him that if he did all of that then he could retire in splendor – he would be the hero for getting the plant up and running on a regular basis.

Well, he implemented some of my ideas, and they worked! And I told him that if he paid me for them he would get more. But he wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t company policy to reward individuals. Go figure.

Many years later, when I was offered a job at another major industrial concern that had similar policies – especially the policy that any idea you come up with at work is automatically the property of the company, and no financial rewards for coming up with good ideas (those abstract things), I told them never mind.

I’m an ideas person. I think in the abstract and I can apply my knowledge across the board. And one would think that coming up with $100,000 ideas would get someone to question company policy, but I guess not if they are going to get it for free – short-term, hence the pragmatism – because they aren’t getting them from me any longer. :stuck_out_tongue:

I mean, I’d be looking for guys like me if I ran an industrial plant. No degree needed – simply, can you come up with great productive ideas and then give that person a try and reward him for it.

I guess that is too abstract, though.

And, yes, I am quite disgusted about it.

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I would suggest Mod’s split the thread with my and Jenni’s response to Movias.

Oh, sure, why should anyone hire someone who can think? I dunno the answer to that one. :thumbsup:

Well, that’s nice. Go and change the context of what you said. We’ve gone from thinking in the abstract to just plain thinking now have we? As to thinking in the abstract, you must mean beyond what the ordinary demonstrated skill of the standard qualified person for the job, since that’s what anyone is bringing to the table.

That’s the point actually. When you look at “thinking” as a general skill overall, it seems quite valuable, but that isn’t what I was talking about. When you think about the incremental difference between you and the best candidate amongst all the people who have all the other qualifications for the job, and you think about it from the standpoint that one is hiring for the “job at hand” not the next CEO, then it’s really not that impressive. Couple that with the fact that it is very difficult to select those who “think” from a selection process and how much it’s worth given the extra effort to find those people is questionable. You have a big barrier to get over by trying to prove yourself that way.

I’m sorry for your situation. Obviously, someone had a chance to see that you provided value to the company and didn’t reward you for it. That is their choice and their loss, and your option is to leave. I have an almost identical story from when I was a young manufacturing engineer, and I received a promotion, a months salary, and a stock bonus. I hardly think the fact that you’re emotional about your particular story justifies the overgeneralization you make. Pragmatism is not rampant.

If you want to blame someone for why people can be so short sighted blame the over-regulating, profit-sucking beaurocrats who effectively whittle down profit margins so that companies have to worry about next quarters results and watch their costs like hawks.

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I would suggest Mod’s split the thread with my and Jenni’s response to Movias.

Can I ask you to please spell my name correctly? It’s MIOVAS.

When you look at “thinking” as a general skill overall, it seems quite valuable, but that isn’t what I was talking about. When you think about the incremental difference between you and the best candidate amongst all the people who have all the other qualifications for the job, and you think about it from the standpoint that one is hiring for the “job at hand” not the next CEO, then it’s really not that impressive. Couple that with the fact that it is very difficult to select those who “think” from a selection process and how much it’s worth given the extra effort to find those people is questionable.

Yes, they certainly do think it is questionable; they’d rather have guys out there who can turn valves and flip switches – do the specific job and only the specific job – than to have someone like me who can do all of that with the best of them, and yet come up with ideas that will make vast improvements. I wasn’t looking to become the CEO, at least not just after four years – maybe after five years :slight_smile: But I’ve got to say that what you write is the typical attitude – and it’s the stupidest thing in the entire world! Of course it’s worth the effort, they just don’t want to go through the effort of finding that young upstart who can radically change things for the better. And they really even wouldn’t have to go looking for them; once the word got out that they rewarded good ideas with cold hard cash, then those kind of people would go looking for that business. Nucor Steel is just one excellent example of the opposite view to the standard pragmatic approach. And it is pragmatism to hire somebody to turn valves and to only turn valves. It’s a hell of a waste of human potential.

Engineers are treated differently; they get paid the big bucks to figure things out, it’s in their job description – it wasn’t in the job description of those of us doing the hands on turning of valves and flipping of switches. And they seemed quite happy to have us just do that and nothing else, which is why I left them.

The reason I phrased it as thinking in the abstract is that I wasn’t an engineer, and so didn’t have the specific number crunching skills to get it down to the details of the specifications of the to be designed new part. But I did figure out why it kept breaking, and how to fix it. After I spoke to the plant president / manager, he sent an engineer out in the field to talk with me, and we spoke about the problem and how to fix it for a good hour or so. He then went and did his number crunching and put all those good ideas to work, and it did work. After the new part was installed, that item never caused a shut down thereafter.

It’s like the idea I had back at the beginning of the Internet. There was no high speed Internet back then, and I wanted to listen to music across the Internet. But it would load up 30 seconds worth of music that took 2 minutes to download, played that 30 seconds worth, and then would take another 2 minutes to download the next 30 seconds worth. It was ridiculous. Why not buffer for a few minutes, and play that buffered music while downloading the next segment in the background? It just seemed obvious to me at the time that this is the way it ought to be done. So I dashed off a few emails with that idea. And before long, that is the way it was being done. Now, in this particular case, I can’t claim the credit, because I don’t know if they got the idea from me or not – I mean there are other intelligent people out there. However, I’m not a computer programmer so I didn’t know how to make a computer do that – but I did have the idea in the abstract. And sometimes that is all it takes; someone giving a problem a fresh look. And I do that very well.

I heard quite a few years ago now, maybe in the 1980’s, that businessmen were complaining that they just weren’t getting any good ideas from their people. Well, of course not if you are not going to pay them for it – I mean, duh! :wink: And not if you are going to turn people away because they are “overqualified”, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. And I’ve been told that many a times. Here I was, unemployed and willing to work for these companies doing low task jobs just to get my foot in the door; but they wouldn’t have me. I didn’t have the secret password – er, degree – but I was overqualified nonetheless, because I had a different degree. And I had a great track record of previous jobs and they knew it, but they turned me away anyhow.

“Can you turn this valve to the left?” “Sure, and I can tell you why it ought to be replaced with a better valve, too!” “You’re overqualified – NEXT!”

Am I emotional about it. Sure. I hate it when people don’t see my potential, but what is even far worse are those that do see it and don’t want it!

Sheesh.

And it is all due to those very abstract ideas called philosophy. Bad philosophy – or a bad business philosophy in particular – drives out the best people. That’s the number one complaint that one hears about why someone started their own business: Their ideas were not taken seriously. They thought they could do things better, but no one would listen to them, so they decided to make a go of it on their own.

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How about the idea that for any entry level job, it’s an optional and insufficient skill?

I think this sums it up perfectly, Miovas. Please notice that Kendall specified “entry level job.”

The problem with hiring people who are overqualified, that is, people who could make more money elsewhere, doing something else, is that, as the employer, you know you will have to go through the whole process again soon. The turnover rate for entry-level positions is high already, and the hiring process can get expensive. Assuming that one has another good strategy for hiring CEOs and other top executives, what good is it to hire someone with the expectation already that one will have to replace him in, say, under a year?

There are people with the peak potential for entry-level-type work, who wish to make a good living for themselves and do a good job. Those are ideal candidates for that type of work. If an employer is looking to “prune” from the bottom-up (which can be a good strategy), then other good entry-level candidates are younger (and sometimes older) hardworking employees who go the extra step and “think in the abstract,” as you are saying. Hiring those types only makes sense if one plans to promote them later (in which case they will need to be replaced anyway).

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How many big corporations have you worked in entry-level jobs for, Kendall? I tend to agree with Tom that this particular sort of idiocy is to be found *everywhere*. I worked in a job where they specifically hired me because I knew Access and could streamline the 13 different spreadsheets they were using into some kind of coherent system. They then REFUSED to let me learn how to use their spreadsheet system for TWO YEARS. And that was a SMALL company. Let’s do the rundown of “training” I received at the major corporations I worked for:

  1. Rax Restaurants: training consisted of: here’s the vegetable slicer. After two weeks of running the salad bar, I was given the drive-through earpiece and told to run the drive through. Training? ZERO. I didn’t even know everything that was on the menu at that point.

  2. Wright State University: training consisted of: “here’s a bunch of sheets of paper I made up while we hired a temp and I was on vacation. Most of what you need to know is probably in there somewhere, but we’ve upgraded the system three times since then so I’m not sure if it’s still accurate.”

  3. Lowe’s: “OSHA makes us make you watch this Hazmat video and this other video on how to lift things without straining your back. Let’s walk through this 10,000 square foot store in 25 minutes and show you where everything is . . . wait, I have to go up front. Here’s a cashier, she’ll show you how to run the register. Bye.”

  4. The College Store: “Do you know how to run a credit-card transaction? Oh, you do? Great!”

  5. Speedway Superamerica LLC: “Grab a stack of mail and start putting it where it goes.” “Where does it go?” “What, are you stupid?”

  6. Kroger: “Here’s the time clock.”

  7. Marshall’s: “Put these clothes on hangers.” Two weeks later: “Who hung these clothes? You did it all wrong.” This job was actually comical, because the person they sent to train me how to run a register actually knew LESS about it than I ALREADY did. She didn’t even know how to replace the paper tape when it ran out. Fortunately I’m capable of reading menu prompts so I was able to completely ignore her.

  8. CBC/CTS Telerecruiting: “Here’s two 500 page manuals you have to read.” Several days later: “Here’s a phone. Here’s a list of names I’m halfway through. I’m going home for the day.”

  9. CBC/CTS Data Entry Clerk: “Here’s six 500 page manuals you have to read. We don’t have a computer for you, but here’s a stack of paperwork you can put in order by number.” Several days later: “You can probably use Mark’s computer while he’s not here. Just hit 1 1 3 on the menu options.” Some time later: “I messed up on some of these, so I started exploring menu options and figured out how to fix my own mistakes. What are you doing, entering charts? Can I do one? It’s this menu option, right?”

  10. CBC/CTS Tissue Processing Technician: (I have NO complaints about the training I was given on this job, actually.) “Here’s ten 500 page manuals you have to read and six OSHA videos you have to watch. We’ll assign you to one of our technicians to teach you how to do everything in those manuals and answer all your questions.”

  11. Spaghetti Warehouse: “Here’s the seating map.”

  12. Anthony’s pizza: “Here’s the big map of our delivery area. We don’t take checks. If you’re not busy, do dishes.”

Training a new person is such a huge pain in the butt for corporations that they would rather operate understaffed for months than get around to bringing a new person in. This is always why they ask for “experience” in their classified ads. “Experience” in a job advertisement actually translates to “can learn to swim by being chucked in deep water full of sharks”.

Then, of course, when they DO get a new person, everyone in the department is too overworked to do anything with them. Even at CBC/CTS, the best company (in that respect) I ever worked for, we went three months in the BEST department with two people doing the work of five people because our boss was horrified at the prospect of having to train new people. Lord help you if you wanted to be trained to do something that required the involvement of the boss, like run the bandsaw. I got cross-trained only because I BROKE MY ARM and couldn’t work at my usual job for six weeks, and even then it took them FOUR DAYS to find me something to do. (Of course, when I got BETTER there was a fight over sending me back to my real job, because the other departments I’d been helping were terminally short-staffed, too.)

I think this Catch-22 situation arises because most of these types of corporations can’t afford to hire enough staff. This is especially noticeable in the way they think they can just spontaneously start demanding more work out of people without offering them any more money. One of the HR people at the tissue bank actually complained, in a MANDATORY EMPLOYEE MEETING, in front of THE ENTIRE COMPANY that people nowadays want to be paid what they’re actually worth instead of just cheerfully doing the work of three people for no extra compensation. I really, really wanted to ask her, “you’re complaining because people nowadays aren’t STUPID?”

It becomes especially clear to me whenever I look at my paycheck and realize that while the company is paying ME 22K a year, they’re actually shelling out probably close to 40K (if not more!) for the priviledge of employing me in crap like payroll taxes, mandatory health insurance offerings, mandatory retirement plans, etc. etc. etc. They ought to be getting the value of two or three employees for that money. No wonder they expect me to do two or three employees’ worth of work. When you’re that busy, you don’t have *time* to train people.

The funny thing is that these same corporations will spend thousands of dollars to send a manager to a special training seminar five states away. I even had this happen to me, once, and I got training I didn’t ask for and didn’t need on a computer program the company didn’t use. Off-site training is frequently great. On-the-job training tends to suck rocks.

If you want a company to pay you the money you deserve for using your brain, you have to become an independent consultant. The same companies that tell their employees they don’t deserve a raise (or a promotion) for figuring out a new process or fixing a workload issue will pay tens of thousands of dollars to another company to come in and talk to those same employees about those same issues and make the same recommendations. From what I’ve seen, your chances of just finding an employer that does what they say they will do is slim to none.

Lowe’s, one of the worst companies I’ve EVER worked for in terms of employee abuse, was in the TOP 100 companies to work for according to ratings reports. Maybe if you’re in senior management. Anyone else gets the shaft. Why do you think when you go to a store like Home Depot or Lowe’s or, heck, Kroger, about half the time (if not more often) the person you ask for help doesn’t know what you need, where it is, or even how to find it? It’s because their training consisted of handing them a scan gun and telling them that you’ll show them around just as soon as there’s time. Only there never is.

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There are people with the peak potential for entry-level-type work, who wish to make a good living for themselves and do a good job. Those are ideal candidates for that type of work.

Actually, no they are not. Ideal candidates for entry-level work ARE people that are overqualified because the job ALWAYS involves dealing with stuff that didn’t occur to anyone when they were hiring. Not to mention the fact that high turnover in entry-level positions is actually beneficial to the company. When you’ve worked for Kroger for 10 years, you’re making enough money that they would be better off FIRING you and hiring in TWO new people that could do your job JUST AS WELL in A WEEK. I’m not kidding. Long-term entry level employees are a terrible thing because they keep getting raises and benefits increases but aren’t producing any more work. Every extra year they’re on the staff they become a bigger drain.

In addition, promoting from within is a hugely beneficial strategy for a company as well. An employee that only has twelve months experience, but knows the ins and outs of *your* system is a LOT more valuable than one with five years experience working for someone that operates in a completely different fashion.

You want to know one of the best organizations that recognizes this fact? The military. There’s even a policy within the military for officers that if you go so long without earning a promotion, they actually BOOT YOU OUT. No joke. If most corporations operated like the U.S. Army does, a lot of their problems would disappear.

11

Every extra year they’re on the staff they become a bigger drain.

It sounds like you’re talking about a grocery store union-type situation. Otherwise, raises aren’t mandatory, and some companies don’t issue them for entry-level work except to keep up with inflation and abide by minimum wage regulations. I stand by my point that turnover should be avoided when reasonably possible; it’s expensive.

12

I’m not sure why you guys are having a hard time understanding this.

The majority of businesses (notice I didn’t say all) do not want a free-thinker in every position. A free-thinker is at odds with what they want, which is, simplicity. They want someone whom they can tell “Pull this lever” and the employee goes and pulls it. Someone who says “Why?” is dangerous because it makes the bosses job more difficult in his eyes. You all are overthinking this. The answer is that yes businesses undervalue abstract ideas. The reason is because in most companies the individuals in the positions of power want their jobs to be as easy as possible. They want to be able to tell someone to do something and then go home to their wife and enjoy a nice pasta dinner with the knowledge that whatever they said to get done will be done without any questioning.

Now, if you can’t live with this then you need to find a company to work for that values abstract ideas and free-thinking, such as Google from what I hear. Otherwise, do what I do and sit at home, trade stocks all day, and be happy making a few hundred thousand a year. Another interesting option is with a hedge fund. Hedge funds value abstract thinkers, so maybe you could try to sniff a job out with one of them. But when it comes down to it the only place where your ‘formal education’ and the ridiculous multicultural hiring programs most large companies practice don’t mean a damn is on Wall Street - the greatest and most free-market in history.

13

The majority of businesses (notice I didn’t say all) do not want a free-thinker in every position. A free-thinker is at odds with what they want, which is, simplicity.

Wow, yet another valuable position from a person that’s probably never held one of these jobs in their life. Give me a break. No employer wants an employee that they have to monitor every single minute. If they did, they’d be hiring mentally retarded people or replace their employees with machinery. You do get that in *some* places, in fact, like bagging groceries, but even so they’d *rather* hire high school kids (or, they would if many of these high school kids weren’t delinquents), because every single job is going to have situations that require you to do some thinking. What do you do when the computer breaks down? What do you do when someone hits your carts in the parking lot with their car?

Every company I’ve ever worked for had a suggestion box and BEGGED their employees to think of process improvements etc. The problem is that they consider it “just part of your job” and don’t want to affix a *price* to it. If I get paid the same whether I’m a brilliant employee or just do the minimum required to keep my job, why should I do any more than the minimum? All working hard does is make me more tired so I have less energy to pursue the things I actually enjoy.

If you want to avoid this kind of culture, almost always you have to work for yourself as an independent contractor of some kind.

14

The majority of businesses (notice I didn’t say all) do not want a free-thinker in every position. A free-thinker is at odds with what they want, which is, simplicity. They want someone whom they can tell “Pull this lever” and the employee goes and pulls it. Someone who says “Why?” is dangerous because it makes the bosses job more difficult in his eyes.

Well, there’s our answer Megan – we’re dangerous! :wink:

I’m not even sure how to comment on something like that.

Yes, I do realize that some employers do believe that someone who thinks through an issue of how to do things in order to make more money (profit for the company, and oneself) is dangerous, in the sense of upsetting the apple cart. Yes, there are many employers who just want their business to operate like turning on the TV. Just let the employees in and everyone pulls their switches and turns their dials and everything goes smoothly.

The problem is that reality usually gets in the way of such employers. A business is not a plant that one puts in the ground and watches it grow, and then picks the fruit and enjoys life happily ever after. It don’t work that way. Even the highly automated industrial plants don’t work that way. And the more industrialized it is the more they need thinkers doing those jobs – someone who knows what the machinery is supposed to be doing, can spot the errors, and can come up with good ideas of how to fix the problem. The idea that a business would work much better if it was all operated by machinery instead of intelligent people is just wrong headed. I’m not against automation – I think it’s great, and I love it; but the more automated it is, the more one needs people working there that can keep the context instead of merely turning valves and throwing switches.

And I think some businessmen understand this to some degree. That’s one reason our highly automated industrial base works so well. If you want an insight into how all of this is done, then I highly recommend a few TV shows, such as “How it works” and “How do they do that.” It’s utterly amazing the amount of automatized machinery that is out there, just so one can get a Twinkie at a reasonable price.

However, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved. And often times it is the guy on the assembly line or the machine operators who can spot the problems. He, too, would like to be able to just kick back and rake in the bucks. But he can’t do that because some darned machine keeps breaking down or doing the wrong thing. And repairing that particular machine will sometimes mean that it will break down again. And if the guy operating that machine can spot the problem and figure out how to fix it more permanently, then he ought to be reward for it, instead of being treated like he is a trouble maker or a dangerous worker.

We are not little worker bees, we are human beings. And human beings can think. Only if the employer is not rewarding them for it, then he will do and only do what he is being paid to do – turn those valves and flip those switches. And he will do that even if he knows it will cause a problem further down the line – because that is what they have turned those workers into, valve turners and switch throwers instead of thinkers.

The employer who thinks that someone like myself or Megan are dangerous :stuck_out_tongue: don’t deserve to remain in business for long.

And one thing that Atlas Shrugged got me the courage to do is to sit back and laugh at them. I mean it. If I am working for someone and I have a good idea and they don’t accept it or don’t reward me for it – well, OK…I will turn those valves and throw those switches, and watch the whole thing collapse like a house of cards. After all, they have made it abundantly clear to me that they don’t want me to think on the job. That is certainly not true of all the employers I have had, but it is like a disease out there: a philosophical disease that reason and Objectivism will fix in the long run.

15

How many big corporations have you worked in entry-level jobs for, Kendall?

Wow, yet another valuable position from a person that’s probably never held one of these jobs in their life. Give me a break.

And why are you so presumptuous to think that you know anything about me? Really, Jen, this sort of cynicism is beneath you. I’ve flipped burgers, stocked shelves, toted food. I paid my way through college doing such things. I also spent the first ten years of my career working with the likes of chemical operators like Thomas, and I helped improve the design the entry level program for our student engineers. I’ve supervised many young professionals through that program as well. Anything else?

Also, you and I both know that regardless of those facts, this fact is irrelevant to anyone who thinks conceptually and can use induction properly. The “you don’t know what it’s like because you’ve never done it” arguments really don’t fly.

I tend to agree with Tom that this particular sort of idiocy is to be found *everywhere*. I worked in a job where they specifically hired me because I knew Access and could streamline the 13 different spreadsheets they were using into some kind of coherent system. They then REFUSED to let me learn how to use their spreadsheet system for TWO YEARS. And that was a SMALL company. Let’s do the rundown of “training” I received at the major corporations I worked for:

  1. Rax Restaurants: training consisted of: here’s the vegetable slicer. After two weeks of running the salad bar, I was given the drive-through earpiece and told to run the drive through. Training? ZERO. I didn’t even know everything that was on the menu at that point.

  2. Wright State University: training consisted of: “here’s a bunch of sheets of paper I made up while we hired a temp and I was on vacation. Most of what you need to know is probably in there somewhere, but we’ve upgraded the system three times since then so I’m not sure if it’s still accurate.”

  3. Lowe’s: “OSHA makes us make you watch this Hazmat video and this other video on how to lift things without straining your back. Let’s walk through this 10,000 square foot store in 25 minutes and show you where everything is . . . wait, I have to go up front. Here’s a cashier, she’ll show you how to run the register. Bye.”

  4. The College Store: “Do you know how to run a credit-card transaction? Oh, you do? Great!”

  5. Speedway Superamerica LLC: “Grab a stack of mail and start putting it where it goes.” “Where does it go?” “What, are you stupid?”

  6. Kroger: “Here’s the time clock.”

  7. Marshall’s: “Put these clothes on hangers.” Two weeks later: “Who hung these clothes? You did it all wrong.” This job was actually comical, because the person they sent to train me how to run a register actually knew LESS about it than I ALREADY did. She didn’t even know how to replace the paper tape when it ran out. Fortunately I’m capable of reading menu prompts so I was able to completely ignore her.

  8. CBC/CTS Telerecruiting: “Here’s two 500 page manuals you have to read.” Several days later: “Here’s a phone. Here’s a list of names I’m halfway through. I’m going home for the day.”

  9. CBC/CTS Data Entry Clerk: “Here’s six 500 page manuals you have to read. We don’t have a computer for you, but here’s a stack of paperwork you can put in order by number.” Several days later: “You can probably use Mark’s computer while he’s not here. Just hit 1 1 3 on the menu options.” Some time later: “I messed up on some of these, so I started exploring menu options and figured out how to fix my own mistakes. What are you doing, entering charts? Can I do one? It’s this menu option, right?”

  10. CBC/CTS Tissue Processing Technician: (I have NO complaints about the training I was given on this job, actually.) “Here’s ten 500 page manuals you have to read and six OSHA videos you have to watch. We’ll assign you to one of our technicians to teach you how to do everything in those manuals and answer all your questions.”

  11. Spaghetti Warehouse: “Here’s the seating map.”

  12. Anthony’s pizza: “Here’s the big map of our delivery area. We don’t take checks. If you’re not busy, do dishes.”

Just to point out, you are talking about a subset of entry level positions, namely unskilled entry level positions. Professionally degreed people enter business at different levels. If this is your point of generalization, then you have a tough time giving advice to someone who was discussing getting his degree (Tenure).

Large laundry list of gripes taken. My question for you, since you seem to believe that this mentality is *rampant*, is, if it in fact is the standard operating mentality, then by what standard can you say that this is bad? If the best companies operate like this (like Lowe’s and Home Depot, which are number 2 and 1 in their market respectively) then by what standard can you possibly say this is bad for business?

My issue is not with the fact that people have had jobs they didn’t like or that some businesses operate in a shortsighted manner. It is with the massive overgeneralization you and Thomas are making in accusing business in general of being negligent (Thomas is not backpedalling of course and saying that “some” business are like this). For a philosophy that glorifies capitalism, this sort of mentality is like John Galt meets Dilbert.

The list above is in the form of a smear. We are simply to take that as evidence that this is bad, but you provide no standard by which to judge. It is by implication. “Oh my gosh, how horrifying, they made me learn how to do my job by watching other people…”. Is that a good thing or a bad thing??? BLANK OUT

Training a new person is such a huge pain in the butt for corporations that they would rather operate understaffed for months than get around to bringing a new person in. This is always why they ask for “experience” in their classified ads. “Experience” in a job advertisement actually translates to “can learn to swim by being chucked in deep water full of sharks”.

Well, now wait a minute. Later on you said…

Actually, no they are not. Ideal candidates for entry-level work ARE people that are overqualified because the job ALWAYS involves dealing with stuff that didn’t occur to anyone when they were hiring. Not to mention the fact that high turnover in entry-level positions is actually beneficial to the company. When you’ve worked for Kroger for 10 years, you’re making enough money that they would be better off FIRING you and hiring in TWO new people that could do your job JUST AS WELL in A WEEK. I’m not kidding. Long-term entry level employees are a terrible thing because they keep getting raises and benefits increases but aren’t producing any more work. Every extra year they’re on the staff they become a bigger drain.

The question I have for you is that if these jobs are so easy to do that they can be learned in a week, then what sort of training are you asking for? Training is costly and difficult, and for many jobs the best way to learn them is to do them. What’s wrong with that? Additionally, in many jobs, especially unskilled jobs, turn-over is a fact of life. Training therefore is a wasted investment. Honestly, that’s what I thought when I looked at your list. All those jobs would be learned in weeks. What on god’s earth do you need training for?

My last comment is with another contradiction you made.

The funny thing is that these same corporations will spend thousands of dollars to send a manager to a special training seminar five states away.

You want to know one of the best organizations that recognizes this fact? The military. There’s even a policy within the military for officers that if you go so long without earning a promotion, they actually BOOT YOU OUT. No joke. If most corporations operated like the U.S. Army does, a lot of their problems would disappear.

The military? Well, first off lets get the context straight. In the military officers are “management”. Enlisted are the unskilled labor, so your two statements above are really parallel. If you think the military gets something right that corporations don’t you really need to check out the beefs of the enlisted folks (my sister is a staff seargent in the Air Force. I’d be careful before I started using them as an example). Also realize that if you’re enlisted, your value adding suggestions don’t get you to be an officer any more than if you’re a chemical operator. There is a process to make that jump, it’s called OCS. There is a process to make that jump in the business world too. It’s called a) starting your own business or b.) getting a degree.

Honestly, this sort of anger at feeling as though unskilled/semi-skilled laber somehow gets the “shaft” in their jobs really annoys me. At my company almost every one of the secretaries in my building are working on a BS in business at a local community college. It’s not an MBA, but it can get them a job as a product rep or in customer service, which they can then leverage into another job. I have a fellow marketing manager who started in customer service and worked her way through telesales, and then into marketing. I know a chemical operator that got fed up with his job because he was way too smart for it, so he got a finance degree in night school and moved over into a professional role in the finance department in the same company. This sort of expectation that if you come up with nice suggestions, that a company should hand you the keys to the city is really laughable.

There’s one person who is responsible for your career: you. And there’s one option open to you if you can’t find an employrer to suit you: go into business for yourself. That’s individualism. Stop whining.

16

Look, I’m not trying to turn this discussion into an Us versus Them confrontation – not a worker versus an engineer confrontation and certainly not an Objectivist versus a businessman confrontation. The fact that I can go to the grocery store or other place of business and generally get what I want at a reasonable price shows that something is working correctly. Capitalism, insofar as we still have that, is working, to my benefit; no doubt about that at all. I just think that it can work better;and that if people were rewarded for their good ideas that it would work better, and we would all benefit.

Besides, I didn’t want the “key to the city” for coming up with my good ideas, I just wanted to be rewarded for them. And I hope you realize I was joking when I said I could become the CEO in five years. I guess if I went off to college and got some sort of business degree, maybe an advance MBA or something, I could work my way up to become a CEO in, realistically, ten to fifteen years. I mean, people do that, so it is possible.

And if Kendall or anyone else on this board has found a way to make good money and get financially rewarded for thinking at a job they love to do; well, my hat’s off to you. Congratulations!

I fell for the hype that all one needed was a degree and one could get a better job. I worked hard for my dual degree in physics and philosophy that I earned in four years of hard study, and I, too, like Kendall, worked my way through college. It’s good that this can be done. It’s good that we have capitalism. But it never got me a financial reward. I think I would have been better off leaving that industrial plant I worked at – since I was rather disgusted at how it kept breaking, and I could fix it, but they wouldn’t listen to me – and found a better job at a better location. That experience and their training could have made me more money if I simply moved to another state. And a lot of people did that, which is why they had such a high turn-over rate – especially for maintenance workers, who could almost double their wages by working for an off-shore oil rig or similar jobs in the neighboring state. It was one of those things that the plant manager didn’t understand until I pointed it out to him – yes, they were paying top wages within a geographical area, but if someone could move just a hundred miles away and double their wages, then that was what they were going to do; and if he wanted to keep them then he would have to expand his geographical area of consideration. He took it under advisement, and I think people there did get a raise shortly thereafter (after I went off to college). The same job that I was doing is now paying twice what it was twenty years ago; which means that I would be better off financially then I am now if I simply would have stayed put. But I was very disappointed in how they did things, and thought that if I got a degree, then I could enter a business at a higher level, like Kendall says; only it never worked out that way.

So, yes,one has to be careful not to overgeneralize based on one’s own personal experience. And I try not to do that; but when one sees the same attitude at every job one has ever had – the same attitude I have seen on this board in this thread – then one has to come to the conclusion that something is wrong.

Are businessmen doing well, in the sense that their bottom line is good? Sure, the good ones are making a profit, as they deserve. My point, and I think Megan’s point, is that it could be done even better. We could be having John Galt Lines everywhere! And I think the point is well taken that if you want that then start your own business and run it that way.

And I think that as Objectivism spreads, that will be happening. New businesses that reward thinkers on the job at all levels will arise, and out compete the older models.

But that is a long time in the future. In the mean time, I think the proper attitude for workers to have is that if you want me to only turn valves and flip switches, then that is what I will do. If you are not going to pay me to think on the job, then I will think off the job and try to improve my life, and if that means quitting for something better, then that is what I will do.

Miss Rand spoke of men of the mind who will also be men of action. And that is they type of person that I am, thanks to Objectivism. And more of these types of people will arise as Objectivism spreads. There will be factory workers who have good ideas that they develop on principle and will be expected to be rewarded for it, even if they were only hired to sweep the floors. And when businesses arise that will financially reward them for their good ideas – well, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

17

Besides, I didn’t want the “key to the city” for coming up with my good ideas, I just wanted to be rewarded for them.

You can be rewarded for your own good ideas. Simply open your own business.

but when one sees the same attitude at every job one has ever had – the same attitude I have seen on this board in this thread – then one has to come to the conclusion that something is wrong.

Are businessmen doing well, in the sense that their bottom line is good? Sure, the good ones are making a profit, as they deserve. My point, and I think Megan’s point, is that it could be done even better. We could be having John Galt Lines everywhere!

Honestly I agree with you. From my experience, the majority of companies I have been associated with could be doing much better. But what can one do? I learned the hard way. You will make your life more difficult by trying to convince everyone that your way is the best way. It likely is the best way, but that doesn’t matter to most people. The problem is widespread improper philosophy, and that isn’t something you can change as an employee.

In the mean time, I think the proper attitude for workers to have is that if you want me to only turn valves and flip switches, then that is what I will do. If you are not going to pay me to think on the job, then I will think off the job and try to improve my life, and if that means quitting for something better, then that is what I will do.

As horrendous as it sounds, I agree. But only to the extent that you are not being affected financially. I was in a situation with Domino’s Pizza where I was promised a certain bonus structure as part of my pay as a General Manager. However, after I began the bonus structure was changed on me several times, effectively cutting off an important amount of my pay. So what did I do? Well for one, instead of trying to grow the business, I decided to shrink my handicap by working on my golf game as much as I possibly could. I began to play 6-7 rounds a week. Secondly, I began to seek out alternative incomes, and investigate the possibility of doing something else. Eventually I came upon stock trading and I left Domino’s with little hesitation and no regrets.

But like I said, I would try to get involved in something related to Wall Street. Many hedge funds hire Physics majors, because of the method of thinking physics majors use. Or you can trade for yourself and earn your own income. Or open your own business. (note: Do not franchise with any company or brand. Franchising sounds like it will lead to you “being your own boss” but you will have policies and decisions come down to you from the ivory tower silk suits in “the corporation” that you will disagree with and you will have no choice but to follow. If you fail to follow the decisions you will face revocation of your franchise agreement.)

18

The reason is because in most companies the individuals in the positions of power want their jobs to be as easy as possible. They want to be able to tell someone to do something and then go home to their wife and enjoy a nice pasta dinner with the knowledge that whatever they said to get done will be done without any questioning.

A coworker of mine says “everybody’s an idea guy,” and he’s right - anyone can look at their piece of the puzzle, see how it relates to other pieces, and noodle a “better” way to do things. It takes real effort to do the legwork on it. You mentioned Google being a place that rewards abstract thinking … I think it’s a fair assumption that there’s not a room where people sit around and say “wouldn’t it be great if …” then send the orders down. If you’ve got a good idea that could become a worthwhile product for Google, you’ve got to be able to write the code and massage it to Google’s expectations.

My career is in the music instrument business, and my job is sales & distribution - it’s all about numbers. In the beginning, I made many suggestions that never made it to fruition because they were just ‘ideas’. When I was able to show solid numbers, though, my proposals were given serious consideration. Then came the follow-through, doing the legwork to make the idea work, and being willing to admit I was wrong if it doesn’t work out as expected. Doing that a few times gained me trust, and I’m not given nearly the same scrutiny I saw in the beginning.

Another aspect of this is the fact that others have already done the work to set up a system where many specific tasks accomplish a large goal. It’s worked for them long enough to know that only minor tweaks are necessary to maintain the desired productivity. When someone new comes in with a ‘new’ idea, a number of things can result:

  1. The person who thought it up could feel threatened or insulted that his system is being criticized, even if that’s not your intent.

  2. They could be annoyed at the fact that they have to explain that they’ve already considered your idea, and rejected it.

  3. If you haven’t seen the “forest”, just a small “thatch”, the boss could interpret that as a lack of perception on your part.

  4. Perceived flaws in the system could simply be flaws in the workers. No system can make up for for laziness, apathy, doing the bare minimum, fakery, shoddy workmanship, dishonesty, careless mistakes, under-qualification, under-training, or a myriad of other counterproductive qualities.

  5. Your idea might be fine for the way you want to work, but you’re on someone else’s payroll, and they want it done a specific way, not your way. This is especially important for jobs that involve things like reports, statements, and any other hard data.

  6. I hate business politics, but the following is true more often than not - your idea will be rejected, but if the boss thinks of it, it will happen. The trick is to find a way to get him to arrive at the same conclusion you have about a new product improvement, better process, etc. Yeah, it’s pandering to weak egos - so you weigh the value of implementing a good idea versus not doing so because you want credit for it.

  7. You might think your idea is brilliant, but what happens if it’s not and it ends up costing the company a lot of money?

So, to sum up, I don’t think corporate managers are “anti-thinking”. I think that they’re more about doing what works for them, the way they want to see it done, and done by those who value the work they do enough to ensure it’s done thoroughly. It’s their comfort zone, and at the end of the week, they’re the ones signing the paychecks …

19

This has been an interesting thread. Companies vary a lot in the extent to which they encourage initiative. Within companies, bosses vary a lot too. Good companies seek to get ideas from the front-line. Fact is, this is easier said than done, particularly in larger companies. Sure, managers will sometimes not buy a good idea; on the other hand, sometimes managers will try to solicit too much advice only to end up with a larger task of convincing people that they’re wrong.

Organizations are peopled with normal folk, with a normal mix of rational and irrational ideas and attitudes. It’s not easy pushing one’s ideas across in a neighborhood-group meeting, a church group, or a business organization. Compared to many other organizations, business firms are generally the best type, because their goal (profit) is more objective than other groups. Nevertheless, it is not enough to have a good idea, the communication of that idea is not automatic. It’s the same as when a business has a product, they still have to advertise it. Since knowledge is not automatic, and since everyone’s context is different, one sometimes has to do a lot of work to convince a customer (or a boss) that something is a value to them. Throw in the fact that your audience has an average mix of rational and irrational values (into which you trying to integrate your own proposed value), and the task can become difficult. This ability to sell often is an important ingredient in success.

Over the long run, it’s important to choose the right company to work for; and, if one finds oneself below a bad boss, to try to figure out ways to change that. Throwing up one’s hands and becoming an automaton is another alternative, but it’s probably the more boring and less productive one. The best solution is to ditch below-average employers and to seek out better one, even if they are imperfect. If feasible, starting one’s own business is another option.

20

I think some of the counter-points to my position definitely indicate what a business owner’s perspective is. In essence, if he started his own business then he probably wants to run it his own way; and if someone comes along and wants to make radical changes, then it will no longer be done that way. But one has to be careful here not to get into a kind of intrincisist rut. In other words, these methods have worked for umpteen years, and therefore we will continue to do things this way. The problem with this is that in a capitalist atmosphere markets change, and sometimes they can change radically.

For example, there were businessmen who made very high quality horse and buggy equipment, but with the advent of the automobile, those means and methods were no longer suitable for making a profit. The product was still as great as it ever was, but there was no longer a large of market for it. In more modern times we have the Internet, which definitely shifted markets big time. In the business I’m in, art galleries and picture framing, the availability of customer’s being able to go to their computer to find art and get a good price for it has radically changed the way an art gallery needs to do business. But convincing a boss or business owner to do that can be like pulling teeth. Because I got a sales commission at one place I worked, I basically convinced the boss that I could put up a good website and increase sales, which I did – and my work was basically paid for by my commission. My current boss isn’t as familiar with the Internet, and I can’t even convince him to get me a digital camera so that I can set up a great website on my free time at work. But I am not on a sales commission in this case, being paid by the hour, so I’m not going to put off-work time into making it happen – including not buying a digital camera of my own so I can set up the website.

So, I’m not saying become an automaton. I’m saying apply a rational understanding of justice. Do the work you are being paid to do, and do it well; since you are being paid to do that. But don’t go above and beyond if you are not going to be rewarded for it.

To go back to my original gripe; the way the system was supposed to work was that I would convey my good idea to my supervisor, who was then supposed to pass it on to his supervisor, who was supposed to access the idea and put it into practice. I mean, it sounds good on paper, but since no one was getting financially rewarded for coming up with good ideas, they never got passed on. Everyone was getting paid by the hour – whether the plant was operating or not – so, why do all that extra work? And I agree that assessing ideas is work. When I went to the plant manager of a plant that had 500 to 800 workers, it was unprecedented. To his credit, he did listen and even put my ideas into practice, and he didn’t convey to me that I was out of place to be talking to him, but I got nothing out of it. If I was running the show, I’d give me a raise and perhaps even team me up with an engineer to go over that whole section of the plant. But they actually told me that “We don’t do that because we need intelligent people out in the field” to turn those valves and flip those switches. It wasn’t exactly a punishment, but it most definitely wasn’t a reward either. So, I quit and went to college.

And, yes, it costs money and time and effort to put good ideas into practice; but that is the nature of reality. Good ideas don’t grow on trees, and we don’t live in a magical kingdom where wishing or imagining will make it so. It takes effort. But, with profitable ideas, they pay off. And if you are not going to reward people for coming up with those good ideas; you are not going to be getting them any longer.

It’s one of those abstract ideas called justice.