Have you ever gone to work at your job and wonder how some individuals managed to get their job. You can’t figure it out. Your first thought is that they have blackmail on management. Or if they are attractive then they must be sleeping with management. You are just at awe that they are in the position they are in. I have encountered that in a couple of companies that I worked with. In one case, it resulted in me getting slightly burned due to their stupidity (for lack of a better word). In one company, management even had the audacity to have me train the manager on how to manage myself and my peers. That didn’t end well and I didn’t even try to sabotage. You give enough rope and they hang themselves.
The More Degrees, the More Shock
I have worked will all levels of educated scientists and I learned in most cases, the higher the degree (ie. PhD), the less common sense. There is extreme book smarts on a particular subject but overall, they are a failure in managing people and their position. The running joke among lab bench chemists is MS in science stands for “more shit” and a Ph D stands for “piled higher and deeper”. This is not an accurate description of all degreed individuals but quite a few.
I have seen scientists with high degrees unable to make simple solutions (salt and water mixture) that someone learns in college. One can’t imagine the lack of common sense that exists with some Ph Ds. They also are some of the individuals least likely to work in a team environment. The part that hurts most is when lay-offs come, the Ph D’s are the least likely to get laid-off while the bench chemists which perform most of the work are the first to go.
Ph D Complex
A higher education degree by the most part won’t make you a good manager or a good employee. The good ones listen to their subordinates (not their whining), peers or management team and rely on their abilities to get the job done with good decision making. The bad ones try to outsmart everyone, show superiority due to their higher degree status and have tendencies to pass blame or take credit when it is not warranted. I can’t tell you how many times these highly educated individuals tried to throw me under the bus especially when they need to justify their paycheck. It can get ugly especially since their salary is much higher than others.
Have you encountered anyone at your employer like this?
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