The Worst Advice in the History of the World

I ran across this article and it struck a chord with me, because I think it's spot on. The student loan debt bubble will be the next one to burst and I think a lot of what is said here is the truth. We "train" kids from the start that college = good future, no college = bad future...and it's just not true. Some of the most successful people that I know right now didn't go to college. Instead, they had unbelievable WORK ETHIC, a little bit of street smarts, and a little bit of luck never hurts...but they are very successful today. Much more successful than me.

We have lost work ethic in this country...and before you go there, it goes beyond welfare and handouts. We train our kids to "Work Smart, not Hard"...and then scratch our heads wondering why generations of kids grow up lazy as can be with a sense of entitlement because they went to school and earned a diploma. We wonder why new college graduates come out of school expecting to have 6-figure incomes and management positions right out of the gate.

[URL]http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/23/mike-rowe-of-dirty-jobs-speaks-about-hard-work-how-many-are-following-the-worst-advice-in-the-history-of-the-world/[/URL]

Man ain't that the truth....good article. I dated a nurse for a few years and she was in her late 30's still paying on her student loans!! Could she have paid it off earlier??? Yes if she didn't want to eat and put food on the table for the family so she made the decision to pay what she could when she could but the interest kept piling up. It is a hard luck story like many people have and a little different than what Mike is talking about but still it's folks dealing with student loans.
I don't know squat about college, student loans or college tuition costs in general but they seem way way way over inflated.

[QUOTE=MrSplitshot;523446]I ran across this article and it struck a chord with me, because I think it's spot on. The student loan debt bubble will be the next one to burst and I think a lot of what is said here is the truth. We "train" kids from the start that college = good future, no college = bad future...and it's just not true. Some of the most successful people that I know right now didn't go to college. Instead, they had unbelievable WORK ETHIC, a little bit of street smarts, and a little bit of luck never hurts...but they are very successful today. Much more successful than me.

We have lost work ethic in this country...and before you go there, it goes beyond welfare and handouts. We train our kids to "Work Smart, not Hard"...and then scratch our heads wondering why generations of kids grow up lazy as can be with a sense of entitlement because they went to school and earned a diploma. We wonder why new college graduates come out of school expecting to have 6-figure incomes and management positions right out of the gate.

[URL]http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/23/mike-rowe-of-dirty-jobs-speaks-about-hard-work-how-many-are-following-the-worst-advice-in-the-history-of-the-world/[/URL][/QUOTE]

LIBERALS push college, and then bitch about the fact that we have "educated" IDIOTS that cannot get a job, so they protest people that HAVE jobs via Occupy Wall Street.

The United States spends significantly more than any other country in the world on education. If we'd get smart about education and EDUCATE instead if indoctrinate, we'd eliminate 90% of our countries woes.

Our country and work ethic is in a very, VERY SAD State........

Later,

Geo

[QUOTE=GeoFisher;523484]LIBERALS push college, and then bitch about the fact that we have "educated" IDIOTS that cannot get a job, so they protest people that HAVE jobs via Occupy Wall Street.

The United States spends significantly more than any other country in the world on education. If we'd get smart about education and EDUCATE instead if indoctrinate, we'd eliminate 90% of our countries woes.

Our country and work ethic is in a very, VERY SAD State........

Later,

Geo[/QUOTE]

AND another thing........some of the BS profiling, touchy feely crap that places use within ONLINE applications are eliminating a crap ton of qualified applications to JOBS.

My oldest daughter tried forever to get employed, but simply could not answer the bull crap profiling questions "right" to get past the first phase of the hiring process. Even with inside help, like getting an application pulled and put in the front of the list, she could not get hired.

One time, I even took the application test FOR HER.......

My daughter is not a social butterfly.......she would just assume sit in her room and read, but her WORK ethic is crazy good. CRAZY, CRAZY good. This is a kid who worked her can off to be an effective basketball player, because SHE wanted it. She was not the best at anything, but she was better than most playing defense, and she was good enough off of set plays to drain the 3 pretty much every time she shot it.

In order for her to get her first job, I had to BRIBE a hiring manager ( friend of mine :) ) with dinner for him and his wife to anywhere in louisville, if he'd just hire her and give her a chance. She has been there part time for over a year, and they love her. She gets more hours than anyone else because she loves to work.

In a year she's never been late, never called in, and more importantly UNDERSTANDS work ethic.

Later,

Geo

[QUOTE=GeoFisher;523488]AND another thing........some of the BS profiling, touchy feely crap that places use within ONLINE applications are eliminating a crap ton of qualified applications to JOBS.

My oldest daughter tried forever to get employed, but simply could not answer the bull crap profiling questions "right" to get past the first phase of the hiring process. Even with inside help, like getting an application pulled and put in the front of the list, she could not get hired.

One time, I even took the application test FOR HER.......

My daughter is not a social butterfly.......she would just assume sit in her room and read, but her WORK ethic is crazy good. CRAZY, CRAZY good. This is a kid who worked her can off to be an effective basketball player, because SHE wanted it. She was not the best at anything, but she was better than most playing defense, and she was good enough off of set plays to drain the 3 pretty much every time she shot it.

In order for her to get her first job, I had to BRIBE a hiring manager ( friend of mine :) ) with dinner for him and his wife to anywhere in louisville, if he'd just hire her and give her a chance. She has been there part time for over a year, and they love her. She gets more hours than anyone else because she loves to work.

In a year she's never been late, never called in, and more importantly UNDERSTANDS work ethic.

Later,

Geo[/QUOTE]

Awesome.

Since I was 16 years old, my mantra has always been that while I may not be the smartest member of the team, nobody will outwork me - ever - period. It has paid off for me and I'm better for it. Eventually, though it doesn't always seem that way, hard work does pay off. Some people give up on that concept too easily and decide to grab-ass through life.

Great article and good stuff here guys I agree with all of you. My daughter has racked up some pretty hefty college debt and it saddens me but it is what it is. I didn't go to college but instead found a nitch and worked my tail off. Now I make what many college grads don't but it didn't come easy and it was just like Split said just work hard and it will pay off. It does pay to have some good old fashioned horse sense, something I feel is lost in todays society.

I work with some guys in this office that have serious wall hanging hardware that would have trouble changing a flat tire it's actually kinda sad. The very best designer/engineer we have has a tech college education but was raised old school and can do alot with his hands and....Gets it...you know exactly what I mean. Well guess what he is the best designer we have bar none, funny how that works...

If all we have are highly educated desk jockey's......who gets the actual brass tack work done....

Full disclosure.........both of my daughters will hopefully be college grads. They are both paying about 25% of the way to college, and I'm paying the rest.

Each will have about 1 year of college debt. Not as bad as someone with 40-50-100k in college debt, but still debt.

I hope it is worth it, but I'm not sure either will be employed in their field. I personally think both may have been better off going into a field that is in DEMAND by going to a technical college.......

Later,

Geo

[QUOTE=mhall;523501]Great article and good stuff here guys I agree with all of you. My daughter has racked up some pretty hefty college debt and it saddens me but it is what it is. I didn't go to college but instead found a nitch and worked my tail off. Now I make what many college grads don't but it didn't come easy and it was just like Split said just work hard and it will pay off. It does pay to have some good old fashioned horse sense, something I feel is lost in todays society.

I work with some guys in this office that have serious wall hanging hardware that would have trouble changing a flat tire it's actually kinda sad. The very best designer/engineer we have has a tech college education but was raised old school and can do alot with his hands and....Gets it...you know exactly what I mean. Well guess what he is the best designer we have bar none, funny how that works...

If all we have are highly educated desk jockey's......who gets the actual brass tack work done....[/QUOTE]

Amen to that! I will say this...when I hire someone or give my blessing to hire them it's because I see someone who will work hard not someone who has a degree. Of course our field doesn't require the degree but does require field smarts and the ability to take instructions and get the job done. Sometimes these guys go to Manufacture schools that we pay for at $5000 a pop and they better pass or we lock them in a room and show clips of Nancy Pelosi and Obama speaking for hours...turrible punishment!:p

Seriously, I don't knock college edumacated folks. More power to them it's just not for everyone.

[QUOTE=DJD;523515]Amen to that! I will say this...when I hire someone or give my blessing to hire them it's because I see someone who will work hard not someone who has a degree. Of course our field doesn't require the degree but does require field smarts and the ability to take instructions and get the job done. Sometimes these guys go to Manufacture schools that we pay for at $5000 a pop and they better pass or we lock them in a room and show clips of Nancy Pelosi and Obama speaking for hours...turrible punishment!:p

Seriously, I don't knock college edumacated folks. More power to them it's just not for everyone.[/QUOTE]

I'm edjumacated as a music professional. Majored in Music Performance. It SURE helped me in my employment :) :)

On the flipside, I know many folks educated in Information Technology that are HORRIBLE. Simply HORRIBLE. In our industry we've seen a ton of outsourcing to India. Quite a few folks from India then come to this country and directly compete for jobs in the industry. These jobs are the same paying jobs that folks here have. They make the same dollar, so hiring an Indian contractor on shore sometimes is actually more expensive than a local person. Guess what.........lots and lots of onshore Indian contractors are used because they simply are BETTER with the technology.

Now I'm not saying best, because there are barriers that make it very cumbersome to effectively manage onshore and offshore foreign contractors. That being said, when you find foreign folks that have overcame those barriers, they are simply the best of the best. VERY TECHNICAL and VERY CAPABLE of performing the job at an extremely high level.

Our best IT schools are their average schools. I have Indian developers that I work with that went through India PolyTech Institute. That school gets hundreds of thousands of applicants every year. Only the top 1 percent get in, and it is extremely competitive. That 1 percent is technically better than most every ONSHORE developer. When that on percent overcomes barriers that increase the complexities involved with working in America, they are extremely good........oh and they have CRAZY GOOD work ethic.....something we could learn a thing or two from.

Later,

Geo