Now before you deluge the comments box with pro-university rants and such like, please understand I'm not jealous nor have I got a working class chip on my shoulder.
Far from it. Would have gone to University myself had the economic chips stacked in my favour but alas they didn't. I am totally in support of those who go through the ranks of School & College to wear that mortar and cloak but one thing that fucks me off immensely - and I work with examples everyday - is those individuals who went and did some totally rock solid subject like Advanced thermonuclear bio-atmospheric physics only to discover - Ooh! What a surprise - that their qualification is totally pointless as they have no work experience and then they settle for a 'illustrious' career as a Pertemp office clerk!!!
I've worked with so many, many people that have done this! And it breaks my heart- slightly - because they come in two varieties;
Variety one is the lazy slacker who never endured a moment of hardship during their time at Uni. They are the ones that plead poverty yet amazingly can go down the pub nightly, smoke copious amounts of weed and always seem able to go to Glastonbury/Reading/V even though the tickets are extortionate! Then, fours years down the line they have to take 5 boxes of Pro-Plus the night before their finals because they never revised and still manage a 2:1 with honours. They then graduate, take a 'year out' - Grrrrr! - then waltz their way into a 20k starting graduate scheme.
Variety two is the poor bastard/ette that got to University because they worked their arses off and found the four years one struggle after another. Ill health, genuine poverty, smaller loans because the slackers above beat them to it etc etc. They then get to the end, totally stressed out, and just about manage to get the illustrious 2:1. Closely accompanying them is around 10k's worth of debt and they can't go anywhere but back home to their parents because they have not got a pot to piss in. They then get rejected by every graduate scheme they apply for and end up doing data entry or call centres. I've worked with these poor sods. Everything from a Marine Biologist who had a Doctorate to a Physicist who had his own 'Law'. None could get jobs in their field.
So which one do you think I hate the most?
Good guess Shirley! Variety one....
It just staggers me how genuinely retarded these graduates actually are. One particularly intake my department had two years ago just amazed me and all for the wrong reasons! I was astounded he'd actually had the mental capacity to begin breathing when ripped from his mothers abdomen. He looked gormless. He sounded gormless. He just fucking exuded gormlessness from every pore.
<*dv_0*> I tried being friendly to him - even though the little punk had been given a position above me - but it didn't last long once the true extent of his dimness became apparent. We were discussing something about animals the one day and the subject turned to Dogs. He then chipped in how he had seen, that very morning, a woman walking a Dog across the road and he swore blind that " the dog had six legs". He even drew a diagram - with crayons - and what he had believed vehemently to be the two extra legs, was in fact the motion blur of the other four! Once his car broke down and he came in late. Started telling us how some hood had punctured his tyre outside his house and then claimed the garage had ripped him off because when he went to the boot to get the spare, he found that they had given him "a tyre for a moped". Took twenty minutes to explain the concept of emergency tyres. I won't tell you the saga of basic DIY but the diagram of 'how to change a plug' which I had drew to take the piss, was intently studied and even became a weekly series. He still didn't catch on when we got to 'how to change a bulb'. I shit you not!
If you told him any basic 'fact of life' or trivial snippet of knowledge, he would immediately write it down on a post-it note and put it in his wallet! By the time the twat left his wallet was bulging with notes! Yeah, that's right! He left! And why did he leave? Well, after my company - as it always does - panders and preens these 'future managerial kings & queens' with team building jollies and holiday breaks, they also send them on really good courses in which they get professional qualifications. They pass the exams, get the title and then fuck off because they are now worth even more and have a few years relevant experience! Repeat.
Yet the opposite of this situation was a lad called John - who I'm still mates with. He was a 47 yr old living in a 21yr olds body. This kid exuded class and professionalism. He was an absolute genius when it came to computers and even got to the stage where higher level managers were asking his opinion on decisions. I would work for him any day because you knew you could trust him and his methods. Do you think John got onto my company's graduate scheme when he got his 2:1, even though he had shining references from my bosses? Did he fuck. Some other useless toe rag got it. A year and half on after graduating, the kid is slogging his guts out in a hotel for minimum wage and Doctors' hours.
My real beef isn't with backgrounds or who has an easier time - although it annoys me immensely. Its with the fact that those who put the effort in are never rewarded accordingly and always sidelined for Johnny B.F.B*s.
Oh, if I was M.D...
*Bollocks for Brains
|
