Author Topic: "Training out the stupid"  (Read 13858 times)

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Offline bd139

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #75 on: December 17, 2020, 07:51:50 am »
Na, turning that into an institutionalised process is an incredibly bad idea. Doing it will require some metric to do it on. To be fair, the metric would have to be published (and with a bit of Googling it wouldn't be hard to find employment tribunal cases or similar that have ruled against using hidden metrics to evaluate people). The second it was published, people would start gaming it. The kind of people who game metrics rather then get on with their jobs are exactly the kind of people you don't want to retain.

Yeah sounds like the old stack ranking fuckup at Microsoft...
 

Offline CJay

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #76 on: December 17, 2020, 10:45:31 am »
it wouldn't be hard to find employment tribunal cases or similar that have ruled against using hidden metrics to evaluate people

Perhaps it's different over here in California or Washington State, where we have "at will" employment (at least for non-union jobs).  Here, I can be fired at any time, no reason necessary.  If I can make the case that I was fired because of my race, sex, religion (and perhaps more protected classes, I'm not sure) I have some protection. Otherwise, no.  Since I'm a straight white male I guess I'd better be good at what I do, and not work for idiots.

For what it's worth, one of the best things that happened to me was being fired from my first tech job.  Of course I was young, and recovery was fairly easy.  I wouldn't recommend it to someone with a family and a mortgage.

Those anti discrimination laws apply to you too, but you're in a demographic where it's less likely you'll need them.

Which should give you pause for thought about why they are still needed. 

Over here in the UK we have some rather strong employment rights, there are holidays, maternity leave, paternity leave, pensions, sick leave, all paid.

To get fired on the spot you have to have done something grossly wrong/illegal, if the company crashes and you're made redundant you have rights and pay due (subject to certain conditions).

Will be interesting to see how they stand up to the massive changes that are about to happen.
 

Offline coppice

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #77 on: December 17, 2020, 01:58:36 pm »
Yes, being somewhat politically savvy is important. But, I'm an engineer at heart, not a manager or politician. So there's that.
Then unless you are consistently so vital to business that you are truly indispensable until you are ready to retire, you are screwed. One slip, one slack period, one great design that isn't quite what the market turns out to want and you are deep in doo doo.
 

Offline BravoV

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #78 on: December 17, 2020, 02:25:23 pm »
All of these just for ... tree ... z ?  :-DD

Offline JohnG

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #79 on: December 17, 2020, 04:19:11 pm »
Then unless you are consistently so vital to business that you are truly indispensable until you are ready to retire, you are screwed. One slip, one slack period, one great design that isn't quite what the market turns out to want and you are deep in doo doo.

Actually, this turned out not to be true. Despite all the BS, most people still give a damn. Also, if you help enough people, some of them will stand up for you. Also, this kind of management tends to be fear-based. That's why the bottom 10% is chosen based on least likelihood of pushing back as much as anything. If you are actually a decent performer, you have nothing to lose by respectfully standing your ground. But, even if you keep the job, if you stay at a company like this, the odds are indeed high that you will be screwed at some point. Best to leave on your own terms if you can.

A company that allows no room for failure is not going to do much of interest, anyways. It drives people to do nothing of significance, lest they be punished. This leads to a global failure, but one that is difficult to blame on any individual.

I work for a small company, now, and really enjoy it, even if it is rather tumultuous at times. If I ever work for a large company again, it will be as a contractor or consultant. Or, if I can earn advanced certification in "Bluster and BSTM", then I could always join as a VP, CxO or something  >:D

Cheers,
John
"Reality is that which, when you quit believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick (RIP).
 

Offline pardo-bsso

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #80 on: December 17, 2020, 10:45:40 pm »
I've worked with two people who were perfectly good employees who cracked up. One went through a period of harmless eccentricity, like wearing a kilt every day, to being a threat to other people.

Should I worry? I started wearing those last year and so far no signs of threatening traits  :-DD

Back on topic, recently I did a couple of courses aimed at people with a university degree or higher and the bar to pass the final exam was a complete joke. I'm not the brightest bulb but they were also starting to let everyone go when I got my title some years ago.
 

Offline coppice

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #81 on: December 17, 2020, 10:55:03 pm »
Back on topic, recently I did a couple of courses aimed at people with a university degree or higher and the bar to pass the final exam was a complete joke. I'm not the brightest bulb but they were also starting to let everyone go when I got my title some years ago.
A serious problem with people paying the full cost of their education is they become a customer, and its very hard to expect anything of them, or fail them. As universities have expanded from a place for the wealthy or very smart to a mass market, most have followed a path of grabbing all the students they can, with little regard for ability or preparedness. You can't expect much of people like that.
 

Offline CerebusTopic starter

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #82 on: December 17, 2020, 11:11:06 pm »
I've worked with two people who were perfectly good employees who cracked up. One went through a period of harmless eccentricity, like wearing a kilt every day, to being a threat to other people.

Should I worry? I started wearing those last year and so far no signs of threatening traits  :-DD

Oh aye laddie? Well wait until ye've been through a hard winter wearing one and ye might ha' a new perspective on bits cracking up.  :)
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 

Offline pardo-bsso

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #83 on: December 20, 2020, 12:55:24 pm »
Back on topic, recently I did a couple of courses aimed at people with a university degree or higher and the bar to pass the final exam was a complete joke. I'm not the brightest bulb but they were also starting to let everyone go when I got my title some years ago.
A serious problem with people paying the full cost of their education is they become a customer, and its very hard to expect anything of them, or fail them. As universities have expanded from a place for the wealthy or very smart to a mass market, most have followed a path of grabbing all the students they can, with little regard for ability or preparedness. You can't expect much of people like that.

Sad thing is, education here is `free` and our universities are still regarded as high quality on a global level (albeit ranking lower).
You can find excellence and and attitude towards that but overall the trend is not going that way.
 

Offline pardo-bsso

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #84 on: December 20, 2020, 12:58:11 pm »
Oh aye laddie? Well wait until ye've been through a hard winter wearing one and ye might ha' a new perspective on bits cracking up.  :)

Your winters are certainly colder than ours but I can't wait for it to come.
Last week we had temps around 30°C (86°F) in the shadow. At morning. And summer is just starting.
 

Offline CJay

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #85 on: December 20, 2020, 06:34:32 pm »
Back on topic, recently I did a couple of courses aimed at people with a university degree or higher and the bar to pass the final exam was a complete joke. I'm not the brightest bulb but they were also starting to let everyone go when I got my title some years ago.
A serious problem with people paying the full cost of their education is they become a customer, and its very hard to expect anything of them, or fail them. As universities have expanded from a place for the wealthy or very smart to a mass market, most have followed a path of grabbing all the students they can, with little regard for ability or preparedness. You can't expect much of people like that.

Sad thing is, education here is `free` and our universities are still regarded as high quality on a global level (albeit ranking lower).
You can find excellence and and attitude towards that but overall the trend is not going that way.

There seems to be some bizarre idea that more graduates equals better so we've got a system that became really good at awarding lots of degrees that are of no use to anyone other than the people who profit form awarding them.
 
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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #86 on: December 20, 2020, 07:01:15 pm »
[...]
There seems to be some bizarre idea that more graduates equals better so we've got a system that became really good at awarding lots of degrees that are of no use to anyone other than the people who profit form awarding them.

I recently read an article that theorized that the disappointment of a massive number of downcast and discontented graduates chasing too few good jobs was part of the general climate that e.g. led to Trump, Brexit, etc.
 

Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #87 on: December 20, 2020, 07:23:44 pm »
[...]
There seems to be some bizarre idea that more graduates equals better so we've got a system that became really good at awarding lots of degrees that are of no use to anyone other than the people who profit form awarding them.

I recently read an article that theorized that the disappointment of a massive number of downcast and discontented graduates chasing too few good jobs was part of the general climate that e.g. led to Trump, Brexit, etc.

There is a university that advertises regularly on the radio here. A few years ago they popped up with an ad slagging off other places that have an established curriculum. The gimmick was that a student could a-la-carte their way to a graduation of some sort.

Yesterday I heard the same place's latest ad talks about how much integrity they have. Painted themselves into a corner.

iratus parum formica
 
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Offline CerebusTopic starter

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #88 on: December 20, 2020, 07:27:17 pm »
There seems to be some bizarre idea that more graduates equals better so we've got a system that became really good at awarding lots of degrees that are of no use to anyone other than the people who profit form awarding them.

I think it was pure cynicism on the behalf of New Labour. There was an observation that graduates were more likely to vote for a middle class version of left-leaning politics, the exact demographic the (failed) SDP had aimed for, and they thought that broadening the group of people who went to university was a way to create a bigger pool of voters sympathetic to New Labour's 'Tory lite' policies. They just rode on the back of all the earlier Tory messing about with higher education adding their own twist to it. So, suddenly we had university degrees in hotel management, leisure management and other things with a much lower entry bar than academic and engineering subjects.
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 
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Offline bd139

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #89 on: December 20, 2020, 07:29:49 pm »
Think you may have just hit the nail through the wood with that one.

 

Offline CJay

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #90 on: December 20, 2020, 07:58:18 pm »
[...]
There seems to be some bizarre idea that more graduates equals better so we've got a system that became really good at awarding lots of degrees that are of no use to anyone other than the people who profit form awarding them.

I recently read an article that theorized that the disappointment of a massive number of downcast and discontented graduates chasing too few good jobs was part of the general climate that e.g. led to Trump, Brexit, etc.
The figures don't bear that out for Brexit though.

70% of voters whose educational attainment is only GCSE or lower voted to Leave.
68% of voters with a university degree voted to Remain in the EU
Those with A levels and no degree were evenly split, 50% to 50%.
Under-25s were more than twice as likely to vote Remain (71%) than Leave (29%).
Among over-65s the picture is almost the exact opposite, as 64% of over-65s voted to Leave while only 36% voted to Remain.
Among the other age groups, voters aged 24 to 49 narrowly opted for Remain (54%) over leave (46%) while 60% of voters between the ages of 50 and 64 went for Leave.

So Brexit was voted for mostly by uneducated old farts.
 
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Offline bd139

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #91 on: December 20, 2020, 08:06:24 pm »
Could have done with COVID a few years back to thin the herd  :-DD
 

Offline coppice

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #92 on: December 20, 2020, 08:11:51 pm »
There seems to be some bizarre idea that more graduates equals better so we've got a system that became really good at awarding lots of degrees that are of no use to anyone other than the people who profit form awarding them.
I think it was pure cynicism on the behalf of New Labour. There was an observation that graduates were more likely to vote for a middle class version of left-leaning politics, the exact demographic the (failed) SDP had aimed for, and they thought that broadening the group of people who went to university was a way to create a bigger pool of voters sympathetic to New Labour's 'Tory lite' policies. They just rode on the back of all the earlier Tory messing about with higher education adding their own twist to it. So, suddenly we had university degrees in hotel management, leisure management and other things with a much lower entry bar than academic and engineering subjects.
It goes deeper than New Labour. Expanding the universities was about managing the dole queues.

In the 80s, when Japan was doing extremely well, we kept hearing how Japan put 18% of its youngsters through university, and Britain didn't. This ignored something key - Japan calls most tertiary education university, while the UK had a mixture of universities, polytechnics, technical colleges and other ways to study beyond school. When you totalled that up it came to over 15% of UK youngsters, so not a world apart from Japan. However, at a time of high unemployment, politicians saw keeping a whole bunch of young people off the streets for an extra three years as an excellent idea. Damn the cost, which was borne by the government then. So, the great expansion of universities began. The really big step change in universities occurred in the early 90s, during Conservative rule, before Blair was on the scene. 40 years ago the number of left wing people at university was not that big. They were very vocal, but not that numerous. I think left wing politicians just had a windfall. More people at university means more average people at university. That means an expansion of undemanding courses. That's fertile ground for things going off the rails.
 

Offline CerebusTopic starter

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #93 on: December 20, 2020, 09:30:25 pm »
40 years ago the number of left wing people at university was not that big.

People who identified as hard left, yes very few. People who identified as soft left was almost everybody else apart from the tiny handful in the Federation of Conservative Students. I was at one of the universities that was universally regarded as one of the least left leaning (we had a Tory grandee as Chancellor), and that certainly describes the situation there. Our Student Union was remarkably centrist as Student Unions go, but it was still most definitely left of centre.

The Tories in the late 80's and early 90s didn't expand higher education, they just relabelled it. So polytechnics became universities, Colleges of Education merged into a university or a newly chartered ex-polytechnic and so on. My university suddenly acquired an extra campus 20 miles away that was a former College of Education (Teacher Training College). There was a lot of merging going on, there were no new institutions being formed or extra capacity being added. All that changed was that the number of people graduating with CCNA certified degrees suddenly got added to the number of people graduating with university degrees. It did this:


(Source, House of Commons Library)

Notice how the trend line from '93 to 2000 pretty much follows the existing trend (after you've taken out the 'former polytechnic' jump), possibly even flattening out a bit. Then it gets into the period where Labour's new students start graduating and the curve bends sharply upward - it's no accident that happens 3-4 years after New Labour got into power.
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 

Offline coppice

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #94 on: December 20, 2020, 10:00:25 pm »
People who identified as hard left, yes very few. People who identified as soft left was almost everybody else apart from the tiny handful in the Federation of Conservative Students. I was at one of the universities that was universally regarded as one of the least left leaning (we had a Tory grandee as Chancellor), and that certainly describes the situation there. Our Student Union was remarkably centrist as Student Unions go, but it was still most definitely left of centre.
What has the student's union got to do with anything beyond the small number who have any involvement in the students union? Compulsory payments to the student's union have always been a scam pumping money to activists working against the interests of those making the payments. When I was at university the activists used to tour the refectories every lunchtime in the run up to students union elections, because the turnout was so small it made them look bad. Nothing happened in my time at university on which anything about my political views could be assessed, other than perhaps the rude way we told those trying to get us to vote to leave us alone to enjoy our lunch.

The Tories in the late 80's and early 90s didn't expand higher education, they just relabelled it. So polytechnics became universities, Colleges of Education merged into a university or a newly chartered ex-polytechnic and so on. My university suddenly acquired an extra campus 20 miles away that was a former College of Education (Teacher Training College). There was a lot of merging going on, there were no new institutions being formed or extra capacity being added. All that changed was that the number of people graduating with CCNA certified degrees suddenly got added to the number of people graduating with university degrees. It did this:


(Source, House of Commons Library)

Notice how the trend line from '93 to 2000 pretty much follows the existing trend (after you've taken out the 'former polytechnic' jump), possibly even flattening out a bit. Then it gets into the period where Labour's new students start graduating and the curve bends sharply upward - it's no accident that happens 3-4 years after New Labour got into power.
With the early 90s expansion a huge number of people previously working and doing a mixture of day release and evening classes became full time students doing degrees quite quickly. The big expansion in the number of degree awarding institutions didn't expand the total number of people studying overnight. Obviously it couldn't. It took time to build out and expand those institutions, but it was a necessary first step to provide the space to expand. Too many existing universities were reaching their limits of expansion, unless they uprooted and built an entire new campus in a more remote location. At the end of the second world war there was an expectation of universities rapidly expanding over the following decades, as the need for STEM people was expected to explode. Some of the famous city bound places, like UCL, had discussions about relocating to an entirely new and unconstrained campus. I don't think any of them actually moved. So, instead, the number of universities expanded in the 60s. Then the number had to expand again in the 90s, as many of the new universities from the 60s also reached constraints. By then, the UK's demand for STEM people had collapsed, so the expansion was not meeting industrial needs.
 

Offline CerebusTopic starter

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #95 on: December 20, 2020, 11:03:58 pm »
What has the student's union got to do with anything beyond the small number who have any involvement in the students union? Compulsory payments to the student's union have always been a scam pumping money to activists working against the interests of those making the payments. When I was at university the activists used to tour the refectories every lunchtime in the run up to students union elections, because the turnout was so small it made them look bad. Nothing happened in my time at university on which anything about my political views could be assessed, other than perhaps the rude way we told those trying to get us to vote to leave us alone to enjoy our lunch.

As usual, you're focusing on the supplementary illustration about the Student Union, that you hope is arguable, and ignoring the main point. My judgement of the political sympathies of the student body as a whole is based on direct personal experience of the hundreds of individuals I knew, at exactly the point in time you're trying to say that there were next to no people with soft left tendencies in the student body, not on the composition of the SU's elected officials. It might be a bit tricky for me to jump back in time and get an affidavit from each of them to provide material support for my case, but I think most people would agree that there's a tendency for the young voter to be left leaning (and I could quantify that if forced to), and that tendency is stronger in university students.

Just to drum the point home, voting intentions by age and by education for the last general election:

The broad left always gets more votes from the young and well educated and that's been true for as long as I've taken note of politics. The question here is would a political party be cynical enough to take note of that, and re-engineer higher education to include people who would not otherwise have gone into tertiary education by encouraging the creation of syllabi and courses that would accept people who hitherto where not thought of, or likely to think of themselves as 'university material' in a bid to create more 'natural' voters for themselves? Given the sort of unprincipled power hungry chancers that are naturally attracted to politics, I'd say yes.

Are you really telling us that you were so socially isolated at university that "nothing happened in my time at university on which anything about my political views could be assessed". I find that unlikely given how quickly you'll offer an opinion nowadays. For that to be true you'd have to either have talked to no one, or talked about nothing interesting - half the fun of being at university is sitting up way too late at night arguing about how to set the world to rights with friends and people who were strangers at the start of the evening.

Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 
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Offline coppice

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #96 on: December 20, 2020, 11:43:49 pm »
Are you really telling us that you were so socially isolated at university that "nothing happened in my time at university on which anything about my political views could be assessed". I find that unlikely given how quickly you'll offer an opinion nowadays. For that to be true you'd have to either have talked to no one, or talked about nothing interesting - half the fun of being at university is sitting up way too late at night arguing about how to set the world to rights with friends and people who were strangers at the start of the evening.
I know my experience of college is not typical, because I studied in London. We went to college. We studied. We went home. We very rarely socialised beyond chatting at lunch or in break periods. One of my friends spent one year in a hall of residence. I can't think of anyone else who did. In private discussions most of us were pretty much middle ground politically. We were STEM students, and that's where the maths takes you. :) You'll notice how much bigger the Lib Dem percentage is for the highly educated in your chart. However, unless there were spies watching our every move we did nothing that would have left a record of our political views. These days the internet means all sorts of things get inadvertently recorded, but in the 70s?
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #97 on: December 21, 2020, 01:42:29 am »
You know the old saying: 

If you don't lean to the left when you are young, you don't have a heart.
If you don't lean to the right as you get old, you don't have a brain!
 

Offline JohnG

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #98 on: December 21, 2020, 03:58:27 am »
There's another saying: It's not a line, it's a circle.

Too far left or right, you begin to believe you understand the world better than everyone else, and will resort to violence to make them understand your brilliance. You're just arriving at the same place from a different direction.

I prefer the immortal words of Bud: https://youtu.be/Zn5lEuiwtfQ

Cheers,
John
« Last Edit: December 21, 2020, 04:01:12 am by JohnG »
"Reality is that which, when you quit believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick (RIP).
 
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Offline coppice

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Re: "Training out the stupid"
« Reply #99 on: December 21, 2020, 04:58:20 pm »
There's another saying: It's not a line, it's a circle.

Too far left or right, you begin to believe you understand the world better than everyone else, and will resort to violence to make them understand your brilliance. You're just arriving at the same place from a different direction.

I prefer the immortal words of Bud: https://youtu.be/Zn5lEuiwtfQ

Cheers,
John
Its more like a sphere. Start at the point on the sphere facing the light. You can go up for authoritarian, or down for libertarian. You can go left for economically centralised or right for economically diverse. However, go too far in any direction and you end up in the same dark place.
 
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