The Strange Online Kerfuffle About Work

 

I’ve had it on my radar for some weeks to write a post about the subject of work, but I haven’t gotten around to it before now because I’ve been really busy…well…working.

Now Christopher Rufo has stirred the pot on X about the very subject I had intended to write about, and there has subsequently ensued a kind of online firestorm on the right-ish side of the social media divide.

Here’s an example of one of his posts:

After Rufo posted, Rob Henderson weighed in to observe that aspirational elites were acting like working at Panda Express was beneath them. Henderson and Rufo provoked push-back from multiple directions, including this piece from Johann Kurtz.

Kurtz says:

The best white collar jobs – those which pay well enough to buy a house and start a family – require your CV to tell a strong and coherent story, featuring good grades, good schools, good internships, good skills, and good personal projects.

One false step in terms of how you spend your time can have serious ramifications. Tempers are high because the young understand exactly how fragile their situation is.

For a wildly different point of view regarding whether white-collar jobs “require your CV to tell a strong and coherent story,” or whether such jobs require a degree at all, you might visit the Thiel Fellowship — entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s program to encourage young people who have good ideas to skip college entirely and start building a business.

Then, the Librarian of Celaeno got into the act, somewhat taking exception to Kurtz’s response, and made bold to declare that “Work is a curse; toil is the inheritance from our fallen forebears.”

The Librarian, whom I enjoy reading and often agree with wholeheartedly, is wrong on this point. Work is not a curse, nor is it an artifact of the fall. Work preexisted the fall and was a responsibility of humanity before everything went sideways. What the fall did was cause the Earth itself to start resisting man’s efforts to provide for himself. So work itself is by no means a curse, but the non-cooperation of the created world has made our work more difficult.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that my own actual life experience suggests Thiel has a far better grasp of the possibilities than do those who are trapped by belief in the indispensability of college degrees for white-collar jobs. Kurtz is right to this extent: a polished and shiny CV does represent one tool for opening certain kinds of doors of opportunity. But it is far from being the only way to professional success. In terms of delivering real value to an employer, one’s actual skills matter far more than one’s credentials. My own experience has been that demonstrable skills are, at the end of the day, far more valuable than any formal credential or sparkling CV.

When my middle son was debating whether to get his doctorate, which he ended up doing, my advice to him was to only do it if the learning itself was valuable to him. I told him not to do it merely for the credential. Learning and developing expertise are the things that count.

My own misgivings about this entire online debate revolve around the ignored presumption, made by the resumé proponents, that degree holders are ipso facto skilled and able to create value or, at least, more employable than those who lack formal credentials. What gives me pause is that many (Most? Not sure.) degree holders in 2025 lack hard skills. What Panda Express and Chipotle are offering, though looked on by some with disdain, is the opportunity for individuals who lack hard skills to nevertheless be employed in roles that allow them to earn a living. The argument that someone with a shiny CV will tarnish it by working at Chipotle studiously avoids the elephant in the room: If their shiny CV was truly an indicator of skill, they would not need to be considering Chipotle.

The issue facing young men and women (IMO) is not that there are no opportunities, but that they are not being prepared for the opportunities that are there. I am not the only one who has noticed this.

I want to suggest that there is something that precedes and lays the groundwork for professional success. Something that paves the way for the accumulation of knowledge and skill as a necessary precondition for professional achievement. That ‘something’ is for someone to develop a genuine interest in subjects outside of himself.

I have long been a fan of the old TV show My Three Sons. It ran in the 1960s and early 70s and starred Fred MacMurray as a widower with three sons. There is a lot about that show which fascinates me, including how the evolution of the subject matter in the episodes reflected the evolution of the culture through the 1960s. But for our purposes in this post, the thing to watch is the extent to which the boys maintained genuine interests that they pursued. Especially in the early years of the series, the boys were constantly tinkering with old engines, repairing cars, rewiring stereos, and building structures of various kinds in the backyard or the garage. One of the striking things that characterized these interests was that they were often unrelated to the boys’ entertainment or self-expression. The boys were interested in things that were inherently useful, complex enough to require concentration and patience, and which would yield some practical benefit if the boys were able to get the thing built or working.

Developing a genuine interest in things of practical value is a very different pursuit than the pursuit of a credential. Such interests may indeed lead to pursuing a credential. But there is a very big difference between having an actual interest in something and merely having an interest in credentials.

Theodore Dalrymple has written about the impoverishing effects of parochial interests. In his book, Life At the Bottom, he writes about the way “education as entertainment” has constricted the worldview of the underclass, and imprisoned them in a universe animated almost entirely by self-enjoyment.

Of the generations of children who grew up with these pedagogical methods, it is striking how many of the more intelligent among them sense by their early twenties that something is missing from their lives. They don’t know what it is, and they ask me what it could be. I quote them Francis Bacon: “It is a poor Center of a Man’s Actions, Himself.” They ask me what I mean, and I reply that they have no interests outside themselves, that their world is as small as the day they entered it, and that their horizons have not expanded in the least.

“But how do we get interested in something?” they ask.

This is where the baleful effect of education as mere entertainment makes itself felt. For to develop an interest requires powers of concentration and an ability to tolerate a degree of boredom while the elements of a skill are learned for the sake of a worthwhile end.

People who most enjoy their work, in my experience, have an interest in the work or subject matter for its own sake. And when someone really enjoys his work, he is almost always professionally more successful. There is something liberating about developing interests in things whose primary value is unrelated merely to one’s own self-expression or entertainment. Having an interest in something that draws you out of yourself and into that thing, for the value of the thing itself, is transforming.

Credentialism eclipses genuine interests whenever your concern for an impressive resumé outweighs your concern for your actual skills. Is it learning and skill, or is it status that you crave?

In his book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis describes an initially loathsome, craven young boy, named Eustace Scrubb, this way:

Although he didn’t care very much about any subject for its own sake, he cared a great deal about marks.

Economist Bryan Caplan raised the question of credentialism this way:

Would you rather have a Princeton diploma without a Princeton education, or a Princeton education without a Princeton diploma?

And the people at the 1517 Fund, a venture capitalist group that backs college dropouts, propose this helpful exercise to assess whether you have genuine interests or are primarily motivated only by your resumé:

Imagine you could study physics with Einstein or playwriting with Shakespeare. But part of the deal is you could never say who you studied with or for how long. Or, you could just have a PhD from Harvard. Which would you choose?

Demonstrable skills are vastly more important to professional success than any credential. (There are, of course, some careers  — e.g., medicine —  in which rigorous enforcement of credentialing is a matter of public safety. I’m not, in this post, addressing those kinds of exceptional cases.)  All of the handwringing over the resumé-effect of spending time working at Chipotle or Panda Express is, based on my own experience, missing the point.

In 1981, I was working 60 hours per week at a fast oil change business, spending my days underneath cars draining oil and transmission fluid. I used to wash my hair in grease-cutting laundry detergent before I left work every day because it would otherwise require so much shampoo that it was economically out of reach for a grease monkey like me. It was also the year that personal computers first appeared, and due entirely to a work-related injury, I happened to have access to one during my recovery. I developed a fascination with computers as a result, along with an insatiable desire to understand how they worked. My friends would tease me at that time because whenever I wasn’t underneath cars draining oil and changing filters, I was reading books about computers.

Four years later I was writing code for one of the largest IT services companies in the world. No credentials. No formal training. Just some modest accomplishments and a demonstrable skill. I had, at that time, what was perhaps the most unimpressive resumé in the galaxy.

More than forty years later I’m still fascinated by computers. I wake up every day looking forward to building things and unraveling the complexities of modern systems. I have even been privileged to make my own modest contribution to the two largest supercomputers in the world. The software I wrote just last year is used by several of the world’s largest technology companies. And I still have no formal credentials. Just an abiding interest in understanding how computers work, and in building things that are useful.

The danger of getting caught up in resumé polishing is that the form can begin to loom larger in your mind than the substance. The desire for credentials can start to crowd out the importance of actual skills. Millions of young Americans are mired in student loan debt. Many of them have resumés showing college degrees, yet still find themselves lacking actual quantifiable skills.

An obsession with credentials can even lead you to lose your own sense of agency, as if what you yourself can do is less professionally decisive than how someone perceives your CV. This is a gigantic trap. And, in some cases, can lead to professional failure.

“…long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives.” – Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom

My own advice is to worry less about your CV and more about your actual skills. If Panda Express will pay you a living wage, even though you lack demonstrable skills, then jump at the opportunity. If you don’t want to work there the rest of your life, then use all of your spare time to develop demonstrable skills that will allow you to make a change. If, after working at Chipotle for a few years, you have used your time well and are now skilled at, say, building beautiful custom furniture, no one will care that you have also spent a lot of time making burritos. Your own agency and actual skill matters far more than your credentials, or lack thereof. You need not go through life hand-wringing over the credentialed loftiness of your CV.

Develop genuine interests. Build demonstrable skills. Create real things of value. Create a body of great work. In such circumstances, your resumé will generally take care of itself.

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  1. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    Keith Lowery: Develop genuine interests. Build demonstrable skills. Create real things of value. Create a body of great work. In such circumstances, your resumè will generally take care of itself.

    Amen!  I always counsel my students who want to go right on to post-graduate education that they should take a few years off unless they are completely sure that they need the credential.  And I say the same to parents when they tell me they are worried if their child takes time off between high school and college, they won’t go back.  I tell them both that there are far more ways to make a living than they can imagine and if they end up not going back,  more education was probably not the right path.  The beauty of the American education system compared to others around the world is that you can always go back.  And when you do, it should be because you want to or need to, not just because it seems like a safe path.

    Here’s a lesson we learned the hard way:  when choosing between hiring a credentialed student with a ton of internships, summer classes vs the one that spent their summers working at MacDonald’s or a grocery store, go for the one that worked at MacDonald’s.  Why?  These students learn that they are not the center of the world, that they have to show up on time and not have too many absences.  If they don’t, they get fired.  No one cares that their parents are professors or lawyers or doctors.  They learn that the reward for sticking with this job is that they get a paycheck not a letter of recommendation and that paycheck is solely theirs.  It is a very powerful feeling to have your own money.   So we learned that if you want an employee that shows up, does not think that a job is only a means of self-expression and knows how to handle boring but necessary tasks rather than assuming our job is to keep them entertained, go for the one with an actual work history.

    • #1
  2. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Absolutely outstanding post.

    • #2
  3. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Keith Lowery: Demonstrable skills are vastly more important to professional success than any credential. (There are, of course, some careers  — e.g. medicine —  in which a rigorous enforcement of credentialing is a matter of public safety.

    I disagree with this example.

    I really wish the government would remove all the ridiculous credentialing in my field.  Let anybody practice medicine if they want.  Open competition.

    I would welcome the competition, because I’m the best, and I’ll come out on top.  Just ask me.

    But also because without credentialing, there would be nowhere for fools to hide.  Let the market figure out who the hotshots are. 

    Credentialing discourages independent thought, and encourages pointless effort for meaningless certificates, using time that could have been used studying medicine.

    If medical credentialing was started for public safety, it’s not working.

    Quite the contrary.

    • #3
  4. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    I don’t always read long posts, but when I do, they’re grrrreat!

    Tony the Tiger could vanish from supermarket shelves | UK | News ...

     

    • #4
  5. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    Dissatisfaction among the younger workers should be expected.

    Housing used to be considered a matter that required only 15% to 20% of one’s income. In some areas of the country, like Oklahoma, that is still true.

    But in mega-cities, young people are sharing two bedroom apartments with five others. As they pay a lot of their income to do this, they face the sinking feeling that they will most likely never own a house.

    Of course, if Trump manages to send some 5 to 10 million illegals back to their home countries, this should help alleviate the situation somewhat.

    Also our young people also do not know enough about taxes to properly fill out their W 2 forms and get the types of lower taxes that they should be getting. This especially affects anyone working who has kids, but it actually affects all of them who make less than X amount a year.

    It is so sad to know that people encourage their children to go to college, even when the young adult doesn’t want to go that route. The parents also look the other way as their offspring  buy into the idea of taking out huge loans that they will never be able to pay back. (If someone becomes a doctor, lawyer or other type of professional, they may be able to do this. But a history major or art major is screwed.)

    Why as a society we don’t offer every HS student an entire semester related to the overall economy, a household budget, plus the “in’s and out’s” of tax  situations I don’t know. They also need to understand that many things as far as student loans are not as they seem. If they take out a 50K loan every year for four years, being told that their profession pays the job holder  50K a year, in their brains they think they will have the loan paid off in ten years.

     

    • #5
  6. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    “I didn’t make $50,000 a year or own a car until I was 30” is sort of a sliding-scale thing.  When I started working full-time in the 70s, a lot of “regular people” made less than $50,000 a year.  These days, for many regular jobs, that would be considered insultingly low, perhaps not even “entry-level.”  And it didn’t even take 50 years to get there, really.  The Carter economy did a lot of it just in a few years.

    • #6
  7. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    If medical credentialing was started for public safety, it’s not working.

    Quite the contrary.

    Just because the current system is flawed – perhaps greatly so – doesn’t mean that no system at all would be better.

    This sounds like an excellent case of “know why a wall/fence/whatever was put up, before you think about taking it down.”

    • #7
  8. Tex929rr Coolidge
    Tex929rr
    @Tex929rr

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Keith Lowery: Demonstrable skills are vastly more important to professional success than any credential. (There are, of course, some careers — e.g. medicine — in which a rigorous enforcement of credentialing is a matter of public safety.

    I disagree with this example.

    I really wish the government would remove all the ridiculous credentialing in my field. Let anybody practice medicine if they want. Open competition.

    I would welcome the competition, because I’m the best, and I’ll come out on top. Just ask me.

    But also because without credentialing, there would be nowhere for fools to hide. Let the market figure out who the hotshots are.

    Credentialing discourages independent thought, and encourages pointless effort for meaningless certificates, using time that could have been used studying medicine.

    If medical credentialing was started for public safety, it’s not working.

    Quite the contrary.

    I’ll weigh in here.  An initial basic EMT certification in Texas takes (on paper) about 150 hours.  With rideouts and studying for the national certification exam it’s quite a bit more.  However a state cosmetology or barber certification takes 1500 hours.  Credentialing has become a huge barrier to entry to emergency services.  As a volunteer fire department we are exempt from many certifications but the array of things for which we have to be certified grows every year.  We have 5 basic EMT’s and 4 paramedics, and the paramedic program is a full year of study.  All of our paramedics work full or part time for another agency to keep up their skills.

    There are some areas where our medical director (a physician under whose license we operate) can waive some state rules which is a big help.  So we are OK for now, but I fully believe credentialing is going to curtail volunteer emergency services in the not so distant future.

    • #8
  9. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Tex929rr (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Keith Lowery: Demonstrable skills are vastly more important to professional success than any credential. (There are, of course, some careers — e.g. medicine — in which a rigorous enforcement of credentialing is a matter of public safety.

    I disagree with this example.

    I really wish the government would remove all the ridiculous credentialing in my field. Let anybody practice medicine if they want. Open competition.

    I would welcome the competition, because I’m the best, and I’ll come out on top. Just ask me.

    But also because without credentialing, there would be nowhere for fools to hide. Let the market figure out who the hotshots are.

    Credentialing discourages independent thought, and encourages pointless effort for meaningless certificates, using time that could have been used studying medicine.

    If medical credentialing was started for public safety, it’s not working.

    Quite the contrary.

    I’ll weigh in here. An initial basic EMT certification in Texas takes (on paper) about 150 hours. With rideouts and studying for the national certification exam it’s quite a bit more. However a state cosmetology or barber certification takes 1500 hours. Credentialing has become a huge barrier to entry to emergency services. As a volunteer fire department we are exempt from many certifications but the array of things for which we have to be certified grows every year. We have 5 basic EMT’s and 4 paramedics, and the paramedic program is a full year of study. All of our paramedics work full or part time for another agency to keep up their skills.

    There are some areas where our medical director (a physician under whose license we operate) can waive some state rules which is a big help. So we are OK for now, but I fully believe credentialing is going to curtail volunteer emergency services in the not so distant future.

    And let’s not forget, becoming a cop who carries a gun and handcuffs etc, is often less demanding overall than even an EMT, let alone a barber.

    • #9
  10. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    kedavis (View Comment):

    “I didn’t make $50,000 a year or own a car until I was 30” is sort of a sliding-scale thing. When I started working full-time in the 70s, a lot of “regular people” made less than $50,000 a year. These days, for many regular jobs, that would be considered insultingly low, perhaps not even “entry-level.” And it didn’t even take 50 years to get there, really. The Carter economy did a lot of it just in a few years.

    “The Carter economy” got blamed but much of went on was how it was decided by the people in he secret government to delay necessary shipments of oil from the Middle East to our nation.

    Also over the Carter years, the Baby Boomers hit that part of their lives where they decided on buying into the housing market. Everyone in government knew this era was coming. A wiser government than ours would have taken steps to encourage the undertaking of a massive home building  era.

    As it was, some states did encourage this, once the high interest rates of 1979 to 1982 normalized. Other cities and states instead put in restrictive county and cit planning commission plans.

    Blaming Carter for everything that went on in the economy is like blaming Reagan for the massive foreclosures on the MidWestern farm belt’s farmers during his 2 administrations.

    • #10
  11. Nohaaj Coolidge
    Nohaaj
    @Nohaaj

    Mike Rowe quote of the day:

     “Don’t follow your passion, but bring it with you”.

    I believe this is the key to success in both life and in happiness.  Bring joy and pride to every task, whether folding laundry, changing the oil, writing code, or performing a complex operation.  

    Part of the discussion in the post above, about work, skills, and credentialing, misses this important point:  those who feel they are “working below” their capabilities, talents or passion, will give half-hearted effort, with bad attitude, and a perpetual grievance.  They will never learn from the role they are in, they will never be their best, they will not grow either personally or in their skill set, and they will be forever live unfulfilled, in a state of unhappiness.

    I have seen this with any number of well credentialled kids coming to our tiny work place.  This younger generation’s attitudes,  are often equated with “entitlement”.  That may explain it.  It certainly is exemplified by their lack of passion for all that they do, no matter how small the task. 

     

    • #11
  12. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    “I didn’t make $50,000 a year or own a car until I was 30” is sort of a sliding-scale thing. When I started working full-time in the 70s, a lot of “regular people” made less than $50,000 a year. These days, for many regular jobs, that would be considered insultingly low, perhaps not even “entry-level.” And it didn’t even take 50 years to get there, really. The Carter economy did a lot of it just in a few years.

    “The Carter economy” got blamed but much of went on was how it was decided by the people in he secret government to delay necessary shipments of oil from the Middle East to our nation.

    Also over the Carter years, the Baby Boomers hit that part of their lives where they decided on buying into the housing market. Everyone in government knew this era was coming. A wiser government than ours would have taken steps to encourage the undertaking of a massive home building era.

    As it was, some states did encourage this, once the high interest rates of 1979 to 1982 normalized. Other cities and states instead put in restrictive county and cit planning commission plans.

    Blaming Carter for everything that went on in the economy is like blaming Reagan for the massive foreclosures on the MidWestern farm belt’s farmers during his 2 administrations.

    The main point was that $50k was a semi-rarified situation for much of the 70s, and earlier of course.  These days, people don’t “aspire” to $50k because it’s a sign of success, but rather because it’s become more of a floor, not a ceiling.  Someone working full-time at McDonald’s for the new minimum wage of $20/hour, plus just a little overtime, can reach $50k gross.

    • #12
  13. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Nohaaj (View Comment):

    Mike Rowe quote of the day:

    “Don’t follow your passion, but bring it with you”.

    I believe this is the key to success in both life and in happiness. Bring joy and pride to every task, whether folding laundry, changing the oil, writing code, or performing a complex operation.

    Part of the discussion in the post above, about work, skills, and credentialing, misses this important point: those who feel they are “working below” their capabilities, talents or passion, will give half-hearted effort, with bad attitude, and a perpetual grievance. They will never learn from the role they are in, they will never be their best, they will not grow either personally or in their skill set, and they will be forever live unfulfilled, in a state of unhappiness.

    I have seen this with any number of well credentialled kids coming to our tiny work place. This younger generation’s attitudes, are often equated with “entitlement”. That may explain it. It certainly is exemplified by their lack of passion for all that they do, no matter how small the task.

     

    It would be nice if everyone could live that way, but it’s probably not possible or even realistic.  However, if someone has a job they don’t have a “passion” for because they have to live and pay bills and stuff, they really need to have something else to feel good about.  Whether that’s a hobby, or community service, or whatever.  And having that can make the job feel more rewarding too.

    • #13
  14. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    One factor: Many jobs have been deskilled in a manner that remove most agency from the worker. See the critique of this situation, with case studies and suggestions for improvement, in Zeynep Ton’s book The Good Jobs Strategy, which I reviewed here.

     

    • #14
  15. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    Something Peter Drucker wrote 50+ years ago: “Individually he (the knowledge worker) is an “employee”…but the knowledge worker sees himself as just another “professional,” no different from the lawyer, the teacher, the preacher, the doctor, the government servant of yesterday.  He has the same education. He has more income. He has probably greater opportunities as well…This hidden conflict between the knowledge worker’s view of himself as a “professional” and the social reality in which he is the upgraded and well-paid successor to the skilled worker of yesterday underlies the disenchantment of so many highly educated young people with the jobs available to them.”

    See my 2016 post TechnoProletarians?

    • #15
  16. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Absolutely outstanding post.

    Fact-check: True

    • #16
  17. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):
    Amen!  I always counsel my students who want to go right on to post-graduate education that they should take a few years off unless they are completely sure that they need the credential. 

    More importantly, if at all possible they should go get a job that will pay for them to get their post-graduate education instead of footing the bill themselves.

    • #17
  18. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):
    Amen! I always counsel my students who want to go right on to post-graduate education that they should take a few years off unless they are completely sure that they need the credential.

    More importantly, if at all possible they should go get a job that will pay for them to get their post-graduate education instead of footing the bill themselves.

    Not many of those around, except maybe the military.

    • #18
  19. Nohaaj Coolidge
    Nohaaj
    @Nohaaj

    kedavis (View Comment):
    It would be nice if everyone could live that way, but it’s probably not possible or even realistic.

    Of course it is possible.  What an interesting perspective you have. 

    It is a choice. 

    Each person can choose to be happy,  or not.  Regardless of thier circumstances. 

    Each person can choose to do thier best each day or not. 

    To be clear,  I have not always been able to choose this path,  but when I haven’t,  life was typically miserable,  and it was a conscious choice, to be either miserable or to change. 

    I think there are many people in history who have exhibited and proven this attitude, as a path to happiness and contentment,  as well as success. 

     

    • #19
  20. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):
    Amen! I always counsel my students who want to go right on to post-graduate education that they should take a few years off unless they are completely sure that they need the credential.

    More importantly, if at all possible they should go get a job that will pay for them to get their post-graduate education instead of footing the bill themselves.

    Not many of those around, except maybe the military.

    I don’t believe I’ve ever had an employer that didn’t offer some form of tuition reimbursement.

    • #20
  21. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Nohaaj (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):
    It would be nice if everyone could live that way, but it’s probably not possible or even realistic.

    Of course it is possible. What an interesting perspective you have.

    It is a choice.

    Each person can choose to be happy, or not. Regardless of thier circumstances.

    Each person can choose to do thier best each day or not.

    To be clear, I have not always been able to choose this path, but when I haven’t, life was typically miserable, and it was a conscious choice, to be either miserable or to change.

    I think there are many people in history who have exhibited and proven this attitude, as a path to happiness and contentment, as well as success.

     

    A lot of people have a “passion” for things that nobody would pay them for.  And they wouldn’t be able to bring that with them to something else.  One of those things that makes “easier said than done” a truism/cliche.

    • #21
  22. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    David Foster (View Comment):

    One factor: Many jobs have been deskilled in a manner that remove most agency from the worker. See the critique of this situation, with case studies and suggestions for improvement, in Zeynep Ton’s book The Good Jobs Strategy, which I reviewed

    @davidfoster, the example in your book review is Home Depot, but I recall that back when the local Lowes big box store came to Battle Creek, I was impressed with the unexpected quality of assistance I got from the staff in the aisles.  I became aware that Lowes had hired people from the small Ma and Pa hardware stores that were driven out of business when Lowes came to town, and those people tended to be knowledgeable and helpful, just as they had been in the smaller stores.

    I wondered what would happen when those people were all used up, when there were no more such people to be hired because there were no more Ma and Pa stores to drive out of business.

    What seems to have happened was what I expected to happen.   I’m not sure that can be remedied by training employees to be more like jacks of all trades within the store, when a lot of what made the big box stores successful in the early days was the jacks-of-all-trades training people had got outside of Lowes or Home Depot.

    Does Zeynep Ton discuss that phenomenon in his book?

    • #22
  23. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    David Foster (View Comment):

    One factor: Many jobs have been deskilled in a manner that remove most agency from the worker. See the critique of this situation, with case studies and suggestions for improvement, in Zeynep Ton’s book The Good Jobs Strategy, which I reviewed

    @ davidfoster, the example in your book review is Home Depot, but I recall that back when the local Lowes big box store came to Battle Creek, I was impressed with the unexpected quality of assistance I got from the staff in the aisles. I became aware that Lowes had hired people from the small Ma and Pa hardware stores that were driven out of business when Lowes came to town, and those people tended to be knowledgeable and helpful, just as they had been in the smaller stores.

    I wondered what would happen when those people were all used up, when there were no more such people to be hired because there were no more Ma and Pa stores to drive out of business.

    What seems to have happened was what I expected to happen. I’m not sure that can be remedied by training employees to be more like jacks of all trades within the store, when a lot of what made the big box stores successful in the early days was the jacks-of-all-trades training people had got outside of Lowes or Home Depot.

    Does Zeynep Ton discuss that phenomenon in his book?

    It’s been several years since I read the book…she says the original workers at Home Depot were people who had personal experience as plumbers, electricians, etc, I don’t think she mentions people having backgrounds as employees of small hardware stores (which would provide broader but less-deep backgrounds)  But when Nardelli became CEO in 2000, he did solve some systems & procedures problems, but replaced experienced workers with lower-paid but less-experienced people.

     

     

    • #23
  24. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Tex929rr (View Comment):
    So we are OK for now, but I fully believe credentialing is going to curtail volunteer emergency services in the not so distant future.

    There are people who would like to eliminate all such volunteer work and turn it into government work. I remember in the early-mid 90s that one lefty person online got immediately offended when I objected to his notion that it was time to eliminate all volunteer fire departments in favor of properly trained government fire departments. He hung around a little longer, but I think that conversation was his first realization that there were people out there who didn’t go along with that government-centric view of life.  I think it was the same person who put out a note reminding people to take down their yard signs (following the 1992) election and I recommended that people could leave them up if they wanted to show opposition to the Clinton election. Later when there was news that Clinton was coming to town I recommended that people keep their kids and family home in order to protect them, and to lock the doors and shutter the windows.   He thought it was just terrible to say such things.   He wondered what happened to civility.  It was time he learned that we’re tired of lefties acting as though they are the rightful rulers.  

    • #24
  25. Tex929rr Coolidge
    Tex929rr
    @Tex929rr

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Tex929rr (View Comment):
    So we are OK for now, but I fully believe credentialing is going to curtail volunteer emergency services in the not so distant future.

    There are people who would like to eliminate all such volunteer work and turn it into government work. I remember in the early-mid 90s that one lefty person online got immediately offended when I objected to his notion that it was time to eliminate all volunteer fire departments in favor of properly trained government fire departments. He hung around a little longer, but I think that conversation was his first realization that there were people out there who didn’t go along with that government-centric view of life. I think it was the same person who put out a note reminding people to take down their yard signs (following the 1992) election and I recommended that people could leave them up if they wanted to show opposition to the Clinton election. Later when there was news that Clinton was coming to town I recommended that people keep their kids and family home in order to protect them, and to lock the doors and shutter the windows. He thought it was just terrible to say such things. He wondered what happened to civility. It was time he learned that we’re tired of lefties acting as though they are the rightful rulers.

    You can imagine how much the professional firefighters unions contribute to this.

    • #25
  26. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Tex929rr (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Tex929rr (View Comment):
    So we are OK for now, but I fully believe credentialing is going to curtail volunteer emergency services in the not so distant future.

    There are people who would like to eliminate all such volunteer work and turn it into government work. I remember in the early-mid 90s that one lefty person online got immediately offended when I objected to his notion that it was time to eliminate all volunteer fire departments in favor of properly trained government fire departments. He hung around a little longer, but I think that conversation was his first realization that there were people out there who didn’t go along with that government-centric view of life. I think it was the same person who put out a note reminding people to take down their yard signs (following the 1992) election and I recommended that people could leave them up if they wanted to show opposition to the Clinton election. Later when there was news that Clinton was coming to town I recommended that people keep their kids and family home in order to protect them, and to lock the doors and shutter the windows. He thought it was just terrible to say such things. He wondered what happened to civility. It was time he learned that we’re tired of lefties acting as though they are the rightful rulers.

    You can imagine how much the professional firefighters unions contribute to this.

    The puzzler then becomes why police unions don’t insist that cops need at least as much training as barbers.

    • #26
  27. Chris O Coolidge
    Chris O
    @ChrisO

    kedavis (View Comment):

    “I didn’t make $50,000 a year or own a car until I was 30” is sort of a sliding-scale thing. When I started working full-time in the 70s, a lot of “regular people” made less than $50,000 a year. These days, for many regular jobs, that would be considered insultingly low, perhaps not even “entry-level.” And it didn’t even take 50 years to get there, really. The Carter economy did a lot of it just in a few years.

    Chances are Rufo made more when the constant value of the dollar is factored. Heck, what I made less than 30 years ago would need to be doubled to have the same purchasing power, never mind the 70’s. “Let me tell you how hard we had it…” rings hollow for many reasons. 

    • #27
  28. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    Whenever someone says they would like our economy to be more like what it was in the 1950s, I wonder if they really yearn for a time when many families didn’t have air conditioning and indoor toilets.  People just don’t realize how much more difficult life was back a few generations back.  Going out to eat at a restaurant was much less common.  If you were a music fan and wanted to hear some obscure song from decades past, you would either have to pay for a copy of the recording, find someone who had a copy of it or get lucky and hear on the radio at 2 o’clock in the morning.  These days, if you want to hear some obscure song from decades back, you just pull up YouTube and listen, for free.

    • #28
  29. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    FrankTorson (View Comment):
    I wonder if they really yearn for a time when many families didn’t have air conditioning and indoor toilets.  People just don’t realize how much more difficult life was back a few generations back. 

    We didn’t have AC (had a few window fans), but we did have an indoor toilet. I had a newspaper route and delivered to more than a few homes near ours that had outhouses. But they could afford the paper, 57 cents a week (wow, I remember that from 60+ years ago).

    • #29
  30. Locke On Member
    Locke On
    @LockeOn

    Former high tech hiring manager here.

    One of the sources of the credential problem was the effective outlawing of pre-employment testing around 1980 due to ‘disparate impact’. (It was revealing some uncomfortable differences among various races and ethnic groups). Similar legal risk was attached to firing/layoff patterns that had disparate impact. IOW, the risk of hiring a turkey you couldn’t get rid of increased, at the same time one way to mitigate that risk was removed.

    The result was the college credential became -for a time – the work around for new hires. The ability to learn some difficult field and persevere for four years was a decent proxy for intelligence and work ethic. (At least in tech, the credential value fell off once hired for the first time. Where you’d worked and what you’d done quickly became more important. The actual thing is always better than the proxy.)

    The increase in the value of the credential then led to corruption. Grade inflation, tuition inflation, watered down degree programs, attempts to inflate the value of fields that are anything but rigorous (e.g., STEAM is the corrupt form of STEM). (And this is a lot worse in fields less rigorous than tech.)

    The advent of the net and open source software provided a partial workaround for high tech workers and managers, as it gave a look at a prospect’s actual ability to create and work with others. By the late 90s, when I exited as a direct hiring manager, I was telling aspiring students to work on the degree, but also get into a congenial open source project that could be leveraged for internships, interviews, and professional contacts. 

    This in turn has been partially overturned by two trends. 

    The first is the H-1B program. While there’s a lot of talk about it being used to lower tech salaries (and much of that is true), what’s mostly missed is it’s also a way of outsourcing the new hire risk. Let the testing, onboarding, and integration happen in India, Taiwan, etc. so the legal risk is held at arms length. (This is in turn corrupted by diploma mills and outright fake degrees.)

    The second trend is starting right now: Use of AI to write code and do other routine engineering tasks. There’s always a fascination with the ‘glamourous’ part of IT, particularly platforms that emerge from places like Silicon Valley: search engines, mobile phones and PCs, ecommerce, etc. It’s at once exotic and approachable, because it relates to brands and experiences that practically everyone recognizes.

    That was my world. Reality is the overwhelming bulk of ‘high tech’ is a lot more mundane and unseen. Putting the latest configuration into the accounting package or ERP platform. Reengineering old business software to modern standards. Embedded control code in devices. Figuring out the bottlenecks in a network architecture. It seems likely that large chunks of this will in time be managed through AIs, rather than hiring coders.

    (The platform part of IT is likely more defensible, as much of it constitutes business strategy embodied in code, but it’s also a numerically small part of the field.)

    At this point, if I talked to an aspiring student of ability, I’d tell them to stay away from high tech as we have known it, to either become a standout in a more mundane business, or look to fields like biotech that appear to still have a long runway of growth and creativity.

    • #30
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