How does a PhD make you a better worker than someone without one?

nemo183

IvanOpinion wrote: »

Dear your royal nemo-ness PHD, BA, BSc, FBI, CIA, MI5, MIA, !!!!!! Esq.

You make many an excellent point and I would like to lay the blame firmly at the ground of my fingers that are currently on a distant learning course held by the University of Conneticut reading Scottish (as I alluded to in another post). The set I have currently got on loan have been demanding a pay rise and more access to certain parts of DWs anatomy and are therefore refusing to co-operate with the grey matter stored elsewhere in my body (DW and I are also in dispute about its actual location her interpretation applies a region somewhat more southerly to normal perceived anatomical and biological thought processes). Following protracted negotiations my fingers and I have come to an agreement involving a couple of honeydews which has allowed me to type this response.

Regards
Ivan

I will ignore the discourtesy you show me in omitting a significant number of my titles (in particular, BSc (Hons) Fishery Science), but since you seem to have your work cut out in having to handle your dozens of applications for further degrees - those pesky emails do take such a long time to send - to save you any further mental angst concerning the location of your little grey cells, I doubt there is any one of us that out of kindness will not send you a brief personal message suggesting you start the search from your belly button and head south.....

nemo183

Hapless wrote: »

Ade Adepitan, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Bob Mortimer (he has osteoarthritis and has injections ever 4 weeks so he can be as mad as ever and painfree), Paul Henshall (actor, I'm with stupid, Holby City, Casualty) They have done it. We have a disabled chap at our local sainsburys, he has cerebral palsy, he was also a thalidomide baby. He works at the quieter times and then works in the back office. He has his electric wheelchair at work and is always pleasant, never in a bad mood. He has worked for the company for 25 yrs. So disability is not an excuse.
Look at him and people like Alison Lapper, who like this chap spent the first years of their lives in care home, they managed, so stop making pathetic excuses.

Hang on a minute. Without wishing to get into a "who has what" disability, you give half a dozen examples of people who have done well.

Your statement that "disability is not an excuse" means nothing. Disability can easily prevent an individual from ever being able to work. How about the 400,000 people in the UK with severe learning problems? What about people with severe epilepsy? 5000 people with severe Tourette Syndrome?

No amount of positive thinking, positive attitude, or - heavens preserve us - Noel Edmonds "Cosmic Ordering System" is going to overcome societies prejudice and put them in work.

What "pathetic excuses" do you feel these people have?

Bamber19

Seriously Phil…take some time off, you live with your parents, like me, you have the privileged position of taking a couple of weeks off from everything and not having to worry about the mortgage or feeding your kids.
Go out, talk to people, even if 19 out of 20 people say, “My who’s this random weirdo talking to me, the 1 in 20 that will engage in conversation will be your new friends. Have Sex, it’ll release some tension, basically don’t touch your computer for 2 weeks unless it’s to access kama sutra websites or talk to your new friends via MSN to arrange to meet up and get drunk.
After these two weeks, re-evaluate everything, actually read your CV and think “would I employ me?” the answer is No, think about your attitude, think about whether you really are disadvantaged, toy with the prospect of going for an interview thinking “I have just as much chance of getting this job as anyone else” forget your disability, forget your self diagnosed dyslexia. Consider that those with PHD’s are not your enemy, consider that perhaps, just possibly some of those with PHD’s are more suited to some jobs, consider they may be more intelligent than you…I’m very intelligent I have a lot of self belief in my intelligence, I will never claim I am smarter than Einstein or Hawking, I may claim to be a greater songwriter than Lennon and McCartney, that’s confidence in my ability but whilst I could understand a physics equation that Einstein created I know, without him I wouldn’t have came up with it on my own, not if you gave me 1000 years.
Phil, one thing you must understand…we are not all equal, I am smarter than some people, some people are smarter than me, some people can work their a** off for something they can never achieve because they set their goals too high, some people have the intelligence to realise that if they aim for something they can achieve easier and they work at that they will build up experience and move through the ranks, others they lose once, just once and decide that this is the end.
Phil, I have applied for jobs, I have lied on application forms, I do not currently play football and basketball, but hey, that sounds like teamwork so my next employer gets told this because no.1 on the list of qualities for a potential employee is teamwork, I’ve lied in interviews, honestly, next time you get an interview, pause before every answer and think “what do they want to hear?” give that answer instead of a bitter, thinly veiled criticism of the modern hierarchy of the business world. I guarantee you’ve just increased your chances of getting the job…get the job, you lied…so what? Everyone lies, “why do you want the job” “ I like the idea of working for a recognized global brand with a great reputation and opportunity to progress through the ranks…” yada, yada, yada, but the real answer is “could do with the cash mate!” I know this, the interviewer knows this but it’s about saying what they want to hear…does anyone honestly think that the way you dealt with an irate customer when you stacked shelves in your local supermarket has any bearing on your ability to do any job anywhere?
Phil, I don’t know you, perhaps if I could put a face and a real world personality to the name I wouldn’t…but after reading various threads, I care, I see someone stuck in a circle, going down the same paths constantly, you need the forum post equivalent of a slap, a good shake or a punch that knocks some sense into you, you are the creator of your problems. Your attitude. Whilst you may not want to accept this, it’s evidenced in the fact that your posts are very negative; every post you make is a quest for an excuse, this thread isn’t about how PHD’s are advantageous, it’s about finding an excuse to explain why a few months down the line when you’ve graduated you have failed to get a job and that someone with a PHD has got it instead of you. However Phil, there is good news… Your self created problems are mostly in your own mind, you alone hold the key to solving them and the key is not very complicated, it is a mere 2 words…Wake Up.

IvanOpinion

I have worked out a perect job for Phil .. he should become a Samaritan ... put him at the end of a phone line and should have a significant effect on the suicide rate .. upwards .. think of all the money that can be saved .. ultimately word will spread and even all the illegal immigrants will stop coming to this country for fear of having to phone the Samaritans .. win win

Ivan

jaffa30

studentphil wrote: »

Because I would not be able to sit at a till too long.
It does not stop me getting a job but I have to find one that I can do.

That doesnt stop you posting all day long on here , phil you talk utter rubbish

110frankie

Phil is:

1. a wind-up

2. the pratt he appears to be

...I honestly can't make my mind up.

peterbaker

There's no doubt. Studentphil is real enough.

There's also no doubt that his most vociferous critics operating in ugly packs that they grandly call teams are also all too real.

Of all the posts I've read in these threads associated with the lynching of studentphil, Bamber19's is by far the most honest and thoughtful response.

It is a great pity that it contains advice to lie in job applications but that is where we are at in the UK.

I am astonished by the apparent number of doctors voicing opinions here. One might be forgiven for thinking they would have better things to do with their time. Maybe in 2007 they are not what they are cracked up to be? I sat next to a doctor on a plane the other day (he told me). Turned out he's an opthalmic practitioner of some kind. Fair enough. I suppose that makes him a better bet than a regular optician, but how do I choose him in the high street? And is he really a better bet? Intelligent, well read, and a good conversationalist? Yes he was. Scatterbrained? Yes, perhaps even more than me, I think! Typical? I don't know.

When I went to university, an ordinary degree was not enough, but a 2:2 from a good university was considered a good meal ticket to the next life. There were a finite number of universities and there were polytechnics. There were perceived differences, long forgotten and muddied. I fared better than polytechnic graduates I think.

It seemed to me then that the only people going on to become doctors were those in medicine and a few really gifted people who went on into academia and top science projects.

In my time I just exited the education sausage machine straight into the so-called 'milk round', without having had to pay a single penny towards my own education, and out of ten interviews on the milk round I was given firm offers for jobs that could launch me into three completely different careers. I had also passed up on two others at an early stage as I dismissed them as requiring me to sell my young life away.

When I started my first job with a blue chip, amongst the dozen or so fast track graduate entrants on the residential training course with me was a guy a couple of years older than me with a PhD in Snake Energetics and a stint as a London Fireman. I think his name was Phil actually! Yes he was better rounded than the rest of us and yes he seemed to do a little better than most of us over the first few years.

I don't think any of us lied on our application forms, but I could never resist a smile when I thought of snake energetics on his CV.

In the space of less than two generations since my time, we have been through one long period with abysmal teaching and consequent results, and another of total flattening of standards in education and the growth of so-called "team-play" which I think often looks like Naziism. If you don't use the accepted salute or greeting and attend the accepted gatherings then you are instantly marked out as "not one of us". If you ARE accepted as 'one of us' then you can quietly tweak your opportunities within cliques and networks, use little devices (like lying) to conceal out of fashion character flaws and generally swim with the others on this damaged reef of ours. Who knows, if you don't naturally lead and produce business, you might rise to a position in central services where you hire and fire people, though goodness knows what kind of animal that is. I can only think it may be some kind of thinking chameleon's chameleon!

But if you allow your non-conformist tendencies to stew you in your own juice and eat you up, Phil, you'll sink fast and become prey to bottom-feeders. That would be a waste at your tender years. Rise above it. Become light-footed in this shallow world. Bite your tongue a bit more. Like yourself for fooling them, perhaps as Bamber19 does.

I didn't have to work hard to get a job, because 2:2 graduates from good universities were in demand years ago, and for twenty years my non-conformist tendencies were forgiven. Not any more. Conform or be banished seems to be the law.

The workplace is horribly petty and political and in recent years I have even found myself discriminated against with the unilateral 2.1/first class honours cut offs! Now I discover from these threads that perhaps there are now hoards of PhDs, and you are right Phil to query that observation, but not if you want a job from their kind. Why are there so many and what does it prove? A good question, but you know the answers now so inwardly digest and reduce your profile.

You will have to work doubly hard Phil compared to those who swim naturally in what passes for the norm. You have ingrained life standards which conflict with what you see. You will probably have to reinvent yourself quite a bit....not so much that your mother doesn't recognise you...but get out there and collect experiences. You will surely soon learn that the world outside presents far more opportunity than the limited world within.

Get away from MSE - your post numbers are indeed enormous for someone who joined only 10 months ago. Periodically I spend too much time here, like recently. I actually went away from MSE for a year, but here I am again. It's a bad habit, and I should know better at my age.

There's really very little for you here in these types of discussion except a dirty mirror on the worst bits of the world. Skewing your view on the world by looking here too often is a bit like over-analysing the toilet pan via its reflection in your bathroom mirror. What's in it for you? Absolutely nothing you wish to carry in your pocket, that's for sure.

I am sure there is something more important to look at in the mirror, but don't spend too much time over-analysing you either! The most important utility in your house really is that wooden door to the great outside and all which you cannot possibly have experienced because you are still too young to have done it all!

Good luck!

C_Ronaldo

studentphil wrote: »

So how does a PhD make you a better worker than someone without one?

good point, it doesnt imo,

IvanOpinion

peterbaker wrote: »

Get away from MSE - your post numbers are indeed enormous for someone who joined only 10 months ago. Periodically I spend too much time here, like recently.

I am sure there is something more important to look at in the mirror, but don't spend too much time over-analysing you either! The most important utility in your house really is that wooden door to the great outside and all which you cannot possibly have experienced because you are still too young to have done it all!

I don;t think you are the first to offer that advice and would be pretty sure that you will not be the last

Ivan

cupid_s

studentphil wrote: »

I would never get a call centre job anyway as I am not good enough on the phone as I am too shy and tend to mumble.

If you're too shy and mumble too much to have a phone based job then maybe this is one of the problems? You must come across very badly in interview and maybe this is something you should work on.

studentphil wrote: »

A job at a call centre is not going to get me a career or give me any skills to get a better job.

What do you have against call centre workers? I feel I have to defend them here cos several of my friends work in them. My one friend has two degrees and started working in a call centre less than a year ago. She's just had a raise to 17k, excluding good annual bonuses and her bosses are pushing her towards a managerial position within a couple of years. How is that not giving her a career, and skills to get a better job?

My brother in law left school at 18. Got a job paying about 11k in a call centre. He worked damn hard to get promoted - he had to as he was up against people with degrees but within 3 years he was on 27k. At the age of 22 he's just accepted a job paying 35k, only to have someone phone him up 2 hours later and ask how much he'd require to work for them instead. '40k plus? I don't think that will be a problem' was the reply. He has no degree, the difference was he was never too stuck up to refuse to start work at the very bottom and show people what he could do. If they're impressed you'll quickly progress and have a very promising career.

You have such an opinion on everything and are so set in your ways that you refuse to listen to anyone or to look beyond the obvious and see that there are things within your grasp. You can have a great and rewarding career in a supermarket chain, or a call centre or any number of other places which you're ruling out for one silly reason or another. Who runs and manages these places? Getting a foot in the door no matter how far down can count for a lot.