William Gibson once compared the British class system to the American affection for firearms. Both are utterly inexplicable to outsiders but so deeply ingrained in the national character that ridding the culture of them would be nigh on impossible.
I’m white, male, and come from a rather well off family. My education and living expenses are pretty well covered, and the sky is the limit with all the oppurtunity I have been presented with. I’ll likely go into a high paying job partly because my family has good connections. I was offered $50,000/year when I was twenty because my mom’s boyfriend saw my good character and hard work ethic. I’m not better than other people, but I’m in a very good position to prove myself.
I respect anyone who succeeds when the odds are stacked against them. They have my greatest admiration, and I wish I had that sort of story to go by.
But you know what? Fuck anyone who wants to disparage me taking full advantage of the opportunities I’ve been given. I’m not going to sink down to the bottom to climb my way up just for their validation.
Is he related to the overboss? Because then his position would be nothing to do with him being a toff and everything to do with being a member of the family.
You have Tim Nice But Dim working in your office? It could be worse.
IME if you talk to the upper class as equals or slightly less then being your equal then they wont adopt any airs or graces.
What I hate are the inverted snobs that are so common in the U.K. who if you read books,enjoy fine art and classical music then you must either be gay or are showing off or pretending to be better then everyone else.
I make a point of not mentioning these interests with workmates but I have not sunk so low yet as to pretend to be illiterate or to enjoy soaps,people shows,talent shows or tabloid newspapers.
Where is anybody disparaging you for that? All I saw was Lobsang saying he wouldn’t admire you for that.
And it sounds as though you yourself actually agree with him. We do tend to admire people for succeeding when the odds are against them, not so much for succeeding when the odds are strongly in their favor.
That doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong at all with taking full advantage of your opportunities, and you’re right that you shouldn’t be disparaged for it. But I don’t see anybody here disparaging you or any other competent and responsible people from privileged classes.
The disparagement is directed against privileged people who aren’t competent and responsible but who succeed anyway on account of their privileged backgrounds, and against the class system that allows that to happen.
The “competence inversion” is a well-known phenomenon in engineering, and it has nothing to do with class. The dumber and less confident you are, the more likely you are to “go with the flow” and agree with whatever stupid thing management wants to do, thus increasing your chances of being promoted. This process eventually results in the least competent engineers being in charge of the company. It’s just as well, because the talented engineers are needed to do the actual work while the boneheads are kept busy worrying about metrics, TQM, and other management jerkoff material.
In contrast, medical doctors don’t have managers. They’re all responsible for their own decisions, and you can’t really be a doctor unless you see patients. This is why there are so many medical mistakes like cutting the wrong foot off. Incompetent doctors cannot be promoted into management, where they might cause less harm.
That makes two of us. I was taking his post as a springboard for my own mini-rant on the subject.
The way I understood it was that he was pitting the class system for putting people in high positions regardless of quality. It is pit-worthy because apparently the upper class is just as likely to produce nitwits who are incompetent, so why should they automatically get the top jobs?
Just thought I’d add that although we here in the US are supposed to be rid of such entrapments, it’s not really true. We also have our elite schools and there are certain firms that only hire from them. Come to think of it, they are mainly the big investment banking firms on Wall St. That worked out well, innit?
In general I agree with your pit Lobsang, however, I have to ask one question, is part of his ambit to make and maintain relationships with new or potential clients? Might he have an advantage in this regard (as dim as he may be) simply because of his old boy network?
OK, that’s two questions. Don’t quibble over frippery boy, and bring me my Pims.