Never saw anything like that during my time in education. Even accounting for how every state does things a little differently, I don’t see how you could shunt someone into administration in that way. It’s also not true that tenured teachers can’t be fired, although it’s certainly a process. I saw problem teachers get shifted around to other buildings, but I’ve never heard of a bad teacher being intentionally put into management, or a winning coach suddenly being made a principal just because.
Though, I did see a fair number of PE / athletics people go into admin. The theory was that they were used to dealing with large numbers of people. I’d say those types were hit or miss as administrators.
I should also say I worked with some outstanding school administrators. Smart, thoughtful people who I was grateful to have there. I suspect they went into it for the right reasons.
I was in this situation once, and it was miserable in no small part because my manager was so convinced of his own genius that he wouldn’t allow me to fix the problems he created nor was he capable of understanding why his ‘solutions’ were not workable, and then when they failed he would blame others for his mistakes. I ended up leaving that job for another job at a startup that crashed and burned a year later, but I did and still do regard it as a good move.
I’ve since worked for people of whom I was more knowledgeable about in my own domain than they were but I’ve never had the issue of working for someone who did not recognize that I was better able to address and interpret the issue (which is not to say that I haven’t been questioned about my assumptions or methodology, just from the standpoint of wanting to verify that I had gone through a thorough process of analysis), and for the most point I’ve worked for people who were willing to educate me with the benefit of knowledge in their areas as well.
Yes. You know the guy who prints his emails? I worked with him.
The stereotype exists for a reason. I know, the word ‘dumb’ has a lot of negative connotations. Maybe he’s great spinning wrenches on cars or the best fly fisherman you’ve ever met. But, managing an office that required a normal use of technology was way over his head. Simple excel to him would be like asking me to translate Attic Greek. And he was fairly young, maybe early 30s, had a kid around 5 or 6.
Anyway, it was a short term temp project and I got to be the assistant manager. So, I got paid decent money to enter data into Excel and listen to music.
Dumb means your uninformed. Stupid means you’re incapable of being informed. Willfully stupid means that you know better but persist in your stupid behavior because you can.
I still appreciate the person who realizes E just doesn’t get it and has the sense to ask every time rather than one who never manages to get it and yet doesn’t ask for help. I prefer to explain it again and avoid error. The person who knows enough to realize E doesn’t know and will set aside pride to ask for help still has a useful kind of knowledge and is someone I can work with.
The dumbest manager I ever had was more wildly over his head then actively stupid. He never went to college but I’m pretty sure he graduated from high school. He went to work in the oil field as a pumper and some how became the manager of the drilling department with a hundred million dollar budget. I was brought in as a junior engineer in the department with one other engineer. I quickly discovered that the senior engineer didn’t have any idea how to do his job and was mostly faking it by getting service companies to do his job. After 6 months the senior engineer got promoted into management and 3 years out of college I was the senior engineer on staff.
I decided to take the challenge head on and start bringing in all the outsourced work in house. One day I was redesigning a mud system and my boss came into my office. He didn’t understand why my desk was covered with books and I was skipping the social lunches with the service companies since that was where the work was done. I explained the redesign I was doing and show how the literature was backing my decision and well as the metrics I would use to evaluate success. He seemed stunned and walked out of my office. About an hour later he came back and asked me to grab my stuff and follow him. He led me into the VPs office and had me explain everything to the vp after which the VP turned to my boss and said he’s doing his job this is what engineers are supposed to do.
With in a year I was running the department in fact if not on paper, writing all of the programs and budgets and permits and managing the engineering staff while my boss left me alone and managed the field personnel. Now, I tell people about being 28, running a staff of 10 with a 150 million dollar budget and their response generally is what kind of idiot would a kid do that.
I too appreciate someone who isn’t afraid to ask a question. I also appreciate someone who–knowing they’ve already asked a specific question a million times already–realizes they need to try a different tack besides coming to me for an answer. For instance, my coworker will frequently ask me a question that is addressed in the instruction manual. Sometimes I will give her the answer. Sometimes, like when my patience is limited, I’ll ask her if she has looked at the instruction manual. Inevitably she’ll say nope. She always comes to me first. I really don’t get this mentality. If the answer can always be found in the instruction manual, why wouldn’t someone go there first?
I mean, it would be one thing if she wanted a discussion about an issue in addition to a straight answer. Lots of super smart people post questions to General Questions because they care more about the discussion around an answer than the answer itself. But it’s clear to me that when she comes to me with a question, she only wants an answer. I wouldn’t feel like my efforts were going to waste if she asked follow-up questions. But all I get is “gotcha” in return. It’s so unsatisfying.
If you are there and she can ask you, why should she go to the manual first? Why is one method better than the other? Why is human interaction Only called for when one “want[s] a discussion about an issue in addition to a straight answer”? It’s not inherently better or morally superior to look it up in a manual rather than ask someone. It’s two ways of doing the same thing.
What’s “wasteful” for either side? Are you being used up in some way when she does this?
In terms of understanding a “mentality” in these terms, it’s as simple as different people have different instincts about how to do things.
Maybe it just feels good to have an oral interaction with another human being.
It’s probably not even a “mentality” in the sense that she’s thinking “I know I could look this up in the manual but I’m going to go and ask Monstro instead.” It’s just how her instincts work automatically.
It might just be just as baffling to her why you would go through the rigamarole of asking if you looked it up instead of just telling her.
Remember that reading and writing and the very idea of a non-human reference is pretty much born yesterday in evolutionary terms. It’s not something that’s ingrained in the human makeup, and it certainly isn’t morally superior.
Why would you think it would hurt my feelings? Did you think you were insulting me?
And if you thought it was so likely that it might hurt my feelings that you had to apologize in advance, why wouldn’t you try to come up with a way of saying it that you thought would be less likely to hurt my feelings?
Are you seriously telling me if a coworker asked you the same question day after day, you wouldn’t be the least bit exasperated or annoyed? You wouldn’t at least be weirded out that they keep asking you the same thing, without seemingly retaining anything from the last conversation on the topic?
If you are always confusd about how to do X" and the “how to do X” is written down for you in a handy how-to guide, then you are indeed wasting your coworkers time by asking “how do you do X?” a million times. The how-to guide exists for a reason. Furthermore, not reading the instruction manual is a recipe for trouble. You come to me with a question and I might just tell you the wrong thing since you are asking me stuff that’s really not in my area of expertise. The instruction manual exists to keep you from doing the wrong thing. Ignore it at your own peril.
I like social interactions that I benefit from, that don’t wear me out. Maybe this makes me an asshole, I don’t know. If you come to me with questions that are interesting and thought-provoking, I will enjoy exchanging information with you. If you come to me with questions that leave me frustrated and impatient, I will not enjoy exchanging information with you. I’m also not blessed with a well of infinite energy and time. Having to walk someone through a basic problem for the fiftieth time means I have less energy and time to do what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t like being interrupted.
I don’t know why you think the idea of “different people have different instincts” is a novel one to me. Of course I know this. I understand that some people have an “instinct” towards littering or an “instinct” towards cussing out grocery store clerks for wearing face masks. But despite this understanding, I’m still very much irritated by these people and don’t really get where they are coming from. Is the concept of “annoying people doing annoying things?” foreign to you?
It feels good to scratch one’s private parts and fart too. But people are allowed to find such"feel-good" behaviors annoying and frustrating, right? Since when did “It feels good!” become a good excuse for dumb behavior?
If this is baffling to her, then she is indeed very dumb. In the time it takes her to walk to my cubicle and ask her question, she could find the answer in the freakin’ instruction manual. It isn’t “rigamorole” to go to the instruction manual. And even if it was rigamorole, it’s her fuckin’ job to know what’s in the instruction manual.
This is the derpiest thing I’ve read in awhile. Taking a crap in a pot is something “that is pretty much born yesterday” in evolutionary terms too. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to feel a certain way if someone takes a crap in my front yard. And while being literate isn’t morally superior, I would say that it an advantageous trait in the modern workplace. A person who isn’t literate and who doesn’t retain information is bound to frustrate people working in an environment where everyone is expected to be literate and retain information. And good social skills are just as important. Frustrating your coworkers is never good, even if you aren’t intending to be frustrating.
I worked for a company whose owner and manager were both crooks and con-men. and it didn’t take them long to fire me when I dragged my feet on some of their snterprided. They didn’t know much about what I was good at, but I never met a successful con-man who was dumb.
Swing shift super - he was approaching retirement age, call it 63 or so maybe? I know retirement age is now 70, but this was back in the 90s.
He would make these ‘pronouncements’ as if he knew everything. I think the 2 that stuck out the most were:
1 - to pass through the Bering Strait from south to north, experienced navigators would need to keep the constellation of the Southern Cross over their left shoulder.
2 - that unless the breaker was turned off at the box, or there was something plugged into the outlet, electricity leaked out. Now on the quantum scale, this is sort of true …
He was one of the most prejudiced, male chauvenistic assholes I ever had the displeasure of working with.