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You're like the hospital janitor complaining that the doctor never wipes the floor. He's just off somewhere "looking smart". ... do you realise how ridiculous
by fwdpropaganda 9y ago
You're like the hospital janitor complaining that the doctor never wipes the floor. He's just off somewhere "looking smart".
... do you realise how ridiculous this sounds?
Let me say that I get your point of view: I know of the existence of smart and educated people who are lazy, presumptious, have a superiority complex, talk down on everyone and/or are fakes.
Do you understand my point of view though? Are you aware that people exist who are less educated people and who can't grasp that valuable complex things exist which requiring specialized knowledge, and that those less educated people being unaware of the existence of such things automatically and wrongly assume that their specialists are fakes?
- Jedi72 9y agoSince we're all throwing around anecdotes, I k ow both PhDs and long-time industry experts - gun to my head, one of them has to solve a problem or I die, I'm gonna choose the industry expert even if it's in the PhD guys field. Academic honours are very over-rated
- watwut 9y agoThat is not nearly accurate analogy. Note that doctors in hospital do more then just looking smart. And know multiple people who are like he described: generally keep aura of looking smart are are good in few selected areas and generally don't really do much work. And they always get absurd amount of benefit of doubt the same way you do here. Meanwhile anyone who criticize them is assumed to be stupid hospital janitor who don't get that they are the ones who do real work. And know, they do not do "valuable complex things" nobody else cant grasps on the project. They talk about complex things around water cooler to impress people. And yes I do know people who do complex things too.
- fwdpropaganda 9y agoRight, so we both know both types. But the person I was responding to either doesn't, or chose to omit one to try and make a point about it. > That is not nearly accurate analogy. Note that doctors in hospital do more then just looking smart. That's precesily my point. Doctors in hospital do more than just looking smart, even though janitors may or may not realise it. It's really an excellent analogy.
- watwut 9y agoPretty much all janitors realize that doctors do work.
- fwdpropaganda 9y agoAre you guessing, or have you actually asked?
- loxs 9y agoI have been a janitor (or pretty much that) during my MD studies, then I have been a nurse, then a doctor, then a programmer. I didn't know a janitor who thought that nurses or doctors didn't do valuable work (greatly more valuable than their own). In the IT field it's different though. Every junior is absolutely sure they are better than their team lead (been there, done that, also been the team lead). Every QA thinks that programmers are lazy brats. Every PM too. Every programmer thinks QAs and PMs are stupid and can't grok their (programmers') work (which, so far I think that it's indeed true (maybe not the stupid part, but the 'can't' part), and that's why the industry suffers).
- fwdpropaganda 9y agoThanks for sharing. > I didn't know a janitor who thought that nurses or doctors didn't do valuable work (greatly more valuable than their own). More than once I've heard staff (not janitors though) talking depreciatively about doctors (e.g. "he thinks he knows everything", "he said X but my uncle says Y"). I think if you read what I wrote a bit more charitably you'll see that my point wasn't really about janitors. I used them figuratively to comment on OP's attitude that seemed like the terrible combination that is confidence and ignorance.
- loxs 9y agoI absolutely agree with your comments. I just joined in to give my 2 cents with some real experience and to give more nuance to the discussion. I do agree that medical and IT fields are different (and that's what I tried to explain in my original comment)
- jakelazaroff 9y agoThe thesis of the article is that most companies are looking for doctors when they actually just run a cleaning service. This is not a great analogy. "Algorithmic wizardry" and "organizational skills" are two distinct skill sets, and it's perfectly possible to be great at the former but lousy at the latter.
- jmartrican 9y agoI agree wholeheartedly with your points. Though I must say I am not talking about the hospital industry, I am talking about IT.... where we developers are the doctors. I also think that these PHD's can add immense value, they are in fact very smart and educated. I'll tell you one anecdote, when big data was starting to bubble up, there were PHD's that were hired at two firms I worked at. Eventually in the long run big data was done, but it was not from their efforts. It was the grunts.