5 ms·
Someone once told me an old USSR joke that went something like this: "What should a student know?" "Everything" "What should a lab technician know?" "Almost t
by neilalexander 7y ago
Someone once told me an old USSR joke that went something like this:
"What should a student know?" "Everything"
"What should a lab technician know?" "Almost the same as the student"
"What about a graduate?" "In which book is that thing that the student should know?"
"And the associate professor?" "Where is this book?"
"And the professor?" "Where is the associate professor?"
- pojzon 7y agoThats how I see career levels in my company.. The higher someone is the less overall they know. I know regulars that I would put way higher than some of our experts. And its not only technical knowledge but also problem solving, attitude and craftsmanship. Thats what happens when promotions are given based on "years worked" or "office politics" instead of work excellence. Sad reality in a lot of companies in IT.
- learc83 7y ago>work excellence Promotions to new positions based on performance in the previous position don't always work out great either.
- chasd00 7y agoyep. you get promoted to your level of incompetence.
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y agoOffice politics and work excellence are the same thing most of the time
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoAssuming that people start from the bottom, are you saying that their skills dull over time, or they never had them in the first place? I'd suggest their skillset changes as they grow into their new role. As they transition from writing code to people wrangling, the code skills stop being important and new ones take their place. Same with attitude, they have to transition to a new focus.
- rfeather 7y agoI know this is meant to show some level of not knowing stuff being somehow correlated to a rise in level, but couldn't it be an example of successful use of abstraction. For example, if a manager leads a group of 5 people with diverse expertise, you would need that manager to know 5x as many things as each employee if they're really expected to be as deep as each. It seems that it would be hard to find such people. A more accomplishable strategy would be to learn who knows what and what are the top level fundamentals of each field so that the right questions can be asked.
- SuoDuanDao 7y agoIt's probably funny because it can cut both ways.