Productivity.

[John Ratsey]

I certainly take issue with John Ratsey's comment about the older worker being dead wood, what price experience?

Experience is, I agree, valuable, but needs a job which uses it. I've been saying for some years that I offer accrued wisdom but not energy. So if the job needs energy and enthusiasm then a younger person is likely to be more productive. The old sage can still have a role, perhaps only on a part time basis, with the result being overall better productivity.

[guest5079]

Whilst one has to be extremely careful about so called NEWS in the media, we hear about x number of graduates are needed for Industries future BUT it does become worrysome when we read and hear about the amount of cheating that is going on. So what price a degree when it has been achieved by cheating?  When I was at police training school in the mid 1970's we were split into syndicates I suppose classes was not on. Behind me in the classroom of 17 was a Cambridge double first. To be frank he was useless. The intake was 51, four left on the first day. I was what was called a waste of space as I was 34 when I joined. At passing out, I was given the task of collecting the 'cross country' cup as I had come high enough to make sure our syndicate won it.I came 2nd out of 17 in the final exam and 4th out of the intake. the one that beat me was another waste of space he was a mere 33. Most of the intake were between 19 and 24.
The police forces now crave graduates why I know not because the old two years on the beat before you could move on was a damn good grounding.
Yesterday, on the farming program was a primary school in Shropshire. The Head was very rightly proud of his school as most of those leaving to go to secondary education had a GCSE in computer studies. This is what the country needs but unfortunately there is every chance that the secondary school those children go on to won't have the where with all to continue that progress and so another opportunity is lost. Do B&Q still take on the oldies? Yes degrees are necessary but they are not the be all and end all. A friend's son in law served an apprenticeship in a Ford Main dealers in the north Midlands. In his middle years he saw an ad for Rolls Royce. He was accepted. He now spends most of his life between the UK and the US where RR have a testing facility. His job is to sort out the wrinkles. NO degree just good honest work knowledge and common sense. Yes we need degrees but we also need common sense and ability to adapt and most of all INCENTIVE.

[Jazzdriver]

I saw a news item where the boss of Norton motorbikes complained about difficulty recruiting skilled workers. He said that this was holding back his company's expansion.  I wished that the business correspondent had asked him why they (Norton) didn't train people.

[MartinJG]

Auntyneddy

The problem with common sense is that it rocks the corporate boat so original and independent thinking is definitely not on the menu. I believe the buzzword is groupthink. Put it another way, if you study a text and then score ten out of ten you get promoted for regurgitation. Perish the thought of inititiative. About a year ago I attended a charity fundraising event featuring a general knowledge quiz which was sponsored by a bank. Age ranged from twenty somethings to old fuds who were past it, a total of about a dozen teams. The table next to us were the bank twenty somethings care of the sponsors, bright and bristling or so I thought until I found out that they were googling the question on their apps. In the old days that would have been considered cheating. So who won? The old fuds who were past it. The bank whizzos came second despite their sticky fingers. It made my night. I couldn't stop laughing. 

[Jocko]

This year, I read my first ever book on politics. "The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics" by David Goodhart. I had seen him talking on "The Daily Politics" and I was intrigued enough to buy and read the book. I found it fascinating. I talks a lot about why we don't train staff, why we push for university educations, and why we got Trump, Brexit and the like. Made me think about things I had never considered before.

[culzean]

This year, I read my first ever book on politics. "The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics" by David Goodhart. I had seen him talking on "The Daily Politics" and I was intrigued enough to buy and read the book. I found it fascinating. I talks a lot about why we don't train staff, why we push for university educations, and why we got Trump, Brexit and the like. Made me think about things I had never considered before.

It's getting like USA a few years ago when everyone had a degree but you could not get a plumber or a mechanic to mend your car.  Everyone has been shoved down the intellectual route and those who are not intellectual have been made to feel like failures, and it is only just dawning on our leaders that we cannot run a country on degrees alone.  We have nurses with degrees who don't nurse, they don't want to get dirty hands, it is the doctor who needs a degree. 

The reason we had brexit vote and Trump and the rise of the right is that politicians were not listening to people outside their 'bubble' - Robert Peston who voted remain had a recent interview on LBC saying he didn't realise how far out of touch he and other liberal elite were with the British public and that the leavers did the right thing and ' were on the right side of history' voting to change the cosy status quo enjoyed only by liberals in their bubble.

[Jocko]

The reason we had brexit vote and Trump and the rise of the right is that politicians were not listening to people outside their 'bubble' - Robert Peston who voted remain had a recent interview on LBC saying he didn't realise how far out of touch he and other liberal elite were with the British public

Exactly. The country is governed by an elite few (even the politicians have to have a degree in politics these days), for the benefit of the few. They brought Brexit upon themselves and they will rue the day.

[culzean]

The reason we had brexit vote and Trump and the rise of the right is that politicians were not listening to people outside their 'bubble' - Robert Peston who voted remain had a recent interview on LBC saying he didn't realise how far out of touch he and other liberal elite were with the British public

Exactly. The country is governed by an elite few (even the politicians have to have a degree in politics these days), for the benefit of the few. They brought Brexit upon themselves and they will rue the day.

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam
by Douglas Murray

This looks like a good read, how Europe is committing suicide..............this is the real reason UK voted Brexit.

[Jocko]

I'll look that one out.

[guest5079]

It is difficult not come across as a hard luck story but in my later years I have been diagnosed as Dyslexic. At school I had terrible trouble reading and despite my problems I went to a Grammar school. There of course it was problematical. Hospital visits continuous visits to Drs etc nothing. I started work in Advertising and for two years I had to sweep floors and make tea. After five years of being a manager having to constantly dig the degree wallers out of the muck I decided to pack it in and go for a quieter life. In the interim I took a temporary driving job. At the end of the term I was asked to stay on but housing was a  problem so I was told to go and find somewhere to live> Use the firms vehicle and petrol I could not. They wanted me for a new job as Transport Manager. Reel on, my confidence going down the toilet. I became a copper.I had tried at 18 but failed the medical. One day I walked into a 'discussion' as to where Shoeburyness was. I piped up just outside Southend. From that day the Inspector in the argument referred to me as that big headed **********. Moving on I was asked why I had not taken the promotion exams as although I was a short service copper I should make Chief Inspector. Well when my health really broke down and I was retired I wish I had taken the exams as the pension of a C/I would have been a great help. So progress has been made but I believe part of my problem is I am cursed with a brain and common sense and in many walks of life this seems to frighten people especially those in higher jobs. I see today special needs schools are really struggling and what brought this missive on was a Woman stating her child had Dyslexia and until she got help the school teachers just told her to take him away  and let him play. Nothing has changed much in some 50 years. I am not anti degree, I was halfway  through an Open University degree when my health broke down.
The difference is that OU students are usually working as well. I know for a fact that there are thousands out there in similar situations where they have done a demanding job or have problems kicked into touch and of course they become someone elses problem and nobody helps.

[Jocko]

I worked in one company where I interfaced with many brilliant physicists, mostly straight from uni. They had masses of knowledge, but no common sense. One went into the machine shop one day with a job he wanted doing. It was two parts and the machinist asked him if he had any preference as to which part was done first. He said "Can you do a wee bit of one then a wee bit of the other until you are done? I need them both at the same time". The laughter could be heard all round the factory. Another guy used to come in wanting something made up. We would ask him for a rough sketch with some sizes, "Not an engineering drawing", and he would go away and never come back!

[sparky Paul]

As the old saying goes, intelligence is no substitute for common sense.

[John Ratsey]

Many moons ago I was on a job which involved using a Bell 47 to get to some inaccessible (by vehicle) places. The pilot (who had clocked a few thousand hours flying helicopters in the days when there weren't computers to help) took a dim biew of the team members with Ph.Ds. His best version of the meaning of PHD was "Piled Higher and Deeper" which I have remembered because it summarises the essence of doing a detailed study of something obscure. If one of them annoyed him then they became Post Hole Diggers.

That's not to say that all Ph.Ds are useless in the real world. Some of them have built a useful career on the foundations of what they studied. However, many go straight on to a career in academia to the disbenefit of those they teach as there should be a minimum period of real world experience so that the teachers have a chance to learn something.

[culzean]

That's not to say that all Ph.Ds are useless in the real world. Some of them have built a useful career on the foundations of what they studied. However, many go straight on to a career in academia to the disbenefit of those they teach as there should be a minimum period of real world experience so that the teachers have a chance to learn something.

Here is a taste of what too much time in our education system can cause ......... you are liable to contract 'liberalitis' which can last for a lifetime if not cured by a dose of the real world..

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/what-explains-the-idiocy-of-the-liberal-elite-its-their-education/

Also students (obviously not history or politics students or they would know more about Gladstone than his name) want the name of one of our most progressive social reforming leaders removed from their halls of residence (and other places) - If these people were studying a proper science or engineering subject instead of drama or media studies they would not have time to protest about such rubbish.  When I was at college it was always the art students who were demonstrating about stuff,  the proper students were too busy studying.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/liverpool-students-fight-to-remove-former-pm-william-gladstones-name-from-building-over-racist-a3692721.html