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During a conversation with a teacher about my chances of actually doing well in a summer cram course, it dipped quickly into abstract statements concerning attitude. Basically, a positive attitude is a prerequisite to success, at least from the teachers perspective. To be perfectly honest, I am not entirely sure what attitude is, besides being a term that can be thrown around as an accepted mode of ad hominem, or praise.

I always go back to a Louis Theroux mini-doc, where he hung out with one of those motivational speech groups... the ones that charge you money, so you can gain a better attitude. Oddly enough, the motivational course had NOT produced any millionaires, and it seemed to do an awful lot more for the companies wallet, than anything else. On top of this, I have known more than enough 'cup is half empty' people, that end up successful, to come to the conclusion that it really doesn't make much of a difference at all. If someone says they don't 'like your attitude', I would guess that it is likely they are simply expressing opinion.

What are your experiences? Have you had a boss/teacher that tried to use your emotions to shut down a conversation?

Please note that not doing your job, is not the same as having an 'attitude problem'. If you do your work, and address concerns, I suppose that would be perceived generally as a positive attitude. If you do your work, and run into obstacles constantly, there would appear to be a problem beyond yourself. Solutions are not so easy to find in many situations.

I have noticed that 'you have a bad attitude' is often used instead of 'stop disagreeing with me!' by some people.

I think attitude is the wrong way of defining it. Workplace culture and adhering to it is more useful then attitude. For the ambitious anyway.

While I'm not always a "sunshine person" (thank you Vince Noir) I tend to be on the happy end of existence. If someone is being really negative it tends to make me feel drained. I had an interviewer play that card on me and explain that I didn't "want it enough" (because I couldn't quote the company's mission statement or tell her the technical difference between two kinds of coffee, despite not having received any training much less being hired). Later she was described to me by one of her employees as a "crazy dyke who hates men" and a morbidly obese woman who could barely walk was hired instead of me. Take from that what you will I also know at card tournaments back in the day the players with more upbeat attitudes almost always won and as player's attitudes and expectations dropped, so did their performance. I believe you can maintain a realistic, cautionary view while realizing that there's a chance for success as well as failure. Balance, kinda like everything else in life.

I think the most important thing is an honest assessment of your own capabilities. It doesn't matter how dedicated you are to picking up Spanish in a summer cram course. If you aren't good with languages, it is unlikely that you'll be able to handle the burden. Obviously Spanish is simply an example here, substitute whatever you like.

That said, I'm the sort of person that believes he will succeed at most of the things he tries. This is, in part, based on a long history of being fairly successful in general. However, I can remember lacking confidence when I was younger, and still succeeding (at least academically, I was awful at sport until I became self-assured) despite that fact. Honestly, it seems as though confidence is only important when you're forced to put yourself on the line. Sport is the obvious example, but interviewing is another good one.

Thanks Cannerus/Shaman, your posts have some great insights.

Albatross wrote:I have noticed that 'you have a bad attitude' is often used instead of 'stop disagreeing with me!' by some people.

Completely agreed.

dogma wrote:I think the most important thing is an honest assessment of your own capabilities. It doesn't matter how dedicated you are to picking up Spanish in a summer cram course. If you aren't good with languages, it is unlikely that you'll be able to handle the burden. Obviously Spanish is simply an example here, substitute whatever you like.

I brought that up with the Teacher, but I think that kind of pissed her off. If I can't slam-dunk, I don't get mad about it... I might build a jump-pack, though!

That said, I'm the sort of person that believes he will succeed at most of the things he tries. This is, in part, based on a long history of being fairly successful in general. However, I can remember lacking confidence when I was younger, and still succeeding (at least academically, I was awful at sport until I became self-assured) despite that fact. Honestly, it seems as though confidence is only important when you're forced to put yourself on the line. Sport is the obvious example, but interviewing is another good one.

Confidence has definitely gotten me more jobs than I can count, I'm not a generally mild person... some would consider me stubborn. Ignorance has often been the important factor, by simply forcing myself into tunnel vision to get something done. A lot of the stupidest things I have ever done, arose from that exact same approach though...

In general it's good to be good. It's good to be smart. It's good to be correct about how smart you are. It's good to be positive. It's good to work hard.

So I wouldn't encourage you to try to think of reasons why "having a good attitude" is BS. It's not BS. It's a good thing to have. But it's not CRTICAL to survival, so if you just can't do it, then work on it.

In my experience, the biggest key is effort and follow through. My whole life, I was a "smart kid." They had me in "talented and gifted classes" I did well on all the standardized tests, etc. etc. But I'm also lazy and arrogant. So there's a lot of wasted potential.

I compare this to Counter-Strike. ONE dude made Counter-Strike, and for a long period of time it was the number one online game in the world. ONE dude made it.

A friend of mine (very similar to me in terms of laziness and intelligence), and I downloaded the source for the game, started picking through it, and finding all sorts of stupid bugs and mistakes. So, on some level, we were "smarter" than the guy who made Counter-Strike.

Only he made Counter-Strike, and I'm nobody.

He had the drive and commitment to get a project done, bugs and crappy code or not. He got it done.

Phryxis wrote:In general it's good to be good. It's good to be smart. It's good to be correct about how smart you are. It's good to be positive. It's good to work hard.

So I wouldn't encourage you to try to think of reasons why "having a good attitude" is BS. It's not BS. It's a good thing to have. But it's not CRTICAL to survival, so if you just can't do it, then work on it.

I would really have to know more about what attitude even meant, before agreeing with you. Abstract statements can easily be percieve as BS, but I agree that generally, attitude is not critical to survival. Depending on what is inferred by attitude, the entire premise can have absolutely no foundation.

In my experience, the biggest key is effort and follow through. My whole life, I was a "smart kid." They had me in "talented and gifted classes" I did well on all the standardized tests, etc. etc. But I'm also lazy and arrogant. So there's a lot of wasted potential.

I have been called lazy and arrogant, amongst many other things, but those accusations did not come from people that I respect or admire. It has actually been the reverse for me; as I grew up I learned to have good work ethic, but the more I prepared, the worse I would perform. This is why I was talking about tunnel vision before, as I feel is pretty evenly sums up what it takes to succeed, sometimes.

Maybe I just have a habit of thinking myself out of ideas... or generally not picking the simplest solutions.

I compare this to Counter-Strike. ONE dude made Counter-Strike, and for a long period of time it was the number one online game in the world. ONE dude made it.

A friend of mine (very similar to me in terms of laziness and intelligence), and I downloaded the source for the game, started picking through it, and finding all sorts of stupid bugs and mistakes. So, on some level, we were "smarter" than the guy who made Counter-Strike.

Only he made Counter-Strike, and I'm nobody.

He had the drive and commitment to get a project done, bugs and crappy code or not. He got it done.

I attribute that more to personal skill than anything else. Meta-gamer preference also plays a big role.

My greatest accomplishments have been those where I faced a challenge with tenacity, after finding an objective within my reach. A goal of mine is to get a chunk of land, and just build stuff all the time. When Wrex builds a castle, all of Dakka can drop by for a pint and a few games.

This guy is absolutely awesome, if not a little bit crazy. He obviously has what it takes, and I doubt many others could have done the same.

Phryxis wrote:
In my experience, the biggest key is effort and follow through. My whole life, I was a "smart kid." They had me in "talented and gifted classes" I did well on all the standardized tests, etc. etc. But I'm also lazy and arrogant. So there's a lot of wasted potential.

So that's why we get along so well.

If we are talking about attitude in the context of success at education it is one of several factors.

1. Intelligence. If you do not have the cognitive ability to handle the materials you will fail.
2. Prerequisite skills. You may have the intelligence to learn statistics but you need to know algebra first.
3. Effort. Spend the time, do the reading, work out the sample problems and so on.
4. Attitude. If you go into a course not caring about completing it, or disliking the subject, you will find it much harder to make the effort.

Wrexasaur wrote:During a conversation with a teacher about my chances of actually doing well in a summer cram course, it dipped quickly into abstract statements concerning attitude. Basically, a positive attitude is a prerequisite to success, at least from the teachers perspective. To be perfectly honest, I am not entirely sure what attitude is, besides being a term that can be thrown around as an accepted mode of ad hominem, or praise.

I always go back to a Louis Theroux mini-doc, where he hung out with one of those motivational speech groups... the ones that charge you money, so you can gain a better attitude. Oddly enough, the motivational course had NOT produced any millionaires, and it seemed to do an awful lot more for the companies wallet, than anything else. On top of this, I have known more than enough 'cup is half empty' people, that end up successful, to come to the conclusion that it really doesn't make much of a difference at all. If someone says they don't 'like your attitude', I would guess that it is likely they are simply expressing opinion.

What are your experiences? Have you had a boss/teacher that tried to use your emotions to shut down a conversation?

Please note that not doing your job, is not the same as having an 'attitude problem'. If you do your work, and address concerns, I suppose that would be perceived generally as a positive attitude. If you do your work, and run into obstacles constantly, there would appear to be a problem beyond yourself. Solutions are not so easy to find in many situations.

Who cares?
As a boss, do your job. I don't give a if you have a good attitude or not. None of have good attitudes, thats why you have to pay us to work. Good attitudes are for manginas and liberal arts majors.
That reminds me Balls the intern STILL has not gotten me some kolaches. Good thing I'm not paying him anything, I'd have to doc his pay.

I have been studying for a health and safety qualification recently. The main source book I use refers to personal factors which effect the way we go about a task. These are attitude, perception and motivation. The book goes on to describe attitude as "the tendancy to behave in a particular way in a certain situation" it also says that attitudes are heavily influenced by those around us from management/teachers to collegues/students.

Like Alby says managers will tell you that you have a bad attitude whenever you question their decisions or express misgivings about a workplace practice. The likelyhood is that they are responsible for your attitude in the first place. Very few people actively seek out conflict with their peers.

My managers have said in the past that I am not a sunshine person and that I should smile more as this keeps our customers happy, my response that grinning like an idiot didn't fix machines, and that was what kept our customers happy, was not recieved well. What frustrates me is that many employers will tell you about the benefits of integrity, 360 degree feedback, having an open fourm and any other number of wanky expressions which come down to "I can tell you your a feth wit but if you tell me the same then your out the door mate".

Back on topic, one of the most important atributes you can posses is emotional intelligence. A good attitude, high motivation, strong work ethic and high inteligence are no good if you loose it because someone has stollen your pencil or your boss is being a turd. It's a cliche but always count to ten and don't feel preasured into giving an answer based upon what you are feeling at the time or before you have thought through the question and the possible outcomes.

squilverine wrote:I have been studying for a health and safety qualification recently. The main source book I use refers to personal factors which effect the way we go about a task. These are attitude, perception and motivation. The book goes on to describe attitude as "the tendancy to behave in a particular way in a certain situation" it also says that attitudes are heavily influenced by those around us from management/teachers to collegues/students.

Like Alby says managers will tell you that you have a bad attitude whenever you question their decisions or express misgivings about a workplace practice. The likelyhood is that they are responsible for your attitude in the first place. Very few people actively seek out conflict with their peers.

My managers have said in the past that I am not a sunshine person and that I should smile more as this keeps our customers happy, my response that grinning like an idiot didn't fix machines, and that was what kept our customers happy, was not recieved well. What frustrates me is that many employers will tell you about the benefits of integrity, 360 degree feedback, having an open fourm and any other number of wanky expressions which come down to "I can tell you your a feth wit but if you tell me the same then your out the door mate".

Back on topic, one of the most important atributes you can posses is emotional intelligence. A good attitude, high motivation, strong work ethic and high inteligence are no good if you loose it because someone has stollen your pencil or your boss is being a turd. It's a cliche but always count to ten and don't feel preasured into giving an answer based upon what you are feeling at the time or before you have thought through the question and the possible outcomes.

Squilverine has the way of it.

As a teacher, I can paradoxically say all teachers are liars.

Seriously, if they knew what to do, would they be driving some crappy 14 year old car?

Seriously, if they knew what to do, would they have a job that gives them two months off at summer?

You think that having two months of paid holiday time a year is a bad choice?


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That sounds like a 'bad attitude!'

^^Paid?!!

Maybe in the socialist utopia of Britain's furthest south incarceration facility/continent.

Phryxis wrote:

In my experience, the biggest key is effort and follow through. My whole life, I was a "smart kid." They had me in "talented and gifted classes" I did well on all the standardized tests, etc. etc. But I'm also lazy and arrogant. So there's a lot of wasted potential.

I compare this to Counter-Strike. ONE dude made Counter-Strike, and for a long period of time it was the number one online game in the world. ONE dude made it.

A friend of mine (very similar to me in terms of laziness and intelligence), and I downloaded the source for the game, started picking through it, and finding all sorts of stupid bugs and mistakes. So, on some level, we were "smarter" than the guy who made Counter-Strike.

Only he made Counter-Strike, and I'm nobody.

He had the drive and commitment to get a project done, bugs and crappy code or not. He got it done.

I would wager you're not alone here. I can tell you that the story there is almost exactly the same with me. Part of it is not internal, it is indeed external. Currently, it seems to me that the philosophy of education seems to lean toward emphasizing classroom performance ( specific skills) rather than standardized test scores ( general knowledge ). This fits with the pragmatic, fast paced life of modernity. Renaissance men need not apply anymore, the world is looking for a narrow set of knowledge, almost like a human machine. This gets to the meat of the issue though. These things are outside of our control, and there is no point in worrying about it.

The problem with the "positive attitude" concept is not that it isn't good, in fact, it is vitally important, but rather, it has become a meaningless and trite platitude. The self esteem of individuals is critical to their mental health, but you can't just say it or change the rules to make it easier to succeed. We're telling students how important it is to believe in yourself and feel good about yourself, but what isn't being said is that you have to do exceptional things to feel exceptional about yourself. I firmly believe that we need to show people how to feel good about their selves, not tell them. I think the worst thing you can do is show a kid a good IQ or achievement test result and tell him he's smart and needs to be with exceptional students. That sets up an external locus of control, where the individual looks at external factors as controlling his performance rather than internal factors. This doesn't result in a lazy person. Rather, it results in someone who literally doesn't know how to study, and then because they were told that their ability is because of an external factor ( Tests that tell them they're smart ), their mediocre performance causes depression because since the tests were obviously wrong in their mind, they must be stupid or inept ( an external factor ).

The same thing with a kid that picks up miniatures painting. Everyone knows that your first try at painting miniatures is going to suck, no matter what you're age. Even if you have natural ability, you have room to improve. A parent's first impulse, I would imagine, is to tell the child how great their miniatures are painted. This is just going to cause problems when they confront the reality. I think a better statement would be " You did very well in getting all of those painted, and if you keep practicing and studying you can become very good. Let me show you some techniques".

The problem is illustrated in people's concept of genius. The archetype is Albert Einstein. I think the general belief is that if you're smart, you'll succeed regardless of what you do, and if you're not, you're not going to. The general thought, I believe, is that Einstein just walked on the scene and because of his incredible intellect and unstudied insight he just simply changed modern thought, because he was that smart of a guy. This is simply not true. This individual had to take a job he hated to break into the field, then put in the work to present his ideas, which were then analyzed and dissected by the scientific community. This doesn't mean they weren't smart enough to understand him, that is the way science works. Basically, he's not known because he's a smart guy, he's known because he is a smart guy that put in 40 years of skull sweat to produce something revolutionary.

Hahaha, that's not very nice! Also, I'm a teacher too, and I actually end up with about three months of time not at school each year, not two...fully paid...

If that's a socialist utopia then call me Comrade and pass the Borscht!

Socialists eat Borscht right?

I'm a teacher these days, and if I tell a kid they have bad attitude (rare) it's because they are ill mannered, insolent and aggressive. If I'm giving them feedback on work, I'm pretty specific about it- bad attitude is way too vague to be useful. I like to outline where they need to improve, where their strengths are, and maybe some strategies for improvement.

I'm a bit of a pessimist/realist, and I get tired of people going on at me about it. I tend to base my decisions on available information, and weigh up the pros and cons before acting on what I feel is the best risk/reward ratio. The fun thing is, that works a lot better than a "positive attitude" for predicting outcomes. Management can tend to attract a fair amount of wafflers and aggressive self promoters, in my experience. HR is similar. So they do what they do and waffle and self promote and degrade others. I tend to ignore them and get on with my work.

Also, Khornholio: dude, you don't get paid for holidays? In Ireland, a full time teacher gets THREE months off in the summer, 2 weeks at Christmas, 2 weeks at Easter, and a couple of mid terms that are one week long. All paid! The situation is way crappier for part time teachers, though. Even in the UK you get six weeks paid holidays in the summer. You need to relocate man!

Frazzled wrote:

squilverine wrote:I have been studying for a health and safety qualification recently. The main source book I use refers to personal factors which effect the way we go about a task. These are attitude, perception and motivation. The book goes on to describe attitude as "the tendancy to behave in a particular way in a certain situation" it also says that attitudes are heavily influenced by those around us from management/teachers to collegues/students.

Like Alby says managers will tell you that you have a bad attitude whenever you question their decisions or express misgivings about a workplace practice. The likelyhood is that they are responsible for your attitude in the first place. Very few people actively seek out conflict with their peers.

My managers have said in the past that I am not a sunshine person and that I should smile more as this keeps our customers happy, my response that grinning like an idiot didn't fix machines, and that was what kept our customers happy, was not recieved well. What frustrates me is that many employers will tell you about the benefits of integrity, 360 degree feedback, having an open fourm and any other number of wanky expressions which come down to "I can tell you your a feth wit but if you tell me the same then your out the door mate".

Back on topic, one of the most important atributes you can posses is emotional intelligence. A good attitude, high motivation, strong work ethic and high inteligence are no good if you loose it because someone has stollen your pencil or your boss is being a turd. It's a cliche but always count to ten and don't feel preasured into giving an answer based upon what you are feeling at the time or before you have thought through the question and the possible outcomes.

Squilverine has the way of it.

Sounds about right to me, too.

Grignard wrote:I would wager you're not alone here. I can tell you that the story there is almost exactly the same with me. Part of it is not internal, it is indeed external. Currently, it seems to me that the philosophy of education seems to lean toward emphasizing classroom performance ( specific skills) rather than standardized test scores ( general knowledge ). This fits with the pragmatic, fast paced life of modernity. Renaissance men need not apply anymore, the world is looking for a narrow set of knowledge, almost like a human machine. This gets to the meat of the issue though. These things are outside of our control, and there is no point in worrying about it.

Oddly enough, the Renaissance men are the ones with consistent work in my area. I know several people with varied skills, although with accredited expertise in some, personal experience accounts for the largest portion of their skill set. Heard something on NPR reinforcing my point, where a very hard hit community (by the recession) was full of jobless degree-holding people, and the ones getting work were not getting it in their fields; the guy who knew how to fix cars, do landscaping, construction, etc, was the one getting work. This was from a small sample of the community, and I can't remember the name of the town so I couldn't show you any numbers. Depending on how specific your accredited skills are, and how saturated the market is for the positions you seek, it can be incredibly difficult to find work in your given field.

The problem is illustrated in people's concept of genius. The archetype is Albert Einstein. I think the general belief is that if you're smart, you'll succeed regardless of what you do, and if you're not, you're not going to. The general thought, I believe, is that Einstein just walked on the scene and because of his incredible intellect and unstudied insight he just simply changed modern thought, because he was that smart of a guy. This is simply not true. This individual had to take a job he hated to break into the field, then put in the work to present his ideas, which were then analyzed and dissected by the scientific community. This doesn't mean they weren't smart enough to understand him, that is the way science works. Basically, he's not known because he's a smart guy, he's known because he is a smart guy that put in 40 years of skull sweat to produce something revolutionary.

That seems to be a hallmark of successful people, the basic drive to accomplish something great... then accomplishing it. I think that the effort involved in such endeavors, is likely to increase over time. I also think that Einstein had what it took, to accomplish what he did. I can't see anyone just getting up, then working for 40 years, to produce such amazing things. Einstein had the intellect, AND the drive to succeed, that is my opinion.

If someone can jump 10ft. from a standing position, that doesn't mean if I try enough, I will be able to do so as well. If I am able to jump 10ft. then I can compete with others who can as well. The best man wins.

When somebody in a position of authority over you, or deluded into thinking that way at least, tells you that you have a poor attitude, 999 times out of 1,000 what they really mean is that you didn't kiss their butt good enough. That's why I'm self-employed, because I lack the butt-kissing gene.

Frazzled wrote:
Who cares?
As a boss, do your job. I don't give a if you have a good attitude or not. None of have good attitudes, thats why you have to pay us to work.

You've clearly never worked in an industry involving customer service.

Frazzled wrote:
Good attitudes are for manginas and liberal arts majors.

So you're willing to disparage an emotion by expressing an emotion. That's an incredible level of hypocrisy.


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Grignard wrote:Basically, he's not known because he's a smart guy, he's known because he is a smart guy that put in 40 years of skull sweat to produce something revolutionary.

To extend this point: Einstein was bad at math. He took his equations from mathematicians that helped him progress. His brilliance was largely the result of being an intelligent man outside of the physics establishment. To my mind Schopenhauer said it best:

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."

I think a large part of the problem is that people in positions of authority are not always mature, eloquent, or even particularly intelligent. It's a communication problem.

I think what those people are trying to say when they say you have a bad attitude is that your attitude is inappropriate for that particular situation, position or set of circumstances. The problem is, they lack the skills to express themselves properly and revert to 'good' or 'bad'-type value judgements. These judgements tell a person nothing about that which is expected of them, why their 'attitude' is inappropriate, or how it can be changed in order to effect a desirable outcome.

If a person tells me I have a 'bad attitude' it says more about them than it does about me - that person is saying to the world 'I don't have the necessary communication skills needed to manage and motivate my staff effectively'.

I had to drop the class I was talking about, unfortunately. The teacher was a bit disorganized/disingenuous, and cram classes are hard enough as it is. Hopefully I can focus on more important things than a single required class now, I just hope the rest of the class hasn't underestimated the amount of material they are going to have to cover.

Thanks for the input everyone, I appreciate it.

Time to roll out a cliche or two concerning education

Form is temporarily, class is permanent.

Friends and family are better than grades or ability (Looking at you George Walker Bush)

Those who can, do it. Those who can't teach.

Was it George Bernand Shaw who said the above? Dakka members throw me a bone!

Teachers are just people, and most people don't make for great teachers. Nearly every teacher I have had has been a sub-par supplement to my education. The teachers that were great, did little more than explain the material clearly, and in a structured way. If I have to spend hours figuring out what the hell I am supposed to do, the teacher may be going about teaching a subject, in a convoluted way.

The best teachers I have had, are the ones that also work currently in whatever field they are giving courses in. I retain the material for longer, and feel that I understand it more, if examples can be drawn from real life.

Teaching is a difficult job and requires a good deal of experience working with students. Trying to learn anything from someone who just works as a professional, can take longer than studying the material myself. People with experience in both aspects, probably have the best looking resumes anyway.

I support modernizing our current higher education system, with materials available online, and tests taken within school grounds. Within 5 minutes, I can pull up ten reference pages to study the class material. That is a massive step in the right direction, at least IMHO. Frontline did a couple of interesting pieces on this kind of thing, even if they wandered quite a bit.

In school, motivation matters more than attitude. Child A wants to do well in school, but hates it, hates it, hates everyone there, and hates everyone he knows to boot. Child B loves his friends, loves going to school, and loves everything they talk about in class. Unfortunately, Child B also doen't really care about doing his homework or studying for tests. Thirty years down the road, Child B is flipping burgers at McDonald's, and Child A is Dr. Gregory House.

Since I think we were originally discussing school, I thought I would get that out of the way first. Now, onto real life.

In real life, attitude is of minimal importance. I have seen numerous friendly, helpful, kind people get fired from jobs because they weren't fast enough sandwich makers/reliable to be on time/convincing enough salesman/trustworthy enough clerks, and the list goes on. In your job, performance is what mattes most. (Followed by connections and qualifications.) Now, occasionally attitude can affect performance. When I worked at a gas station, people would routinely get angry when I carded them for cigarettes. My usual response was along the lines of "You goodwill isn't important enough for me to gamble my job on." When a problem was a customer's fault, and they demanded an explanation, I told them in detailed terms exactly how they were wrong. Funnily enough, I didn't get offered any promotions. I've had other jobs where my attitude did NOT affect my performance, and I did far better in those places.

Jimsolo wrote:In school, motivation matters more than attitude. Child A wants to do well in school, but hates it, hates it, hates everyone there, and hates everyone he knows to boot. Child B loves his friends, loves going to school, and loves everything they talk about in class. Unfortunately, Child B also doen't really care about doing his homework or studying for tests. Thirty years down the road, Child B is flipping burgers at McDonald's, and Child A is Dr. Gregory House.

Dr. Gregory House hates his life. Its a central topic of one of the episodes. If the kid flipping burgers enjoys his life, then he's beaten the esteemed doctor. There are no objective measures of 'success'.

Jimsolo wrote:
In real life, attitude is of minimal importance. I have seen numerous friendly, helpful, kind people get fired from jobs because they weren't fast enough sandwich makers/reliable to be on time/convincing enough salesman/trustworthy enough clerks, and the list goes on.

I've fired tons of people just because they were pricks.

Jimsolo wrote:
In your job, performance is what mattes most. (Followed by connections and qualifications.) Now, occasionally attitude can affect performance. When I worked at a gas station, people would routinely get angry when I carded them for cigarettes. My usual response was along the lines of "You goodwill isn't important enough for me to gamble my job on." When a problem was a customer's fault, and they demanded an explanation, I told them in detailed terms exactly how they were wrong. Funnily enough, I didn't get offered any promotions. I've had other jobs where my attitude did NOT affect my performance, and I did far better in those places.

Attitude frequently affects performance. The sales industry is a wondrous example. Academia is another good one. The people that hate school generally fail, and then blame their ineptitude on bureaucracy. Its really quite hilarious.

The people that hate school generally fail, and then blame their ineptitude on bureaucracy.

I hated school, but LOVED being in college, if you catch my drift. Then I almost failed, but didn't, and blamed my own laziness.

As they say, "if you can't do, teach." Academia is just a liberal credentialism mill. Go get the paperwork and start making money. While you're getting the paperwork, make sure to study up on bleeding heart hippie girls.

dogma wrote:The people that hate school generally fail, and then blame their ineptitude on bureaucracy.

Phryxis wrote:
Academia is just a liberal credentialism mill. Go get the paperwork and start making money.

I think the notion that Academia is biased towards liberalism is false. Unless all those conservative think tanks are really liberal pawns?