Monday 4 February 2013

Hey, Doreen, Maybe It Means...

...that their 'merits' are overexaggerated and their 'qualifications' utterly worthless?
We need to examine what gets in the way when people try to succeed on their own merits but are not as successful as they would have hoped or their paper qualifications would suggest.
Just a thought...

11 comments:

Demetrius said...

The problem is words. The simple situation is that now almost half the population will have a degree and many of the others will need some qualifying paper to find work. Inevitably many will find their degree/qual' is not a help in an economy with a lot of low paid very basic work.

Dr Cromarty said...

What a strange article. She uses the first person plural to say what she thinks, giving a rather regal tone to it. Either that or Dear Old Doreen put her name to an article penned by a race-hustler employed her charidee.

***clutches pearls*** Surely not?

Anonymous said...

Yes, it is really that simple - If I - despite any apparent shortcomings in terms of abilities, skills and appropriate qualifications, can get the job then we truly do have "diversity". If I don't, then there is no such thing, because what diversity really means is giving people who are singularly ill equipped for a role the chance to show how soon they can mess it up and justifying this by explaining how it "widens the life chances of certain groups". I belong to such a "certain group" - people who have never been to Uni and got a degree - a group by the way which still, despite all the gerrymandering to get the entire population into Uni and leaving with a "degree" [thus increasingly making it a pretty useless thing to have in terms of 'demonstrating your abilities'] still constitutes the majority in terms of working age people, and I have found even in this diversity aware world we live in, that that has been a major bar to entering and working in those professions that have "a good class Uni degree from a good Uni" as a condition of entry. This has, imho, become increasingly unfair as my "non degree" is, again imho but also backed up by hearsay about the merits of a lot of people who get degrees these days, an unfair barrier. Of course I could do those jobs - degree or not. I might not do them very well, but that isn't the point, the whole point of diversity is to put what appear to be the wrong people into jobs they aren't fitted for, simply because they "tick certain boxes". Well I get a tick in the "didn't get a degree" box and I want MY chance, thank you very much ...

Louise said...

Although the current arrangement doesn't seem to be working too well either.

Overexaggerated?

Anonymous said...

anon @ 14:59 just tick the gay/transgender box! Is there are practical test?

Anonymous said...

Bunny

Doreen, have you thought that despite having a degree and the desire to succeed in a particular chosen field the thing that may just be holding this person back is that they are bloody useless. Just a thought and no level of legislation can stop this from happening.

On the other issue, very occasionally ie once every three or four years I have to procure legal opinion for my clients/employers. I have now heard of the 'magic circle' firm of Freshfield who are supporting this stupidity so they are off my list of people to deal with.

blueknight said...

It was a black Officer that tasered the knifeman outside Buckingham Palace and well done to him, but it does not mean every black person would make a good Officer or would even want to join the Police.
And that goes for White, Asian, Indian subcontinent, LGBT and anything else.

John Pickworth said...

Oh! It's THAT Doreen!

Well listen up sister, I've got a dead grandfather, a dead great grandfather and a dead great great grandfather... so I'm obviously eminently qualified to pontificate on such matters too.

You say: "We need to examine what gets in the way when people try to succeed on their own merits but are not as successful as they would have hoped or their paper qualifications would suggest. They may not have the confidence to believe they can do a role. They may not even aspire to a specific profession in the first place. They might be the first person they know to have "made it", which means they will not have the in-built network that their peers may have grown up with. And sometimes they will look at an industry, not see anyone in it who looks like them, and decide to walk away from it."

I say: The above sounds like someone throwing in the towel because its too gosh damn difficult. The sort of person that has only ever seen one hurdle in their life - the first one. Frankly darling, if the quoted scenarios are putting them off then perhaps these aren't the hi-fliers we're looking for?

Lynne at Counting Cats said...

Merit, the race hustler's deadliest foe...

The Jannie said...

Anonymous - how could you! We're not useless, we're VICTIMS!

JuliaM said...

"Inevitably many will find their degree/qual' is not a help in an economy with a lot of low paid very basic work."

Well, indeed. As far as I can see, colour isn't a factor in that either.

"...I might not do them very well, but that isn't the point, the whole point of diversity is to put what appear to be the wrong people into jobs they aren't fitted for, simply because they "tick certain boxes"."

Spot on! As Leg-Iron once so memorably said, it's about collecting people, not employing them.

"It was a black Officer that tasered the knifeman outside Buckingham Palace and well done to him, but it does not mean every black person would make a good Officer or would even want to join the Police."

And as you point out, that's not unique.

And are 'the community' really going to be reassured to see black or brown, when what they are most likely to see is blue?

"The above sounds like someone throwing in the towel because its too gosh damn difficult."

The Homer Simpson philosophy - if something's too hard to do, then it's not worth doing.