Dumb People, PhD

So when you are in college you typically think (most) of your professors are about the smartest people in the world, right? I think it's natural to think that because these people are being paid to teach us about a specific subject. There whole life is directed toward one activity. They went to college, then got a masters in their subject and then got the holy grail of knowledge... a P.h.D. However, is that true? Are they really that smart? I suggest NOT. Let me give you a specific example.

I have a client who is a tenured professor at a university. He has a PhD from a major university and has been teaching in his area of expertise for well over 10 years now. He should thus be pretty smart, right?

Let's start by realizing there is a HUGE distinction between someone who is smart and someone who is practical. You know, some people have "book smarts" and some people have "street smarts." To me I would rather have street smarts. I don't mean the fact that I try to never have my car boxed in at a red light because that makes you more susceptible to being car-jacked but rather it's the practical knowledge that some people just HAVE and some people will NEVER have. You can not teach it in a book or class.

My client has NONE of this practical street smarts I speak of. Let me start with a quick example. He was in my office for an appointment and his phone rang. I said, "by all means take the call if it's important." Implicit in that is "but make it quick." In fact, further implicit in my statement is, "I am being polite by offering that you take the call and you probably should not really answer it...." He took the call and talked for at least 10 minutes about general business stuff with some colleague of his. I understand if you are in my office and the mortuary calls asking for instructions about burial of your dead father. In this case he was just shooting the breeze as I stared at him in disbelief... until finally I just started checking email. You could say he has bad manners but that's not the case. He is from a very prim and proper family and he is very polite but he has no CLUE. Smart people, even some of my busy business owner clients, apologize when their cell phone rings during a meeting. Most, if it rings, slip it to silent mode so it won't happen again. Those are smart people!

The guy just has no common sense. Everything that could be accomplished by one email is accomplished by 21 emails. Each one asking, and re-asking, the same dumb questions. Phone calls are painful since his questions are so stupid. I sometimes want to reach through the phone and shake him and ask if he is really that clueless. Questions are usually asked with the most excruciating detail that it makes my brain numb. He asks the most unlikely questions and then carries those out to the 10th degree of unlikeliness. Also everything is by group decision and meetings. I will give him advice and he will then say, "let me make sure everybody is in agreement with that" which triggers another 55 emails... all of which include me as a CC. Lastly he does NOTHING fast. He is used to that nice slow pace of the college campus. The only time he deals with a deadline is the end of the semester when he has to get grades in. Otherwise he is pretty much just walking the campus and picking up on young co-eds. Yes, that's true because young co-eds are often attracted to these professors and/or fain attraction to receive a better grade.

Anyway, the guy is a complete idiot but he has a cush job with no real pressure. Well, some months ago he took a private sector job. I was very surprised that he would leave the ivory tower lifestyle but he did. Frankly, I figured there was no chance that this slow moving, over analytical, IDIOT could survive in the REAL WORLD. It sounded like a good job with a good organization. Wow, good for him....

Gosh, shocking, the other day I got a call that he is back at the university. Apparently he could not hack it in the real world. How cush is that tenured teaching job? He was able to take a "leave of absence" while he checked if he could hack it in the real world and now he goes back to the cush job at the university. If I left my office for a week they would probably have someone new in my spot but I work in the real world.

The bottom line is, listen to your professors and get good grades but make sure you get jobs, with real companies (not on the college campus) so you can learn about REAL LIFE. Because they don't teach you everything in the classroom... they just aren't capable of it!

peace out.