I’ve had a terrible cold this week. So I took the day afternoon off on Friday originally intending to enjoy the long weekend but spending it in bed instead with my Blackberry Playbook (have to support the RIMM stock), Shark Tank, Dragon’s Den and Risky Business… and a roll of Cottonelle toilet paper (way nicer for the nose than the cheap stuff or kleenex).
Good thing I have a stash of toilet paper since Mark Cuban says that most people should stockpile things – and cash – and invest in yourself – rather than waste their money in the stock market. But really, how much toilet paper and GIC’s can you buy before it just seems weird?
I have a bit of a double standard for my 2 kids. The oldest is very academically inclined. The other is a B student kind of kid. I’m willing to invest in the education of the oldest and did the whole RESP thing for him (which got slightly decimated in the 2000-1 meltdown). And I’m willing to invest in a business for the youngest one. Because like Mark Cuban, he’s a little go-getter shark and university would only slow him down. Although, unlike Cuban – in the basketball world at least, he has a lot of self-control.
While spending the day in bed with Mark Cuban and Robert Herjavec (unfortunately Kevin O’Leary was also there…) watching Shark Tank, I was thinking about Cuban’s blog post: http://blogmaverick.com/2012/05/13/the-coming-meltdown-in-college-education-why-the-economy-wont-get-better-any-time-soon/
And wondering what would happen if prospective university students had to prove the case for their major, academic or earning ability to even get a student loan just like the contestants have to do for their business ideas on Shark Tank? It would be sort of like… Germany! Instead, student loans are handed out like… pre-2008 mortgages!
This also comes to mind because I’ve worked with far too many people who just aren’t meant to be doing accounting. Give me 2 super competent people to manage over 4 who aren’t suited for their jobs any day. The good ones will get more than twice as much done with less aggravation compared to the not-so-good. There are ways of thinking or looking at problems that you simply can’t teach. Just like you couldn’t teach me how to be more than barely competent in a mechanical sense even if I went to trade school for a dozen years.
It has to be frustrating for the poor fit people too as they watch the people they graduated with get promotions and raises while they stagnate and struggle in a job they aren’t suited for. Maybe they would have been great at a trade or doing something else but their parents had that dream of them becoming white collar cube-dwellers.
Here’s some fun stuff that made me cough and laugh:
Steve Jobs pitching the ipad to Dragon’s Den
Cassetteboy vs. Dragon’s Den and vs. The Bloody Apprentice (both NSFW)
And here’s Harry and Paul promoting the month of Augcember on DD
Can you share what qualities you think would make a good accountant? I have a kid who is interested in becoming a CA and I’m wondering how to know if she is well suited for the profession.
Fuji, I’ll have to think about this further. There’s good and then there’s great. Off the top of my head, the great ones see both detail and big picture or patterns / interconnectedness. They ask “why?” or “does that make sense?” a lot and challenge their own and others assumptions. A tendency towards perfectionism (that you have to learn to grow out of) is kind of a good sign as well.
I’ve only seen the greatness in a couple of kids straight out of university and they’re doing very well in their careers.
Having said that, there’s so many paths that can come out of having the designation that “accountant” is really too narrow. It’s a good door opener to a lot of fields.
Oddly enough, many of the better ones are Virgos – according to my highly unscientific anec-data obtained observing when birthdays are celebrated around the office…
I do believe there is something to astrology. I dismissed it for a long time until I realized that, as a virgo, I can often predict who else is a virgo after first meeting. Happened often enough to beat the statistical odds and shift me from sceptic to accepter. I would believe that natural accountants fit the virgo profile
LOL Jeanie – I used to be able to tell someone’s astrological sign within 5 minutes of talking to them in a bar WAY back in the day (oh the 80′s was a wild time). I was rarely wrong too. So although I may not understand it, I accept that there’s something to it as well.
Jacq, your linkage has the greatest potential to make me waste time on the web. And why is it that the British versions of reality shows seem to have more interesting characters? Maybe my personal bias?
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Andrew, if I’m going to waste time (and have fun) following squirrels so does everyone else.
The British have the best comedy. We have Trailer Park Boys! I can’t even think of a funny American show since maybe In Living Color – although that did have Jim Carrey (Canadian) and the Wayans (coincidentally I just saw them live last week – one was hysterical, one was meh). I need to watch more TV.
One of these days I’ll watch an episode of 30 Rock and Big Bang Theory and see if I like them. My son says that BBT and How I Met Your Mother are the funniest shows right now (outside of his great loves of Colbert Report and Jon Stewart).
I’m a bit skeptical that someone who is bad at a college-trade is going to be good at a non-college-trade. So much depends on things like responsibility, attention to detail, mindset, etc. that I kind of think an excellent plumber might also make a pretty good accountant and vice versa. (Or carpenter, as in the case of my FIL before he hurt his back.) Sure there’s stuff like analytical thinking etc, but those tend to be pretty necessary in most trade-school professions as well.
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Interesting. I haven’t seen a lot of highly sensory / physical people (typically in trades) being happy working in more abstract environments and vice versa.
I bet sucky accountants and sucky plumbers (and, really, sucky employees of many types) share common characteristics. Also, many trades require abstract reasoning skills (more-so than many white collar clerical jobs or sales jobs).
Maybe my DH’s family is just special, but many of them have switched between trades and white-collar because of circumstances beyond their control. The ones who are good workers are good whatever they do, and the ones who are slackers slack until they find a wife or disability check to support them.
They also don’t tend to have the luxury of thinking of a job as a vocation or a passion or whatever. A job is a job and either you do well at it because you’re a responsible person or you don’t.
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Oh, I’m not discounting your experience. But I still believe that there’s the potential of a good fit for most people where it’s like a goldilocks chair – where something just feels right and it’s a joy to go to work on Monday mornings. You can even be doing the same thing but in a different environment and get that. I do think it’s worth it to try and find that special spot.
But learning to “suck it up princess” and just do what needs to be done to support your family is a highly noble endeavour as well.
I’m glad you can take an objective look at your kids and see where their talents lie. I coach volleyball and so many of these parents are so far out of touch with reality when it comes to their kids. They think they are some type of super star when really they aren’t too good and have bad attitudes, haha.
Anyways, I actually just guest posted on Credit Karma’s blog about the student loan debt bubble and I’m glad you posted that link to Mark Cuban’s blog post(about to go read it), b/c it looks like we have some very similar ideas.
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Post your link FAYP. I read very few financial blogs. FWIW, my kids read everything I write about them – good and “bad”. Like my oldest says “knowing someone else’s opinion is a good thing, it might mean you should change something.” And he knows I only want the best for him and for him to be happy. But not in a delusional way. Not much chance of that I guess.
I did exactly as you stated..I only looked at professions that had a high job placement rate and a high enough starting salary that would offset the loan expenses I planned on taking on. Anything else just seemed like gambling to me. The good news was that the subjects I liked the most (math and science) lent itself to higher paying jobs anyway, so for me it was a win/win. I’m not sure what I would have done if I had a passion for humanities.
Sandy, I liked (and was good at I suppose) every subject. Maybe not physics…
I think you would have been ok had you had a passion for humanities BUT were also good at a more practical subject. Like HR would be a practical fit for someone interested in psychology. Managing people is good too.
I’ve had a few jobs where the main thing I did was writing and research and the accounting was secondary.
I was really struck by your statement that college loans are handed out like pre-2008 mortgages. I wondered why they don’t have to qualify academically and then realized that they’re accepting the university’s acceptance of them. Of course, universities accept anyone now because it’s all about the money. That’s why many of them are loathe to accept CLEP credits. Why should they when they can insist student pay full tuition?
I think Nicole is right that bad employees are bad employees, but you can be a dumb bad employee or a smart one. With the latter, you might actually get occasional good work from them.
As usual, there are no easy fixes.
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Well that’s the thing Mel. The only qualifier is “are you enrolled / enrolling in university?” Not “can you pay it back given what you’re taking as a major?” or anything like that.
And many kids of that age either don’t want to listen to their parents who might advise them to take the least they can get by with or aren’t really committed to finishing (the stats on drop-outs are really high) or just aren’t very practical. Or they try to be practical but the market is just very bad.
Yes, very true about bad employees. My #1 hiring qualifier has always been attitude. But I’ve worked with more than a few people who were super hard workers but just never got the whole “pattern to the numbers” concept. Sigh…