Thursday, October 13, 2005

Maturity




Age, commonly used across the world as the best indicator for maturity/wisdom is really just that. It is only an indicator. Many People unfortunately think it is more of an absolute rule of maturity/wisdom.

In the long stream of jobs I had working my way through college. I seemed to have the works luck with bosses. Every last one was somehow less intelligent and less mature than the last. At first I thought that my experiences were exceptions to the rule instead of a true measure of what it takes to acquire a position of authority in the private sector. Government jobs and incompetence is going to be a complete other post. Unintelligence and immature behavior does not seem to impede people from gaining success at all. This seems contrary to logic but it is empirically true. Just because you reached the age of thirty or forty does not mean you have matured. The opposite is also true, that simply because someone is young, does not mean that they are not yet mature enough to make difficult decisions.

Companies that promote people just because they have been with a company for a certain time period are breeding weakness into their company. Companies, especially those with unions, will have rules like you cannot promote someone above someone else that has been there a longer time. This is very bad, especially for stockholders. This promotes the idea that if you are able to just maintain employment for a long period of time, you would be a good leader. This to me is ridiculous. Companies should be promoting people who are intelligent, charismatic, and can move a goal forward. Just because you have been employed longer than another coworker doesn’t mean you are going to be better at the job. These Ideas however are not in line with many businesses today. Their workers feel it is unfair to promote someone younger than them higher and that they are entitled. Now this statement would anger most old Americans but age does not equal entitlement. If you want something you should work for it. Simply aging should not entitle you to something.

In today’s world age does not equal intelligence. In the past, to make it to an old age you had to learn from your experiences and by the time you made it to old age your survival equaled wisdom. It doesn't take anything special to make it to old age in today’s modern America or any "first" world nation for that matter. Forty years of watching TV does not in any way give you any life experience and wisdom. I treat every human being a common dignity. My respect is however earned. If you want my respect you have to have accomplished something. Age does not necessarily mean you have accomplished something. In all likelihood you have spent your life watching TV and you want me to respect your wisdom.

Post Scriptum, If you are an employer or boss that has employed me since I acquired my BS this article does not apply to you. The company I currently work at does not really apply to anything stated here.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home