<p>Erin’s Dad, I understood your post. Sometimes, one DOES have to do what is put in front of him/her, but the “sometimes” implies that sometimes, one doesn’t. </p>
<p>oldfort, I’m sure there are many jobs in which tasks must be done in a pre-determined, pre-approved way. There’s a business purpose served in doing those tasks in the pre-determined, pre-approved way; by definition, this is not busywork. </p>
<p>What purpose is served by giving a kid busywork? The Mardi Gras mask for French class, the 20th problem when the concept was learned by the first, as pointed out above. Manufacturing busywork instead of advancing a kid’s academics by meaningful work is a waste of the kid’s time. It’s the equivalent in the workplace of moving files from one drawer to another, only to have to move them right back to the original drawer – just something to keep someone artificially busy, not engaged in anything that has meaning or use to the company.</p>
<p>As an employer, I didn’t like my employees’ time wasted. As an employee, I don’t like to have my time wasted. As a parent, I don’t like to have my student’s time wasted. Rather than give my student an assignment that is designed simply to occupy his time, I’d rather he be given an assignment through which he learns something about the topic he’s studying, or in which something he’s already learned is learned more deeply, more thoroughly.</p>
<p>The military is an example of an employer who routinely gives purposefully meaningless assignments in order to drill into everybody’s head that soldiers are not to think for themselves or decide what does and does not have to get done. Some kids have a very hard time with this concept. </p>
<p>I had an intern once who produced consistently fast, sloppy work (mispelled business names and other careless errors). When I told him the details were more important than speed, he responded that he disagreed. This kid was both getting paid and getting course credit for his internship. I told him he would not get a good evaluation from me at the end of the summer if the quality of his work didn’t improve. To that, he answered that he was OK with getting a B. He later had the nerve to ask me for a letter of recommendation when he applied to business school. I assured him he would not want the school to see what I had to say about him.</p>
<p>I agree with the posters who say it is important to find a career that fits your style.</p>
<p>Analyst - interesting post. I agree with your frustrations, however did you look at the other side of the mirror? Maybe it was never learned the details. Was it not your job to teach without being controlling and negative with the expectation? Positive reinforcement?
JMHO.</p>
<p>No, once you get to a real job, no one has time to teach you or do any hand holding. My old boss used to say “You either get it or you don’t.” He also used to say to new graduates, “This is not like school, you either get an A or F.”</p>
<p>Toughest thing for new graduates moving from an academic to work environment is no one is obligated to teach or give positive reinforcement. It is quite competitive in my line of work. It is not unusual for people to withhold information sometimes. At the same time the work requires a lot of team work. If someone is not cutting it, it is not unusual for other people to try to get that person off the team. </p>
<p>I have two interns in my department this summer. The first thing I told them was, “I have asked people to help you out, but everyone’s time is valuable. They will spend some time with you, but if you really want to learn anything, you have to contribute/help out with other people’s work load. If you do not add to anyone’s bottom line then there is no incentive for them to waste their valuable time on you.” By doing sloppy work creates more problem for a team.</p>
<p>I agree with Oldfort and TheAnalyst. I am not a detail-oriented person, but I recognize it’s a character flaw in me that is no one’s responsibility but mine to fix. Supervisors and colleagues are supposed to show interns the ropes, not to correct their character flaws or cleaning up after them.</p>
<p>Analyst, I strongly disagree with your assumptions about the military. I think you’ve read Catch 22 too many times. Members of the military have no more time to do meaningless chores than personnel in any other industry. At times people in the lower ranks may not see the reasons for what they do. That should be shown to them by their leadership.</p>
<p>Mythmom–such an insightful post about constructing a life that suits one’s nature. I can see how true that is, in my life, also. And, it is a reassuring concept. Everyone has different interests & strengths–the key is to maximize them, while dealing with weakness in a workable way. Not everyone is strong in every area. Along those lines, I sometimes think: would Einstein have been beating himself up that he couldn’t compose like Mozart?</p>
<p>I head up an IT group that supports a front office at a BB wall street firm. Before IT, I structured deals, that’s why my boss used to say, “you either get an A or F” when you work on a deal. Can’t afford any sloppy work. In IT now, not following the procedure and check in wrong code to be deployed could also mean millions of $ to the firm or reputation lost in displaying wrong statement or prices to customers. I decided to retire to IT after 20 years in the front office.:)</p>
<p>19/95 is definitely one I missed. She did specifically exclude 11/11 etc - anything where it equalled 1. Looking back on it, I think she just wanted us to spend time practicing division… LOL</p>
I do also. The vast majority of my jobs have involved to-do lists that were much longer than could be done in the time allocated … one of the major life skills I needed to learn was “selective neglect” … figuring out which activities were the true A-list items for my manager and required doing top quality work on them and which were OK to complete in a “good enough” manner. I think this issue shows up early in academics also … the was NO WAY I could have thoroughly read all the readings (never mind the suggested readings) in my B-school program … I can’t imagine the time the reading took for folks for whom English was not their first language. As an undergrad the same thing happened around some classes in topics like history and government.</p>
<p>Re: "It is quite competitive in my line of work. It is not unusual for people to withhold information sometimes. At the same time the work requires a lot of team work. If someone is not cutting it, it is not unusual for other people to try to get that person off the team. </p>
<p>“I have to ask…what line of work is this?” </p>
<p>don’t know what oldfort does for a livingm but if s/he doesn’t want to say then it’s none of my - or any of your - gd business. nor does it matter. 35 years as a chem eng i have certainly had the same experience: work is at least as political as it is professional</p>
<p>My sister is brilliant and was one of those “non-compliant” students who never made those extra credit flash cards or did those boring, repetitive homework assignments, yet had great test scores and is a fantastic writer. At 50 years old, she was in various graduate programs for 20 years, finally settling on a terminal MS degree leading to university employment. My parents have squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars on her education. She has been on tenure tracks at three colleges (and is now looking for a fourth.) She has really done very little that she didn’t want to do: take a final for a class that she felt was too easy, do work assignments that were “beneath” her, serve on “unnecesary” committees, and handle all of the crazy-making tasks that most professionals just must deal with. I bet she’s not all that much fun as a co-worker, sometimes. </p>
<p>The patterns and attitudes about work the OPs child sets now can follow for a lifetime. Advice to OP: please don’t make excuses for his failure to complete work as assigned. It’s great that he has pulled up his grades and that he is a supportive son. But most of us learn that we have to do things we don’t want to do in order to reach a higher goal and to work in team with others.</p>
While I agree, I also think that not everything needs to be done perfectly. While I knew it might cost my son some college acceptances - I didn’t nag him (much) about getting B’s in English when I think he could have gotten A’s. He taught himself a lot in the time he wasn’t buttering up his English teachers. If you don’t take noncompliance to extremes I think it can be healthy. Perfectionism can also be crippling.</p>
Members of the military have no more time to do meaningless chores than personnel in any other industry. At times people in the lower ranks may not see the reasons for what they do. That should be shown to them by their leadership.</p>