TGIF – College Grads Cleaning Up

As the week winds down, we wind down with some tidbits for your information, education, health, and enjoyment.

Quote of the Week: “During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz.  I breezed through the questions until I read the last one:  ‘What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?’  Surely this was a joke.  I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name?  I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.  Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade.  ‘Absolutely,’ the professor said.  ‘In your careers, you will meet many people.  All are significant.  They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.’  I’ve never forgotten that lesson.  I also learned her name was Dorothy.”  Joann C. Jones

Humor Break:

Bev: Why did your friend Andy quit his janitorial job?

Al: He finally caught on that grime doesn’t pay.

Stat of the Week: “The Center for College Affordability & Productivity cites this interesting statistic: 115,000 janitor jobs in the U.S. are held by people with bachelor’s degrees.”  This was reported in a recent article in Forbes Magazine called Harvard Grad Seeks Babysitting Jobs.  The article argues that college isn’t for everyone and presents this amusing thought in defense of its argument: “That is the fallacy that has you thinking a phenomenon true for any one person or thing can be simultaneously true for every person or thing. The classic illustration of the fallacy goes like this: One person can see better at the ballgame by standing up, so if everybody in the stadium stands up they will all see better.”

Action Tip: While I concur that college isn’t for everyone, this is a provocative article that has a very one-sided feel to it.  Read it, but read it cautiously and critically.

Self-Development Corner: For our many readers in medical related fields, Coursera, the free online university, offers Introductory Human Physiology beginning February 25 (12 weeks, Duke University) and Aids beginning February 25 (9 weeks, Emory University)

For our (very) few French speaking engineer readers, Coursera offers Analyse Numérique pour Ingénieurs (7 weeks, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne).  The course began February 18, but it is not too late to join in the fun.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.