1150
I think an intern helps them tie their shoes too (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/memes@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 46 points 2 years ago (13 children)

There are legitimately situations where a meritless person is mooching off of an organization because of corruption (e.g. cronyism, nepotism, abusing union). And then there are situations where a person appears completely incompetent, but has this one unique skill or asset that makes them absolutely invaluable to the company (e.g. savant, schmoozer, someone with connections). It's important to be able to tell them apart.

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  • [+] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Knowing another person is not a skill lol

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    No, but knowing people and being so persuasive they'll come do shit for you and your team is a skill.

    I've had bosses that were very affable and able to talk just anyone around and it truly is a useful skillet

    Edit...skillset, even

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    So many people in IT don't understand this. I'm glad I did a lot of customer service while programming was still just a hobby.

    Developing the product or supporting the product dev team in some way (tech support, project managers, etc) is great, but if the company doesn't have people to schmooze other people to give them money, your product doesn't have much financial value.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    We have an Excel expert, its in no way his job but god damn that man is helpful. He is also a combative asshole when he is in a mood.

    People are like "How do you put up with him" and I dont tell them "Because he found ways to make 2 hours of administrative work take 30 minutes."

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  • [+] -3 points 2 years ago (5 children)
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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I can’t speak for any individual, but let’s draw up a theoretical scenario:

    You’re the world’s highest contributing cancer researcher, responsible for breakthrough after breakthrough. You’re 80 years old and you want to retire next year. You earn $1 million a year. in order to collaborate with other researchers, specialized piece of software must be used. Given you’re brilliant, you could certainly take a training course and learn it in eight hours - $4000 worth of your time. Instead you scan your paper notebooks and send the copies to an intern who spends an hour a week transferring the data into the software. If the intern is paid $50 an hour, cost savings are $1500 over the year. more cancer research gets done.

    Highly specialized people who can learn everything and do have access to all necessary tools are not necessarily idiots for evaluating and deciding to make certain trade offs. recommend looking into opportunity cost.

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