The ‘Real’ World

[toddnjoyce]

Most of y’all know I stuck around long enough to retire in 2016, and went to the corporate world shortly thereafter. To a very mission-oriented financial services company.

I had the ‘opportunity’ to participate in a diversity discussion panel today. My role was to provide the military perspective to a group of employees with no direct touch to the military.

I was quite amazed at the amount of pushback on the concept of individual merit in all aspects of the discussion. It seemed merit only counted after the fact, which is counter to the military ethos. Really disheartening.

Towards the end, I had a few minutes for closing comments and spoke about the diversity in the room. Make/female, race, color, religion, education, age, it was all represented across the spectrum.

I asked a rhetorical question whether the group would prefer to blindly hire someone aligned to the mission or selectively choose among candidates who were from under-represented groups.

After a brief pause, I asked if they thought our core customer, the active duty military member and their immediate family, would rather be taken care of by someone who was there due to competence and merit or because that person was there due to what they brought to the diversity table.

When Mattis first became SECDEF, he gave an impromptu pep talk about how we, the military, needed to stay the course while America got their shit in one sock.

That was refreshing to hear. I’m just curious whether or not the ‘rest of America’ is making progress towards that, or if the divides seen in the media aware worsening.

What do y’all think? Take away the media and all that shit, what’re your day to day interactions telling you?

 

[Army 1911]

Diversity is the newest affirmative action and just as Insidious.

There may have been a point for affirmative action at one time but no longer in diversity is even worse.

I don't know about you but I don't want my brain surgeon coming from the Acme company.

 

[deemus]

I have hired only women, so that meets a diversity tab. Black, white, mexican. Pretty diverse. Dang, never really thought about it before. But I hired them all because of their skills. They just happened to be women.

 

[baboon]

Affirmative action was just another reason I left Illinois @ age 23 for the great unknown of Texas. I guess I have a lot to thank for affirmative action.

 

[toddnjoyce]

I have hired only women, so that meets a diversity tab. Black, white, mexican. Pretty diverse. Dang, never really thought about it before. But I hired them all because of their skills. They just happened to be women.

That was the point I was trying to make. Thanks.

 

[vmax]

Does THIS answer your question?!

 

[diesel1959]

Professional life that doesn’t proceed on the basis of merit and demonstrated competence is simply unthinkable in my mind.

 

[toddnjoyce]

View attachment 165061 Does THIS answer your question?!

No. Elected office is, at best, a popularity contest.

 

[vmax]

how do you think she got here in the first place?
A refugee program. How do you get to be a refugee?
It aint’ white middle class people they are bringing in exactly.

You ask and I answered. You don’t have to like or accept my answer. But that is my answer.
We are being watered down with diversity.
We are being dissolved.

 

[karlac]

Successful, and worthwhile completion of any mission/task/project relies heavily on one overriding necessity:

"Attention to detail".

"Diversity" plays no part in that whatsoever.

 

[toddnjoyce]

how do you think she got here in the first place?
A refugee program. How do you get to be a refugee?
It aint’ white middle class people they are bringing in exactly.

You ask and I answered. You don’t have to like or accept my answer. But that is my answer.
We are being watered down with diversity.
We are being dissolved.

And I appreciate the answer. Obviously, that’s not what I took away from just the photo.

 

[Darkpriest667]

I'm sorry I had to laugh. If you walk into corporate world 2019 and expect anything but politically correct lip service you're naive. That's not a dig at you at all Todd we're all guilty of it. I learned the hard way as a teacher and in the private sector. I adore you as a person, but dang dood. I'm surprised they didn't fire you on the spot for asking about hiring based on merit.

My guess is because you are in one of the "protected groups." Veterans, women, certain minorities, and certain religious groups are all now protected or desired groups. They get special consideration and treatment above and beyond merit. So your veteran status may have just saved your ass from getting fired for what you said.

 

[Younggun]

I think you may be exaggerating the amount of protection “veteran status” offers in the corporate world. Especially in a company more concerned with an employees race than abilities.


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[Younggun]

I have nearly full control over who gets hired for my crew. Safely, the hiring pool in this area is small. It usually comes down to finding a person that doesn’t look like a dope head and doesn’t walk away when they find out they can’t drink while on-call.

That said, the pay scales are only semi merit based. It’s a physical job and paygrades are based in knowledge only. We had a female at one point who couldn’t get a shovel in to the ground, couldn’t carry a bag of debris, couldn’t move a drum full of oil or debris, etc. she was paid the same as the crew members who were doing this manual labor as well as having to take up the slack for her shortcomings.


Diversity is just code for equity. And the only diversity the left cares about is superficial. You’ll never see a leftist call for diversity of thought which is why your question confused them.


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[TexasBrandon]

I've been in the civilian sector for nearly 10 years since my abrupt exit from the Army due to injuries sustained in Iraq. I can tell you that no one gives a damn about your veteran status as much as they do about others. I don't feel that I need any special consideration, I'm a disabled vet, I do my job, and don't ask for anything other than a paycheck that increases yearly assuming I meet all of the best criteria for end of year evaluations.

There are plenty of dumbasses that get hired or brought into positions for which they are not qualified. It has almost always been about who you know. Every job I have gotten except one after the Army was about who I knew. While I am qualified for what I do, I would expect my job to dry up in a heartbeat if they thought they could get it done for cheaper.

 

[oldag]

I have never once considered race when hiring. Hired the best talent I could, didn't care if they were purple skinned. And had good success doing so.

Hired a black manager one time (via transfer during a reorg). His former boss tried to discourage me from doing so. Gave him a terrible review. I believed otherwise. The man did a fantastic job. And I made him the highest paid person companywide in that position. He earned it.

Sadly, his former boss (a West Coaster even) was racist as he later proved.

We need to be colorblind. And the country was making good progress on that up through W's presidency. Then Obama played the race card constantly and we went back 40 years on race relations.

Still a good number of folks believe in merit. But so many Fortune 500 companies are going politically correct, that can be difficult.

 

[Brains]

I've never been in the military, and I see that as one of my greatest mistakes looking back. My Dad was in the Army during the Korean conflict and did what he loved (29th Infantry Division Band), got out and opened a music store. My best friend joined the Marines. Many others I know and respect, regardless of where they were in the service. Long story short though, I didn't enlist due to the fear of being assigned where I didn't fit, combined with my knowledge that I didn't "need" anyone guiding my path. Foolish, looking back.

To address your question, I believe folks who served deserve the same shake anyone else does when they get out into the 'real' world. "Having served" means a LOT - but that can be a lot of good, or a lot of bad. So military service can increase or decrease their applicability to the position I'm interviewing them for, but it still boils down to the person. Being in the military can teach you a lot, but that doesn't mean people always learn. Case in point, when I was younger I worked in a music store as an electronics technician. I learned from my boss, and became quite proficient in about a year, how to repair most electronics at component level. Helps that I already knew the basics and already had interests in electronics. We had to fire the one other tech because he was a creepy pedo (not kidding), and we ultimately hired a Navy Senior Chief who happened to be over the ET (Electronics Training) school at Great Lakes Naval Base. He presented well, interviewed well, was retired from service and wanted to continue in the field he loved. He apparently figured working with the "menial" kind of stuff us civilians have was going to be relatively easy and more enjoyable when compared to the highly complex military hardware he was used to. To put it bluntly, he learned he was wrong. Very wrong. One of the first obstacles he had was a personal one - I didn't stand at attention and address him as Senior Chief when he entered the room. I said "Good morning, Dennis." He got through that one pretty well, but it was still a big cultural shift. The next obstacle that was more difficult was the concept of working alone. In our shop, you grabbed a piece of equipment off the rack and went to work on it. Once you fixed and tested it, you finished the work order and called the customer. When the customer arrived you would stop work, greet him, answer any questions and send him upstairs to pay. This was a foreign concept - he's a technician, where were the people who do the other tasks? He got through that one too, and actually did quite well with the customers. I think that actually helped him a lot. But the straw that broke the camel's back, one my boss didn't do much to help, was his lack of applicable skills. When it came to technical ability, the Navy taught him a lot but in a VERY narrow window. He didn't know how to diagnose, he knew how to follow a troubleshooting guide. He didn't actually know electronics, he knew process. Where my boss threw a big wrench into the gears was when Senior Chief was trying to fix an amplifier (Peavey CS800) and in his long course of trying to fix it he blew it up worse. Angry, my boss hastily collected the components, picked it up and slammed it on the bench in front of me. "Fix this." Being 19 years old, I kept my mouth shut and did what he asked, in about 10 minutes (common failure, we repaired them frequently). Senior Chief took it like you might expect, as an act of disrespect. He resigned soon after, but not after sitting down and having a bit of a heart to heart with me. I will always hold that man in high regard, but I also learned first hand how simply having the military credentials doesn't always mean the person will be your best match for a given position. Given the same opportunity to learn as I did, I'm betting he could have picked up the skills. But, my hunch is he was paid a whole lot more than I was so the expectations to perform were higher.

Personally, I don't believe age, race, color, creed, etc. directly have any indication on suitability for the position. I believe you can be a member of a designated group of people based on whatever attribute, but that doesn't mean you will perform similarly. I hire based purely on whether I believe you can fit well in the position, you could be a green blob with carrots for fingers for all I care.

 

[vmax]

Not trying to hijack...but you all should Google

The Peter Principle

Then just take a look around the management team of most companies....

 

[toddnjoyce]

Not trying to hijack...but you all should Google

The Peter Principle

Then just take a look around the management team of most companies....

Don’t even have to google and see that in the military quite often. Just in a different way.

 

[Chirpy]

Hmmmm. I work at a Liberal Arts University....on a good day we can see the real world from here.