I wonder if being smart can sometimes hurts you in the real world

[entpersonal]

I think its true for everything "just being adequate" will never get anyone promoted.

You know, Bill, you're super average. Come have a cigar in my office. Bill: WTF?

 

[BlackDog]

I don't know though... If you say 'average', then by definition roughly half of your co-workers are better than you. So you probably won't be promoted. But if you mean 'average' in the sense of 'average joe', then Joe may well have certain qualities in which his averageness lifts him above the average for the boss. Maybe he is dependable and non-threatening, or maybe the boss likes to surround himself with Average Joes because he is an Average Joe. Maybe any number of things...

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It can help you adapt to changes better. But, true, if everyone thinks you are a dick, that might not matter.

 

[Tiltyred]

Something tells me lots of you have never worked in offices before.

 

[prplchknz]

Something tells me lots of you have never worked in offices before.

I've helped my mom as a kid in the office, but never officially worked in one. Of course it be like filing and most of the time it be me playing on her computer while she was in a meeting

 

[Typh0n]

Something tells me lots of you have never worked in offices before.

In high school, I was an assistant to one of the office workers there, and after a few days of working there she took someone else to do the job because I wasnt "snappy" enough in the way I executed work. I did everything right and all, but I guess it wasnt enough.

 

[Avocado]

I think being smart makes you better off. Critical thinking skills can help you most of all. You get to view politicians with the understanding that their message is being condensed into sound bytes for the public while they juggle policy between the loudest and wealthiest special interests groups in an effort to stay in office long enough to promote other policy they actually believe in. You get to view the news media as a cutthroat business with very low profits that can't afford real reporters anymore and instead relies on regurgitating official statements (press releases) and either obsesses over the appearance of neutrality (so provides no analysis of these statements) or goes far over the deep end into partisanship despite being fully aware that they're reporting lies. You get to view the advertising media as a soulless machine that will stop at nothing to sell a product and knows full well that the best way to sell a product to people is by convincing them that they are broken without it. You get to know that religion is the means by which those who want your resources stir pathos in an effort to get you to give those resources to them.

Knowing all this, in my opinion, is much more helpful than it is hurtful.

Very insightful. Do you believe the world is getting better or worse?

 

[The Iron Giant]

Very insightful. Do you believe the world is getting better or worse?

With regard to this stuff? It's the same world. It's just become far too easy to sleep through our problems.

 

[The Iron Giant]

Something tells me lots of you have never worked in offices before.

I work in one. Why do you say that?

 

[Mole]

We like those like ourselves.

And as we all fall on the Bell Curve, almost all of us fall in the middle, and few fall at either end.

So if we fall at either end of the Bell Curve, we will be socially excluded.

 

[Haven]

There's such a thing as being too smart for your own good. It's like being smart enough to be on a different level from everyone else, but not smart enough to realize when you've screwed yourself over.

 

[chubber]

There's such a thing as being too smart for your own good. It's like being smart enough to be on a different level from everyone else, but not smart enough to realize when you've screwed yourself over.

I have to agree with this.

 

[Honor]

I have to agree with this.

lol, i do too

i also don't think being "smart" helps beyond a certain level. there are a lot of other characteristics that will help you out more, at least where i live.

 

[Such Irony]

I think the ideal is to be above average in intelligence but not too far above average. If you're too far above average, it's harder to communicate with the average folk and have them understand you without talking down to them. Also, it may actually be harder to get a job if you're too far above the norm. Sometimes bosses are afraid or uncomfortable to hire people smarter than themselves.

 

[WhoCares]

follow up question: why is the world like this? wouldn't it be better to ignore the people and do your job?

Because most people are social creatures. In my 15yrs in offices I spent 7hrs a day socialising and 1hr performing the so-called tasks of my job. Your job isnt the email checking, report writing bit, its the keeping everyone else in the office happy bit. Now that I work a logisitics job, 8:30mins is socialising and only 30mins is performing the tasks of my job. No matter where you go, you cant get past the fact that its all about the social aspect. Wherever people gather in groups they will rally against the one who doesn't fit into their happy little existence. Its just what is.

I am always promoted in whatever environment I'm in, because I keep the people happy and I focus on the job. Got no time for politicking, backstabbing and gossip. Just got time for smiling, acknowledging and quietly going about my business. Competence is good, non-threatening competence is even better.

 

[garbage]

Smart people can investigate, work through, and change the world so that their smarts don't explicitly hurt them. Lots of 'survival' skills--especially social skills such as communication and negotiation--can be learned. Who learns better than smart people?

 

[Comeback Girl]

Yes. I'd compare it with having very large boobs: when you have very large boobs, sometimes people just treat you as a huge walking pair of boobs and nothing else. You could say the same thing about being smart: when you have very large brains, sometimes people just treat you as a huge walking set of brains. At least when I was a kid. Other kids who had a regular intelligence were encouraged to follow their hearts and pursue all their dreams, while I was being pushed to fill my time with 'brainy' things once they found out I was clever. It's not nice to be objectified and treated as just some brains, I'd prefer people to just think that I'm fun and good-looking.