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It didn't dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I'd just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn't have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn't succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. "Ivy retardation," a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn't talk to the man who was standing in my own house.
It's not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy. As two dozen years at Yale and Columbia have shown me, elite colleges relentlessly encourage their students to flatter themselves for being there, and for what being there can do for them. The advantages of an elite education are indeed undeniable. You learn to think, at least in certain ways, and you make the contacts needed to launch yourself into a life rich in all of society's most cherished rewards. To consider that while some opportunities are being created, others are being cancelled and that while some abilities are being developed, others are being crippled is, within this context, not only outrageous, but inconceivable.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by cellocgw on Thursday December 29 2016, @01:49AM
Just because this fellow never learned the art of conversation hardly means that's the fault of the Ivies. What a whiny little jackass.
That said, there's a reason there are things like weather and local sports teams: so people from wildly divergent backgrounds have something to negotiate common space with.
I know plenty of people in the trades who have a degree from decent colleges. I know plenty of people in AND out of the trades with whom I can't have anything resembling a conversation because our worldviews are orthogonal.
Screw it: I'd rather talk to dogs anyway. They pay attention.
Physicist, cellist, former OTTer (1190) resume: https://app.box.com/witthoftresume
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 29 2016, @02:41AM
Fully agreed. I'm a bit of a geek, don't like sport and am a little introverted, and even I managed to pick up a few rules of thumb for talking to new people. It's not rocket science.
Do's:
Get people to talk about themselves or something they are passionate about, most people enjoy it and it makes them feel interesting.
Leading on from that, some great conversation starters are to ask people about their hobbies. My favourite one is "what do you do for fun?".
Donts:
Dont listen just to respond with your own story.
Dont ask about their job, at least not straight up. It's just lame.
(Score: 3, Funny) by vux984 on Thursday December 29 2016, @03:51AM
I see those same tips over and over again. I hate them.
"Do's: Get people to talk about themselves or something they are passionate about, most people enjoy it and it makes them feel interesting."
What do you do if you run into someone like me playing the same 'game' as you.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 29 2016, @04:16AM
You smile and nod knowingly at each other, secure in the fact that you both can claim social acceptance without the pesky "conversation" part.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 29 2016, @05:17AM
What do you do if you run into someone like me playing the same 'game' as you.
You figure it out, then talk about what you really want to talk about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 29 2016, @07:17AM
is it so simple, though?
Go cut in on a social conversation your company's CEO or director is having with his or her perers.
The Ivy is gonna pull that off far easier than random developer from ite IT department. Eyebrows might be raised initially about the interloper (intruder), until whispers get around that it was Biff from Cornell, rather than Milton from the IT help desk.
Just as awkward for most CxOs etc to drop in on a random employee group conversation. everyone is usually way too aware of everyones' relative socisl positions.
Sure there are bosses & executives who are just good at it. But most aren't.
kind of like a rancher & his animals. Theyre far easier to send them off to their ultimate destiny if you don't name them...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 29 2016, @11:36AM
If your TLA leaders can't speak to their employees like normal human beings, that's their failing and does not bode well for working conditions or future success of that company.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 29 2016, @06:50PM
Just because this fellow never learned the art of conversation hardly means that's the fault of the Ivies. What a whiny little jackass.
I guess you could argue that it's the Ivie's fault for accepting a student that's too stupid to pick up a DIY book.