Rant about graduates

Kaise
Kaise Posts: 2,498
edited September 2011 in The Crudcatcher
Now I didn’t go to uni as I did an apprenticeship and I have worked my way up with learned by listening to greater experience as well as through college education. I know and have met people that are on graduates schemes in engineering that are awesome to work with, intelligent but yet willing to be told about industry practices etc.

Then you get graduates like the one we have in our department at the minute who has been to oxford, gained a 1st in engineering and is the most frustrating person to work with as he is a similar age to me defines everything I say as being wrong, irrelevant or just doesn’t listen at all. This has been frustrating for a while now and I have held my tongue and let him continue to make mistakes, try and blame me for telling him it should be done that way blah blah blah I could go on.

But today became a brilliant day, a very very brilliant day, we are sat in a design review meeting and the Oxford 1st Graduate in Engineering decides to argue with a presentation I have completed and started getting massively aggressive about it saying I was wrong, that I didn't know what I was talking about, and then he said it;
well if you had been to university then you'd know wouldn’t you

all after the chief engineer has told him to calm down and be quiet.

So calmly I asked him to take the floor and explain his view and present a counter argument to my design solution. He spent 20 mins talking himself up and then when it came to it, he failed. He had a solution that breaches industry guidelines and safety regulations but was convinced he was in the right even though I have taken him to every regulations meeting since he started.

The chief engineers response in the design review, "thanks for your contribution, I think we shall take a break at this point. MrGrad will you join me at my desk for a coffee while we discuss your idea"

The meeting reconvened without the grad and when I returned to my desk he won’t speak or make eye contact with me or our boss and has defo been crying! Going to lunch with the the boss, hopefully he knows what was said.

University education might give you a qualification but it doesn’t stop you being a douche bag!
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Comments

  • cooldad
    cooldad Posts: 32,599
    You are my hero.
    I don't do smileys.

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  • Kaise
    Kaise Posts: 2,498
    cooldad wrote:
    You are my hero.

    no no, you are definately mine
  • We shall all fight for the right to call you god!

    Apprenticeship's are Defo the way foward, they will make a huge comeback in the next 5 years as employee's reel from the amount of people who have a 1st in Philosophy, Art History, Media Studies etc.
  • j_l
    j_l Posts: 425
    Does your employer know you are posting on a web forum when perhaps you should be busy out witting your colleagues??

    though to add, I do tottally agree with your point as I had a very similar experiance with a graduate who's argument was "what does he know, he's just an engineer" :roll:

    :wink:
    I'm not old I'm Retro
  • Abra
    Abra Posts: 338
    I bet you felt pretty damn good after that meeting, I sure would!

    Kaiser 1 - 0 grad :wink:
    DO MORE OF WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY
  • Kaise
    Kaise Posts: 2,498
    J L wrote:
    Does your employer know you are posting on a web forum when perhaps you should be busy out witting your colleagues??

    though to add, I do tottally agree with your point as I had a very similar experiance with a graduate who's argument was "what does he know, he's just an engineer" :roll:

    :wink:

    my boss doesnt care as long as i finish my work on or ahead of time and do the work to my stanadards, if he cared he would have ended my contract and not extended it.

    i wasnt posting to sound like i wanted praise, i was posting to highlight graduate douche bags, but cooldad jumped in with one of his ever so relevant one liners......

    its not 1-0 i just wish he had listened to me before, i would rather he listened and then went one to be a better engineer because of something i taught him than make himself look like a tool.
  • kaiser83 wrote:
    Now I didn’t go to uni as I did an apprenticeship and I have worked my way up with learned by listening to greater experience as well as through college education. I know and have met people that are on graduates schemes in engineering that are awesome to work with, intelligent but yet willing to be told about industry practices etc.

    Then you get graduates like the one we have in our department at the minute who has been to oxford, gained a 1st in engineering and is the most frustrating person to work with as he is a similar age to me defines everything I say as being wrong, irrelevant or just doesn’t listen at all. This has been frustrating for a while now and I have held my tongue and let him continue to make mistakes, try and blame me for telling him it should be done that way blah blah blah I could go on.

    But today became a brilliant day, a very very brilliant day, we are sat in a design review meeting and the Oxford 1st Graduate in Engineering decides to argue with a presentation I have completed and started getting massively aggressive about it saying I was wrong, that I didn't know what I was talking about, and then he said it;
    well if you had been to university then you'd know wouldn’t you

    all after the chief engineer has told him to calm down and be quiet.

    So calmly I asked him to take the floor and explain his view and present a counter argument to my design solution. He spent 20 mins talking himself up and then when it came to it, he failed. He had a solution that breaches industry guidelines and safety regulations but was convinced he was in the right even though I have taken him to every regulations meeting since he started.

    The chief engineers response in the design review, "thanks for your contribution, I think we shall take a break at this point. MrGrad will you join me at my desk for a coffee while we discuss your idea"

    The meeting reconvened without the grad and when I returned to my desk he won’t speak or make eye contact with me or our boss and has defo been crying! Going to lunch with the the boss, hopefully he knows what was said.

    University education might give you a qualification but it doesn’t stop you being a douche bag!

    +1.4531 You learn fuck all in college and university as such. Most of it you learn on the job.
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  • benpinnick
    benpinnick Posts: 4,148
    I think that's just a bad hire, not atypical to find an egotistical Oxbridge first grad, I know many. Most are arses. We hire alot of grads each year, but only pick on ability, not university. For me, getting a grad is basically like taking somebody from college, but with more personality and usually (not always) a sense of independence we often cannot find straight out of college, but there's no special treatment for them.

    Awesome that you put this tool in his place!
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  • Kaise
    Kaise Posts: 2,498
    benpinnick wrote:
    I think that's just a bad hire, not atypical to find an egotistical Oxbridge first grad, I know many. Most are arses. We hire alot of grads each year, but only pick on ability, not university. For me, getting a grad is basically like taking somebody from college, but with more personality and usually (not always) a sense of independence we often cannot find straight out of college, but there's no special treatment for them.

    Awesome that you put this tool in his place!

    thats the thing i didnt put him in any place, he backed himself into a corner and the chief eng obviously said something that touched a nerve and it upset him. my boss was shrugged when i asked what i thought might have been said.
  • University is a way of hiding from the world for three years, then you pay for it for the rest of your life.
    I went to uni and did just that. Now i am an engineer, not what i did at uni, but i suppose i have been since i was 10 and first came into my dads workshop to get my hands filthy. Its all well and good reading text books and writing 12000 word essays but there is no substitute for learning as you do the job, no text book can tell you what to do if a bolt shears and you have to bodge it untill you get the right piece. By far the best, most thorough and efficient way of learning. Its all about problem solving, sounds like your Mr Grad was the problem and you solved him, good work. :lol:

    Thanks for reading.
  • cooldad
    cooldad Posts: 32,599
    kaiser83 wrote:
    i wasnt posting to sound like i wanted praise, i was posting to highlight graduate douche bags, but cooldad jumped in with one of his ever so relevant one liners......

    its not 1-0 i just wish he had listened to me before, i would rather he listened and then went one to be a better engineer because of something i taught him than make himself look like a tool.
    Stop trying to sound sensible, you posted in cruddy. Stupid comments are mandatory.
    No messtins
    Sideways

    You don't have a good graduate in you

    Etc Etc.

    You are still my hero.
    I don't do smileys.

    There is no secret ingredient - Kung Fu Panda

    London Calling on Facebook

    Parktools
  • Kaise
    Kaise Posts: 2,498
    cooldad wrote:
    kaiser83 wrote:
    i wasnt posting to sound like i wanted praise, i was posting to highlight graduate douche bags, but cooldad jumped in with one of his ever so relevant one liners......

    its not 1-0 i just wish he had listened to me before, i would rather he listened and then went one to be a better engineer because of something i taught him than make himself look like a tool.
    Stop trying to sound sensible, you posted in cruddy. Stupid comments are mandatory.
    No messtins
    Sideways

    You don't have a good graduate in you

    Etc Etc.

    You are still my hero.

    you will always be my hero
  • cooldad
    cooldad Posts: 32,599
    I think we should start a lonely hearts/matchmaker thread to meet people.
    Could call it Rides or something.
    I don't do smileys.

    There is no secret ingredient - Kung Fu Panda

    London Calling on Facebook

    Parktools
  • Kaise
    Kaise Posts: 2,498
    wow, thats nobel prize thinking right there!

    could it be used to actually get people to meet in real life? :shock:
  • cooldad
    cooldad Posts: 32,599
    kaiser83 wrote:
    wow, thats nobel prize thinking right there!

    could it be used to actually get people to meet in real life? :shock:
    If we had real lives we wouldn't be annoying random strangers.

    You do not exist. You think you do, but that's what I want you to think.
    I don't do smileys.

    There is no secret ingredient - Kung Fu Panda

    London Calling on Facebook

    Parktools
  • HA! That is a wonderful story.

    All the best graduates have 2.2s anyway.
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  • Kaise
    Kaise Posts: 2,498
    cooldad wrote:
    kaiser83 wrote:
    wow, thats nobel prize thinking right there!

    could it be used to actually get people to meet in real life? :shock:
    If we had real lives we wouldn't be annoying random strangers.

    You do not exist. You think you do, but that's what I want you to think.

    i think you have mistaken me for someone else for i, sir, am a regular polygon where you are most definately a sphere. :wink:
  • Tartanyak
    Tartanyak Posts: 1,538
    I think, perhaps, that you've met what's known in the world as an 'arsehole'.

    Even if he didn't go to university, he'd still be an arsehole.

    I came out of uni with a profound knowledge of how much I didn't yet know.
  • Speaking as someone who has several spanky shiny degrees in Engineering, but doesn't have nearly as much experience as those on the Apprentice route, I have to agree wholeheartedly with you.

    I did at least realise the limitation in my knowledge / experience and sodded off to finance instead...
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  • As a graduate myself... I think this Thread is wrong and needs to be reinvestigated from an educational point of view...

    Just kidding, well done Kaiser, you owned his prissy ass good and solid.

    When I worked for Intel we had a term for those guys: NCG, or New College Graduate, but the undertone of NCG was No Clue Genius...
  • Wooaaahhh, I don't think I'd have upset the graduate like that if i were you, you should apologise immediately, otherwise when he's your boss in a few years he'll screw you right over. (chuckles to self and runs away bravely)

    P.s. If he's incompetent and a graduate then he is destined for management.
    All hail the FSM and his noodly appendage!
  • welshkev
    welshkev Posts: 9,690
    edited September 2011
    see i've got a totally different version of graduates. in my line of work it's usually people who just drift into it and end up doing it. but 2 guys recently who work for other branches have come from good universities both gaining a 1st in physics and have ended up carrying boxes and loading trucks amongst other things with us grunts.

    much respect to them because i'm sure they could make a shed load more money working a lot less than we do :lol:
  • Kaise
    Kaise Posts: 2,498
    otherwise when he's your boss.....

    never going to happen and if it did then i would still be earning more than he is as i am self employed contractor! Boom

    plus i havent upset him, and just as an update, he wont speak to me or our boss still, unless its in direct answer to a question about work, i belive his toys have left the pram!
  • Abra
    Abra Posts: 338
    kaiser83 wrote:
    he wont speak to me or our boss still, unless its in direct answer to a question about work, i belive his toys have left the pram!

    There’s a real good way to alienate yourself from your peers! You'd think in your late 20's that you'd learn to MTFU and except being wrong sometimes. Clearly it’s something he wasn’t taught at Uni...
    DO MORE OF WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY
  • Stevo_666
    Stevo_666 Posts: 61,923
    All the best graduates have 2.2s anyway.
    Bollox - you got a 'Desmond' (2-2) just for turning up when I was at Uni :)

    I also learnt naff all of any use job-wise while I was at Uni, but it was seriously good fun and I got paid to go. So there :P
    "I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]
  • VWsurfbum
    VWsurfbum Posts: 7,881
    I was approached by a friends firm when he went on sick leave, he works in medical sales and does ok, he studied engineering at university but couldnt tell you what end of a screwdriver to hold, but his company wanted me to come in as i had previous sales/engineering experiance (but i did a appreticeship) so know how things work etc etc.
    Long story short, after a very brief chat with his boss on the phone, she discovered that i didnt have a degree so most certainly wouldnt be capable of doing his job? WTF :roll:
    I do however have qulifactations coming out my ears (none for spelling) which add up to a hell load more than a degree but hey ho.

    Didnt really want the job anyway :wink::lol:
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  • Stevo 666

    Yep. Except I very rarely turned up. Still that masters degree should mask the 3 years I spent having the time of my life, running half the sports clubs at uni and generally being awesome. Oh and now I can speak 4 languages.

    Still don't have a job like.
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  • Stevo_666
    Stevo_666 Posts: 61,923
    Stevo 666

    Yep. Except I very rarely turned up. Still that masters degree should mask the 3 years I spent having the time of my life, running half the sports clubs at uni and generally being awesome. Oh and now I can speak 4 languages.

    Still don't have a job like.
    I'd never have had the time to do stuff like running sports clubs, I did a science degree where you had nearIy 20 hours a weeks of lectures n stuff :shock: Apart from that I was busy drinking and chasing punani :D

    Still, you could always get a job in Maccy D's in London, where all those languages would come in handy to understand all the foreign tourists.
    "I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]
  • welshkev
    welshkev Posts: 9,690
    Stevo 666

    Yep. Except I very rarely turned up. Still that masters degree should mask the 3 years I spent having the time of my life, running half the sports clubs at uni and generally being awesome. Oh and now I can speak 4 languages.

    Still don't have a job like.

    i can speak 3 and i only got 3 GCSE's!!! :lol:
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,665
    cooldad wrote:
    You do not exist. You think you do, but that's what I want you to think.
    :shock:
    What the...?
    You're either messing with my head, or confirming my suspicions.