G.L.E.O.C. vs. S.P.H.R.M

When the Captain hits the nail on the head, in a forest of Lefties, what are the chances of the Lefties hearing anything?

MBAs were so in vogue back when the private sector in America was growing but that was over a dozen years ago. Leviathan has squashed private sector growth such that surviving organizations have retrenched with capital now on strike (Atlas Shrugging). MBAs were never much more than corporate carpetbaggers but now have morphed into rent seeker's rent seekers.

I recall in the late Seventies, I was interviewing summer students for a large company and an HR lady was assisting me but had to run off to interview MBAs because that's what the CEO wanted. I was familiar with one of the candidates as we had worked together before he was let two years earlier (before he went back for his MBA). The HR lady wasn't interested in anything I knew about him, only that she was to hire MBAs. This was back when corporate excess could afford stupidity. Needless to say, that corporation no longer exists.

I recall the misadventure of dating a gal with a more-or-less freshly minted MBA.

She was constantly trying to land a position appropriate to her credentials and income expectations.

Part of her difficulty was the assumption that her MBA qualified her for the job of BOSS...the pinacle...entry positions were out of the question.

One day in response to her constant declaration of what her pay scale was...I retorted that $60/hr was not imprerssive....that I regularly earned $100/hr. Her demanded what....I replied busting stuff...(I had a sideline dropping old silos using explosives).

Her retort was how many hours have you been paid for in the last year? My response---6.

Predictably that inspired a belittling remark...to which I responded...6 more hours than you have been paid for...end of relationship...

The crux is having the licence(credentials), the material and the know-how doesn't guarantee clients.

I see this in play every day at work.
We call them Ghost children.
People who live dor a future that has come & gone. Lingering around, haunting work places they think benieth them.
With complaints they should be doing something else, since they went to University.
Kinds like beggers who find out their not the Princes or Princesses of the World.
Just frogs who figure an institution can turn them into people.
JMO

perhaps the Shrek picture on FB doesn't help, either.

I got my Mechanical Engineering degree 11 years ago and while I did plan to get an MBA I waited until I found a company that would pay it.

I would never in a million years pay my own money for a sheet of paper with those three letters on it.

I'd be interested in knowing what all their undergraduate degrees were in.

LOL, to bad they didn't go to trade school so they could of learned a marketable skill. Oh well sounds like the wife was the smart one of the bunch.

I graduated with an MBA in 2009, doubling my previous salary. Background is a B.A in English Lit. Salary from 40-80. I know 80 is hardly 160, but I am very positive about it nonetheless. I don't give all the credit to the degree for my success (too early to call it that anyhow) but rather the work ethic during the degree that impressed a classmate who was in a position to hire me afterwards.

I also completed a number of small contracts (2 month, 4month) before even signing for a full year and I am still contracted year to year. Good degree, I would recommend it to anyone as for me it will have paid for itself in 2 years, including the opportunity cost of taking it.

However, we all need to realize that no degree will give you anything but an opportunity to work hard and prove that you can provide value. Too many people think that employment is a right that they deserve, not something that is earned through the application of energy and skill.

I will say that I wouldn't have hired 25% of my class to tie my shoes.

$40 - 60K for an MBA grad? My 2nd year mech. eng. student son has a summer job paying $22/hr starting wage. Over a year he would gross more than $60K since they get a fair amount of overtime. Any half decent job should make more than $60K. Why get an MBA?

An MBA has become old hat but it was the golden ring many aspired to get when I was an engineering student in the early 70's.

Now it is about as revered as a degree from the University of Phoenix, that notorious diploma mill.

I have watched in disbelief as my partner studied first a BA then an MBA as an employed adult. Both were from so-called prestigious universities in BC.

The loss of personal time is certainly massive and there has to be a very strong commitment to completion, but the subject matter, the degree of copying and plagiarism amongst her cohort, and the inflated grades for mediocre work was mind-boggling. She arranged her syllabus so that an absolute minimum of math was required, her ability to do algebra or even to solve equations given data was and is negligable.

Based on this, I have come to the conclusion that most degrees not related to science, engineering and hopefully medicine are basically worthless. You may get someone willing to apply themselves to a task, but very little more than that.

Having said that, the place where she works is extraordinarily impressed (mostly females,very "you go-girl" oriented, publicly-funded) and she has had some hefty raises during that period.

Oh, foo. I got a degree in ElecEng, went out to work in telecom for 20 years, and then started taking an MBA. Did I learn anything? You bet.

What did I know about accounting beforehand? (And I'm married to an accountant!) Not very much. I knew what bookkeeping was, but cost accounting, management accounting, etc. - I was clueless then, not so much now.

Finance? I knew the difference between stocks and bonds, and ways companies might raise capital, but did I really appreciate the importance of cash flow and working capital, or know how to really dig through an income statement or a balance sheet? Not a chance.

Marketing? I worked for 20 years in marketing, and yet when I tackled this subject, I realized how much of what I knew was a hodge-podge, with no structure or framework. I worked for firms that thought "marketing" meant "advertising", then watched as they shot themselves in the foot, over and over, with channel conflict at every level. These firms engineered great products - world beaters in every way - but went down the tubes when they failed to market the products properly. Engineers don't know everything.

Strategic planning? As an exercise that employs the whole firm (almost) to produce 8 fat binders that sit on a shelf? Useless. As an exercise by the CEO, other C-level execs, and division heads to produce a concise (10-12 page) report that is reviewed by the board frequently, and is constantly updated to reflect changing market conditions (and hence company actions)? Priceless.

I think an MBA earned after working in the field for 10 years or more is an important addition to your education. Personal case in point:

Dear wife is Dir. of Finance at a chain of car dealers in the GTA. Her opinion of the sales people? "All idiots". Of the sales managers? "Idiots" Of the service manager? "Idiot". Her boss - who doesn't have an MBA - puts up with this. If I were he, I'd direct dear wife to work on the sales floor for a month at half salary, which would be bumped back up to full salary if she sold ONE car. For expected profit, of course, not at reduced margin, or god forbid, a loss. I certain that as week three rolled by, she'd develop a very healthy respect for the stress the sales people - who are all on commission - live under every day. And why would I suggest this experiment? It was part of what I learned in my Organizational Behaviour course.

I've worked for the stereotypical undergrad who went right into MBA school and then into the working world with only summer jobs. He was a disaster, so I'm sympathetic to those who feel that way about MBA's, but those are a special case. Those of us who earned ours after a few years in the real world truly appreciate the insights it gives us, and the gaps it fills in.

I still don't put it on my resume, though.

I'm reminded of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M98x-FLp7E

"When I couldn't get a job, went broke and had to move back in with my parents, I started to doubt that I was better than you. Now I have a room full of people who agree that I am."

Want to make money ~ and I mean real money? Not PHD cash. Not that successful lawyer or the dentist, specialty doctor cash.. No, that's just chump change. Get ready for this: go into excavation. Sounds absurd? Let me tell you a short story. I have lived in 3 towns in my lifetime, the story centers around the last two.

In the first town the richest person started with nothing, bought his first dirt dump truck and worked relentlessly until he owned a construction company, 3 strip malls, 4 food chains (80+ restaurants), 5 apartment complexes with over 200 units in each (over 1,000 total) and he went along to work for government and is in retirement now and lives on, and owns, an Island in the Caribbean. No one has heard much about him lately.

The second person lives in my home town. He came here as an immigrant with $5.00 in his pocket and he bought a wheel barrel with the cash. He started an excavation business, bought more trucks, hired employees and paid them well, started a construction business, went on to be the largest private land owner in a state outside of our state. Owns a ski resort (recently sold), hundreds of housing complexes, a rental business (large crane type equipment etc), 3 malls, party stores on and on...

The second richest person in our area happens to be the plumber who owns a newly built castle in our town and who is now retired living somewhere - nobody knows. Worth Conservatively 50 million.

Moral of the story: get a trade and learn it well, work your butt off, expand business. Forget advanced education as you can easily hire most of them for a bit over minimum wage. Enough said ( and I graduated from university )

Worth Conservatively 50 million.

Misstatement, added zero - worth 5 million conservatively.

N - no I don't live in my mothers basement. I live in my own home (paid for in full a number of years ago) and work as an volunteer for number of non-profits, churches, homeless shelters and the like. Thank you Sir or Madam.

I took 4 days of training in Austin, TX that taught me a year and a half of accounting in a day. I walked out of that day completely competent in analysing balance sheets, cash statements, and income statements; and how they inter-relate.

The other 3 days were on understanding business financial analysis and finance. That 4 days was worth every bit as much as an MBA. (BTW, it was taught by a guy with a BA in Accounting and an MBA in Finance; who has made it his life's work to simplify the process, while making many millions of dollars in private business.)

MBA = Mediocre But Arrogant

More than a few that I've seen, anyways :D

mhb23re

The only thing that tops a freshly minted MBA is freshly minted Six Sigma Black Belt ... good for a laugh ... but if you actually want any work done send them out to do research that you will probably ignore and let the experienced staff do their jobs.