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Umm they also do manual/physical labor thus would be included in the area as well. You don't think electrician's and plumbers dig ditches? I suppose you think someone else does it for them.
Where I work, someone else does. Why pay an electrician his wages to do a job a grunt could do?
To get my job, the minimum is a bachelors in hard sciences. But anybody could do it. That goes for many of the jobs that I've had. For any intelligent, semi-educated person, I could take them and train them to do my job in a week flat. Some of the other jobs I've had, it would take a little longer, but no more than a few weeks. It helps to have some knowledge of chemistry, including pH, and chemical reactions, but it's nothing a semi-intelligent person couldn't learn over Wikipedia in a few days. Nothing I learned in Organic Chemistry is ever used at my job. Big surprise...
I've had this discussion with friends of mine who work on Wall Street, as lawyers, as pharmacists, and as bankers. We all make varying degrees of $, and basically agreed that we could all do each others' jobs given some minimum training. It's just they way most conventional jobs are.
On the other hand, consider...
I've been playing the guitar for over 15 years. It would take anybody who has no musical training MANY years of dedicated training to be even close to my level. I couldn't even come close to making any kind of a living doing that. I could maybe clear $20K a year. Yet, somebody is willing to pay me almost three times that amount for a job where I could take somebody off the street and teach them to do it by next Wednesday.
Wacky...
It seems most of your friends are well educated so I think your conclusion is pretty logical. Do you want to train a garbage man or a cashier to do your job and think it will take very little time?
To get my job, the minimum is a bachelors in hard sciences. But anybody could do it. That goes for many of the jobs that I've had. For any intelligent, semi-educated person, I could take them and train them to do my job in a week flat. Some of the other jobs I've had, it would take a little longer, but no more than a few weeks. It helps to have some knowledge of chemistry, including pH, and chemical reactions, but it's nothing a semi-intelligent person couldn't learn over Wikipedia in a few days. Nothing I learned in Organic Chemistry is ever used at my job. Big surprise...
I've had this discussion with friends of mine who work on Wall Street, as lawyers, as pharmacists, and as bankers. We all make varying degrees of $, and basically agreed that we could all do each others' jobs given some minimum training. It's just they way most conventional jobs are.
On the other hand, consider...
I've been playing the guitar for over 15 years. It would take anybody who has no musical training MANY years of dedicated training to be even close to my level. I couldn't even come close to making any kind of a living doing that. I could maybe clear $20K a year. Yet, somebody is willing to pay me almost three times that amount for a job where I could take somebody off the street and teach them to do it by next Wednesday.
Wacky...
I think though, that if you took someone off the street, he would not learn your job very well, would make more mistakes than you, might have a worse work ethic, have trouble writing well, and so on. I don't think you're paid to do a job per se, but to be competent at your job and the many things that go into it.
Focusing on writing skills alone... a LOT of people are not good writers and this is not something that can be cured in a few weeks. Same with general communication skills. And if your job involves math in any way, as your science-related job presumably does, poor math skills (in an adult) are basically impossible to change.
I don't see how someone could learn how to be a pharmacist in a few weeks. Understanding drug-drug interactions takes time. I know my mom's pharmacist catches problems all the time. That's a part of their job.
There is no way someone could come off the street and learn my job, regardless of level of education. The learning curve is steep.
I think though, that if you took someone off the street, he would not learn your job very well, would make more mistakes than you, might have a worse work ethic, have trouble writing well, and so on. I don't think you're paid to do a job per se, but to be competent at your job and the many things that go into it.
Focusing on writing skills alone... a LOT of people are not good writers and this is not something that can be cured in a few weeks. Same with general communication skills. And if your job involves math in any way, as your science-related job presumably does, poor math skills (in an adult) are basically impossible to change.
Well. That is a very good point. Somebody has to have an intrinsic work ethic and level of intelligence. And I have seen people with such bad writing skills, it surprises me that they got through college.
I don't see how someone could learn how to be a pharmacist in a few weeks. Understanding drug-drug interactions takes time. I know my mom's pharmacist catches problems all the time. That's a part of their job.
There is no way someone could come off the street and learn my job, regardless of level of education. The learning curve is steep.
Not every job is included in this discussion. Obviously, being a doctor and dentist requires high levels of training.
But I think people in general overestimate the amount of training it takes to do their own job. Of course people do. They don't want to think they have spent 4-8 years in school and 8-10 years at a job, and are basically replaceable by anybody with a bachelor's degree.
If most people run over the daily tasks they complete, they will find they are not tasks it takes very specific or arduous training to complete.
Not every job is included in this discussion. Obviously, being a doctor and dentist requires high levels of training.
But I think people in general overestimate the amount of training it takes to do their own job. Of course people do. They don't want to think they have spent 4-8 years in school and 8-10 years at a job, and are basically replaceable by anybody with a bachelor's degree.
If most people run over the daily tasks they complete, they will find they are not tasks it takes very specific or arduous training to complete.
Even with our routine work, which has a curve, it's never the same from one year to the next. We're always optimizing. I'm training a PhD to do one of my routine assays right now, assays that are simple side work, and we've been going at it for almost two months now. It will probably take her another month for competence to run it without my supervision, but it takes years for the expertise to understand what it's about (level of schooling or not). And then there's the need for critical thinking and you never know who will have it and who won't. Again, regardless of level of education.
I would not listen to the employees in regards to electrical work. My husband has heard them (employees of the home improvement stores) give people incorrect information about a problem/fix/redo in regards to electrical many times. ..to the point if they had done what the employee said they were at great risk of being electrocuted or catching something on fire...or both. When it comes to electricity it really is best to call someone who knows what they are doing vs possibly seriously injuring/killing yourself or damaging/destroying your home/business.
I think it depends on what you are talking about doing. Rewiring a table lamp with a frayed cord is easy and pretty foolproof. Dropping in a 220 tap for a dryer, best left to a qualified pro.
Even with our routine work, which has a curve, it's never the same from one year to the next. We're always optimizing. I'm training a PhD to do one of my routine assays right now, assays that are simple side work, and we've been going at it for almost two months now. It will probably take her another month for competence to run it without my supervision, but it takes years for the expertise to understand what it's about (level of schooling or not). And then there's the need for critical thinking and you never know who will have it and who won't. Again, regardless of level of education.
I'm not going to say your job doesn't require extensive training without knowing anything about your job.
The point is not that everybody can do everybody's job.
The point is that most people can do most people's job.
I'm not going to say your job doesn't require extensive training without knowing anything about your job.
The point is not that everybody can do everybody's job.
The point is that most people can do most people's job.
Perhaps, but my point is that your job might be so old hat to you that you think a monkey could do it. Your noting a 'simple' understanding of pH demonstrates this. An average joe coming off the street isn't going to be able to look at a molecular structure and realize that the ionization of a carboxyl group under specific conditions is going to affect the direction of pH after reading a wiki article for a couple of weeks. All the little nuances you take for granted are an aspect of your knowledge foundation, which is comprised of education formally and in the field. Further, the more educated a person becomes in a field the faster s/he's able to absorb new information. In the long run it becomes exponential.
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