Trained or educated?

Don’t worry if your job is small and your rewards are few. Just remember that the mighty oak was once a nut like you. Bullwinkle J. Moose

A couple weeks ago, I volunteered at a local food shelf. What I thought would be a food packing job turned out to be a shelf cleaning task. Despite being neat, I do not like to clean. I hire a cleaning person to dust, vacuum and scrub my townhouse. So when I was handed rags and a bottle of cleaning solution, I cried out, “I am a manager, not a worker!” But like my fellow Rotarian volunteers, I still pitched in and cleaned the shelves on which the food stuffs were stored.

I thought of this incident when reading: “ What’s that degree going to be worth? Star Tribune, March 22, 2024. The opinion piece tells about a new online tools students can use to help determine what specific college programs might eventually provide in terms of income. Liberal arts degrees, as one might predict, did not fare very well.

What I believe the tool does not take into consideration is that a good liberal arts degree, especially one which emphasizes communication skills, may not initially provide the creds for a high paying job, but may well lead to one as careers progress. Good communication skills (and developed empathy) are the hallmarks of a good manager. 

I suggest to my grandsons - both engineering/math geniuses - that it is not the best worker (engineer, teacher, mechanic, nurse, etc.) that gets ahead, but the person who is able to manage and lead good workers and so create an effective workplace. Goal setting, project management, problem resolution, budgeting, evaluations are done by educated people - not trained people.

When people learn that I was a technology director for 28 years, they often hit me with a “tech problem” they might be having. Beyond advising unplugging a device and plugging it back in, I usually have little advice to give. I admit that as a manager, I helped organize and direct skilled technicians, but I was not one myself. And I was happy with that career.

Yes, a specific technical degree might help you get a good job right out of college. And maybe that entry level position will be everything you want in a job for the rest of your career. But for many of us, stretching our skills and responsibilities leads to a more interesting, and often more financially and psychologically, fulfilling vocation.

A poetic response

My long-time friend Miguel Guhlin left the following comment on my recent post “I miss snow”: 

I miss the snow, too. Having grown up in Panama, I miss the idea of it. I miss the blizzard where evil dwells, the snow flurries that obscure my vision, the slip and slide of wheels on an uncertain path. I miss the snowplows making their way up the avenue, the snowmen gathered on the lawn. I miss the snowflakes, one and all, like a banker misses his coin.

But then, when sadness gathers six feet deep at my door, my tears forming crystals on my cheeks, I remember, I grew up in the summer humid heat of Panama. Snow is but a dream, where mosquitoes are unborn, iguanas wouldn't be caught dead without a borrowed fur coat. I remember that dark rainstorms, drops so large they can kill a baby frog, renew the pools where tadpoles spawn, form the ocean waves. I see them once more, those summer days, bereft of snow, and I miss the sun of my youth.

Now that the chill is gone, I wonder what I will dream for tomorrow. A day without sun in another land, a grey overcast day without a blanket of snow. I wonder what I will dream of, the future or the past, or will I have a dreamless sleep, empty of expectation and sun and snow, and all that men dream when the earth wraps its arms around them.

Let the snow go, friend, and ask instead, "Where are your dreams gone?" (Reposted here with permission

Miguel is a prolific writer (see his blog Another Think Coming) and thoughtful thinker about education and technology. I’ve known this for a long time. What I didn’t realize was that Miguel is a poet as well.

As all good writing should do, Miguel’s clever, mystical response to my post made me reflect, made me think about things I might not otherwise have considered. I was, quite frankly, a bit mesmorized.

Why don’t we respond lyrically more often? Would we be more convincing, more sympathetic? Might others pay more attention to us if the style of the message was as interesting as the content?

Thanks, Miguel, for not just moving my brain a bit, but nudging my heart as well.

I miss snow

“I miss snow.”

If anyone predicted I would ever make this statement, I would have laughed in their face. Miss having snow? The same snow that through most of my life has been the bane of my winter existence?

Growing up and living most of my life in the Midwest, winters have always come with snow. And snow more often than not has been a nuisance. In high school, snow caused me to drive my car into the ditch. When I told my dad (after walking home), he said we’d not be able to get it out until spring. And I thought he was serious. Out on a double-date, I managed to get my car stuck in a snowdrift across a rural road and my buddy’s dad had to come rescue us and our less-than-thrilled dates. I’ve spent nights in strangers’ homes because of closed roads, nights in airports due to canceled flights, and days trapped in my own home due to “blizzard conditions.”

For literally decades I have shoveled sidewalks, run the snowblower up and down driveways, swept decks, and scraped car windows. Ice and snow have closed hiking trails and put me on my butt, despite wearing grippers, more than a few times. Snow has made driving slow and nerve wracking, especially on those days when I was expected to be in the office, even when the school at which I worked was closed for kids and teachers.

So how can I say “I miss snow?”

This winter in Minnesota has been unusually warm and exceptionally dry. Groomed ski trails did not happen so all the trails in area parks were open for hikers. Roads stayed open. No shoveling or scraping or scary driving conditions. Winter coats and gloves stayed mostly in the closet. Dog sled races, cross-country ski events were canceled, and the ice fishing season was extremely short (and somewhat dangerous). 

And I now realize that despite its nuisance, I miss snow.

I’ve long been grateful for when a snowstorm closed school (see Blessings of a snow day) both as a student and as a teacher. I have fond memories of my children and grandchildren (well, and myself) on sleds, tubes, and toboggans sliding down snow-covered hills. Snow abundant winters created great downhill skiing conditions at Mt Kato and Welch Village and Lutsens where a friend and I would often take our sons. I even miss the cross-country and snowshoeing opportunities in the parks nearby, despite being glad the trails are open for hiking if you don’t mind mud.

And even a light cover of snow can give an ethereal beauty to the most common-place lawn, road, or park giving cosmetic cover to even dry grass, littered ditches, and barren trees. And as I look out the window this morning as birds swarm the feeder while snowflakes swirl, I recognize the loveliness of the snow event itself.

The old expression “be careful what you ask for since you might just get it” seems apt now that spring is here and the likelihood of snow enabled fun and beauty is mostly behind us. Sometimes it takes the absence of thing before you really appreciate it. 

I miss snow.