[ExI] jobs

[William Flynn Wallace]

Ja.  Another approach is to design jobs for less literate

Dumbing down jobs has a short history.  When I saw computers with
color-coded inputs I thought: "What took you so long?"  Often I thought "If
it were left up to engineers to design something, only engineers could use
it."  Too smart to think of ways dumb people can foul up simple tasks ("Is
it plugged in?")

Actually, a ninth grade test is just too hard.  Maybe what is needed is
some research that compares (correlates) reading and math levels with
ability to do jobs.  That way you could hire people who are just right for
your job.  I doubt that that German company had no jobs requiring less than
9th grade levels.  What if someone tests 12 grade level?  You might not
want him/her.  People who are too smart for the job have higher rates of
absenteeism and quitting and just being bored.  Good psychologists on the
hiring staff can save a company millions.

Some days I wish I had gone into industrial psych - money would have been
much better!

Unfortunately for us, grade inflation is impacting hiring etc.  Don't want
to hurt the poor little dummies' feelings.

Mississippi now has a test 2nd graders must pass to get into the 3rd
grade.  A big mess, naturally and angry parents....

I once gave some tests to a child who, I found out later, had been to many
clinics and had been tested dozens of times.  Parents simply would not
accept that he was mentally retarded.

bill w



On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 12:42 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 31, 2017 9:01 AM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* [ExI] jobs
>
>
>
> When the German engineering company Siemens Energy opened a gas turbine
> production plant in Charlotte, N.C., some 10,000 people showed up at a job
> fair for 800 positions. But fewer than 15 percent of the applicants were
> able to pass a reading, writing and math screening test geared toward a
> ninth-grade education.
>
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> ----------------
>
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> 9th grade?  Who do they think we are?  Awhile back the Jackson MS city
> schools' recent graduates read at the 4th grade level.  Of course that's
> probably in the range of the lowest in the USA  (no, I don't want to Google
> it)
>
>
>
> Education - basic literacy and numeracy - is still the answer to many job
> questions.
>
>
>
> bill w
>
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> Ja.  Another approach is to design jobs for less literate and less
> numerate people.  One example is eliminating fractions in aerospace
> assembly jobs.  The tolerance for wire lengths was often +/- 60
> milli-inches, so we just created wire measurement scales in 16th of an
> inch.  Now no need to work in either fractions or decimals: just make up
> some special rulers where they were numbered in 16th of an inch, with
> slightly bigger marks every ten 16th.  The rulers looked weird, but now
> all we had to tell the assemblers is measure to within one mark.  Didn’t
> need to tell them what those units were.
>
>
>
> So instead of searching for smarter more expensive assemblers, we
> engineered dumber jobs.
>
>
>
> spike
>
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