Dave Silver Spares website oddity

You are so, so wrong. But you're too stupid to understand why.

 

You say that like it's a bad thing. It isn't.

 

Well, that's true. It's providing me with an endless string of highly
educated people willing to stack shelves for minimum wage.

 

To learn about something that you find intrinsically interesting

To learn how to learn for yourself

To learn how to form a cogent argument, and to argue it well

To learn how to speed read, digest and precis enormous amounts of
information, under time pressure

To learn how to apply scientific method, and/or sharpen your problem solving
skills

To meet people from hundreds of different walks of life, from all over the
world, with hugely varying social backgrounds and experiences, and find out
what makes them tick

Get pissed

Get laid

Improve your self-confidence

Learn new sports

Form friendships and social networks that'll see you right for the rest of
your life


Sure, you could do all of this off your own bat while working, and many
people do, to their credit. But why not shorten the odds by putting
yourself amongst a huge bunch of people your own age, away from your
parents, in a new town, in an infrastructure which, intentionally or
otherwise, provides pretty much the best opportunity you'll ever have to
achieve most or all of the above?

 

I know what you're thinking punk, do I have any price tags left in this gun?
I've tagged pretty much the whole pyramid of beaked beans and you think you
can get the top one for free? Well, I can't remember myself- do you feel
lucky?

 

lol.

Nice.

 

One of the biggest downsides to the explosion in university education in
this crountry is that there's increasing numbers of graduates who do
their degree whilst living at home. Several of my friends from
Manchester and my employees have gone down this route.

I have a mate from back home who did some sort of humanities degree at
Bolton University (what a load of bollocks that title is), didn't leave
home until he got married 2 years ago (so missed out on all the student
stuff you mentioned) and now mans a phone in an insurance broker's call
centre. It's a pattern I see repeated to a lesser extent in a lot of
other people I was at school with.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Champ

Even more so when there's lots of people too...

My dad taught me the correct technique for dealing with the "stop for a
chat in the middle of the aisle" brigade. What you do is you ram the
trolley into them. Hard. And just *before* it makes contact you say
"Oops! Sorry!" loudly.

They soon get to recognise you. It's like the parting of the Red Sea
when I show up in Sainsburys these days...

 

I do this, lift my feet up and hang on. On occasion I'll even shout
'geronimo'. Or running and then lifting feet up on the longest aisle
and trying to grab items needed as you go past.

It is either doing this or killing all the other shoppers.

<sits on rant>

 

You are desperately twisting and turning to try to support your thesis
(oh, the irony!) that degrees are shit, and the good ole University of
Life is where it's at.

You know *nothing*.

There are a huge number of factors which may have contributed to the
work he does now. You seem to think that only one matters.

 

You're saying that all of your shelf stackers are arts graduates?
They're not, say mothers of school-age children doing part-time work,
and retirees, and people who didn't continue in any education after
the age of 16. Think very carefully before you answer.

 

I was pretty fucking glad of a sports science graduate over the last
couple of weeks when I fucked my knee.

They gave me some very good advice on how to get back into training
and still let it heal.

 

To be honest, I tend to put graduate applications to one side as they're
not really suited to most of the jobs I have to fill on a regular basis.
However, I do get a proportion of my applications from graduates.

If I'm recruiting for full time roles (which is rare) then I would
interview, and have employed graduates as full-time shelf stackers /
sales people who have gone on to more senior roles in the business.

 

But what was the price of a two-for-one Tizer deal? Bet you didn't even
think to ask.

 

SteveH says...

I really can't imagine why anyone who'd taken 3 years of hard slog out
of their life to study for a degree, that would eventually lead them
onto much better things, would even consider going into retail anyway. I
mean, it's a bit crap really, and I say this as an ex-shop manager.

 

SteveH says...

Supermarket staff don't sell to people, people go to supermarkets to buy
stuff. There is a big difference, and this is something I say as a
*proper* salesman, not a supermarket assistant.

 

Yes, well I left for a sales job. OK, it was only selling trainers, but
it was selling, and I enjoyed it.

 

Lucozade Sport[1] is where it's at.


[1] Although not when competing or doing serious training, it's far
too sweet. And proper isotonic mixes are cheaper.

 

And dilute ribena cheaper still, and just as effective.

Or as my current pairs partner, qualified physiotherapist and holder of (an
apparently "completely useless") sport science degree would say,
"Hydration's for gayoes"

 

Utterly gorgeous typo, under the circumstances.
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