Failure to Improve
Talking about upgrading skills has been a topic du jour for a while now in our postmodernist society and economy, but the consequences of this obsession have apparently just started to catch the attention of education correspondents. Companies use the opportunity for improvement to denigrate and deny applicants, on the grounds that other better applicants exist. Parents, unable to cope with these ever-increasing standards, reacted in the only way they know how - force-feed their kids with endless enrichment, once again reducing the ideal of "lifelong learning" into little more than a paper chase that you know will never finish, but the "consequences" of even daring to think of slowing down will be dire. (And even if the consequences don't actually exist, "well-meaning" peers, family members and organisations are perfectly happy with reminding you that the consequences exist, and they are very open to enforcing them on behalf of society's nebulous pressures.)
Sincerely, I could go on for a long time about this war that is explicitly designed to be unwinnable - because by definition, the terms and conditions and rules are always changing against all possible favour. But for the sake of this week's comic, there are several points I'd like figures of authority constantly expecting upgrades to remember: - Figures of authority hate being told they're wrong - Figures of authority have a habit of complaining that graduates, i.e. the very people they asked to go on skill upgrades, command a salary which figures of authority consider to be too expensive, and constantly want to reduce these wages, or resort to hiring unskilled labour on the cheap
I'm not saying that all graduates are reasonable when it comes to asking for a job and salary negotiation, but honestly. Telling youngsters to go on skill upgrades that you asked for, then turning around to complain that they're too expensive/you don't like it when they disagree with you, is unproductive and irresponsible. It's like if a carnivore chose to walk into a vegan salad bar and subsequently complained that there was nothing to eat.
(Also, why is it that everyone's first response to questioning the status quo is to put on airs and ask things like, "Oh, so you expect fresh grads should be allowed to ask for CEO positions?" Seriously, I get it, people of the youngest generation can be obnoxious brats, but how does responding with a completely hyperbolic scenario constitute a counterargument to inflating job requirements being a thing?)
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