Have you ever?

[SeaCat]

Have you ever dealt with a person who was highly educated but dumb as a rock?

I was working with one of these today.

One of my R.N.'s informed me that a patient needed help. (As she ran out of the room pulling her N-95 Respirator off while gasping for breath.)

I pulled on my own mask and went into the room to find the patient had soiled himself. As well as the bed. Well this was a blessing in disguise. It gave me a reason to get this patient, who happens to be homeless and quite rank into the shower.

I got the patient cleaned up, hell I scrubbed him until he was pink and complaining. I changed the bed. I spent an hour and a half in that room. (During which the R.N. came in and left several times.) This was done at 0900 this morning.

I had to get him cleaned up twice more during the day.

At 1800 this evening the R.N. came up to me and in all seriousness asked me if I had cleaned up that patient. (She did so in front of several other R.N.'s.)

I looked at her with a straight face and asked her of she remembered me carrying into the room enough soap and towels fo four patients. She admitted that she had. I asked her if she remembered seeing him standing in the shower with me scrubbing his back. She admitted that she had. I asked her if she remembered him complaining I had scrubbed him until his skin felt raw, she admitted she had. I asked her if she remembered me doing this on three seperate occasions, and again she admitted that she had. I asked her why she had asked me if I had cleaned him up.

She turned to me with a straight face and said that she remembered when she was an Aide and wanted to make sure I had taken care of my patients correctly. The other R.N.'s stood and sat there with looks of amazement on their faces. One of them, (An older R.N. who remembers this R.N. as an Aide just started cracking up.)

Dumb as a damned rock.

Cat

 

[_Lynn_]

Used to live next to a guy that worked at the nuclear plant in Oak Ridge, TN. I don't remember exactly what he did, but yes he was highly educated and extremely smart.

He couldn't figure out how to match up his socks after they were all dried.

Honest.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Cat

Intelligence is a collection of traits. The specific traits stand-out when a person has, say, one of them to an extraordinary degree. Like idiot-savants. Their one trait is phenomenal, and all the rest are crap.

Your supervisor revealed one of her deficiencies.

I know of genius MD/PhDs who do not know that dictionaries are arranged alphabetically. When they need a definition of a word they ALWAYS start on page one. Their brains cannot understand that B follows A.

 

[MagicaPractica]

Yes, sadly I did. A premed student who was a roommate. Straight A student and dumb as a box of rocks when it came to common sense. It was a big relief when she moved out. Of course, not until she'd tried to burn the apartment building down and, on another occasion, burnt herself quite severely.

 

[perfect_deb]

my brother in law has a doctorate in Physics - dumb as a bucket of mud!

 

[TE999]

I once worked with an engineer who was accident prone, had no taste in clothing (one brown and one black shoe f'r instance--If I'm lyin', I'm dyin) and couldn't calculate tips in restaurants.

But give him a complicated solid waste engineering problem to solve--bingo, it's done.

Go figure.

 

[flavortang]

I was a member of the Personnel Committee for the local council of governments, I.E. the hiring committee for the local schools and I sat in on interviews. There were so many people who were highly educated on paper but were extremely limited mentally. One woman had four years in law school in a very prestigious university but she could barely read and write. Don't even ask me how the hell she got through law school.

 

[Guest]

I'm torn with this topic.

Our kids are quite bright but often clueless about social or other situations.

As their child pysch put it, "Your daughter is going to plan a mission to explore Saturn and then get lost trying to find her car in the parking lot."

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SWEETSUBSARAHH

Its the human condition. It keeps us humble. It forces us to confront our flaws. And it spreads the glory around a little more evenly.

I have a son-in-law. He's from one of the old USSR nations. He has a 6th grade education, maybe. But the son of a bitch can repair a car as quickly and as well as I can make a sandwich. He's a marvel to watch. Its like watching a gifted surgeon. He cant read.

 

[ms.read]

Don't even get me started on people that are dumberer than box of rocks. (yes i spelt in incorrectly on purpose)

 

[perfect_deb]

Don't even get me started on people that are dumberer than box of rocks. (yes i spelt in incorrectly on purpose)

you know whats even worse - the overeducated morons that take a simple task and make it really complicated cos they're smarter than you and know a better way (even though you might have been doing it for years quite successfully!)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

MS.READ

The ones who do the harm, though, are the people who are bright in most ways and imbeciles in a couple of ways. Like the nurse Cat spoke of.

 

[TE999]

you know whats even worse - the overeducated morons that take a simple task and make it really complicated cos they're smarter than you and know a better way (even though you might have been doing it for years quite successfully!)

Those people are called Consultant's, deb.

That's why they get the big bucks.

As we used to say: "Hire a consultant, go wrong with confidence."

 

[perfect_deb]

Those people are called Consultant's, deb.

That's why they get the big bucks.

As we used to say: "Hire a consultant, go wrong with confidence."

yeah the "we did it this way at Uni" guys

we had one guy in to "streamline" the company - i went on strike when he wanted us to write procedures on how to fill the staplers

 

[TE999]

yeah the "we did it this way at Uni" guys

we had one guy in to "streamline" the company - i went on strike when he wanted us to write procedures on how to fill the staplers

Sheesh!

Don't get me started on the "Time Management Experts" either.

Talk about sand in the gears.

They'd have you going to the bathroom on odd and even days.

And reaching over your shoulder to scratch your butt.

 

[curiositykitten]

Have you ever dealt with a person who was highly educated but dumb as a rock?.............................

Cat

I just have to respond to this one! As one of "those RN's," I am apalled to hear that you had this experience - ESPECIALLY since she claims to have once been an aide (and obviously a LAZY one)! Not only is this one "Dumb as a damned rock," but she's LAZY as one as well! Since when do RN's not take time to provide direct pt. care? Had you been working with me, it would have been "I need help with this pt." and we'd have done the job together! How else ould she properly and fully assess her pt? So KUDOS for you and your dedication and hard work! Glad to hear that pt. had SOMEONE who cared.


C-Kitten

 

[perfect_deb]

Sheesh!

Don't get me started on the "Time Management Experts" either.

Talk about sand in the gears.

They'd have you going to the bathroom on odd and even days.

And reaching over your shoulder to scratch your butt.

this guy charged us $30,000 to come in an tell my staff to write procedures for everything they did - and i was made out to be an uncooperative bitch when i jacked up about the waste of time

and dont get me started on staff meetings and committees......

 

[SensualCealy]

The first person that came to mind was my sister-in-law. She is as smart as a whip, but put her in a social setting, and she is clueless. She has an engineering degree and a diploma in computer something or other, but trying to explain to her when she brought home her first baby that he needs to be in a routine was like carrying a conversation with the wall.

Now my husband would say, it is true that engineers are smart people, but take them out of what they read in a book and they are f...tards! His company is extremely top heavy right now, more engineers than employees it seems. Only problem is, all the engineers that knew how to run the plant have retired. Since then they have hired new engineers that walk around with their heads up their asses pushing buttons saying, "this wont work!" (and not checked the power supply!)
C

 

[cloudy]

Now my husband would say, it is true that engineers are smart people, but take them out of what they read in a book and they are f...tards! His company is extremely top heavy right now, more engineers than employees it seems. Only problem is, all the engineers that knew how to run the plant have retired. Since then they have hired new engineers that walk around with their heads up their asses pushing buttons saying, "this wont work!" (and not checked the power supply!)
C

Some engineers, not all. They're people, like anyone else.

I come from a family filled with engineers. My father designed the guidance system on the Saturn rocket, yet he could hunt and field dress a deer or elk, could cook, work on a car, etc.

I've seen people that are impressively book smart, but have zero common sense, but they're not all engineers.

 

[Guest]

My father was a successful businessman and engineer. He used to tell me about a class of educated morons he worked with.

He called them Ph.D's.

 

[carrie-on]

I prefer to call people like this, "book smart and street stupid". I also know a couple of men,who couldn't read or write, and neither had a driver's license, tear an engine down and have it back together,running, in 2 hours.

 

[Liar]

High education is designed to cultivate people's cleverness, not to cure their stupidity.

I have a professor who needs help paying bills, counting cash, remembering what day it is and forget things that aren't stapled to him. He is a brilliant scientist, got a massive bank of knowledge in almost every field from physics to politics, and is a master of teaching the most complex things in a way that it is perfectly understandable. But he needs to be picked up and lead to the seminar rooms, or he'd get lost in the corridors.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SENSUALCEALY

But there are plenty of ordinary guys who are dum as dirt. Most of my work as a civil engineer involved solving commonsense problems for the guys.

On the otherhand I knew some engineers who were worse than stupid. In 1980 I watched a building collapse on top of a crew of female laborers. The first thing I learned was double-check their figures.

 

[somberReality]

I seriously think too much schooling rots your brain......

I worked with neurosurgeons who had no common sense at all.

Scary stuff.

 

[Handprints]

When I was a very junior little worker bee, I was summoned, along with about a dozen of my equally junior colleagues, to receive a 45-minute rant about the "absolute business necessity of attention to detail" from a managing director whose flies were undone.

That made the first significant dent in my belief that everyone senior in my industry actually knew what they were doing...

H