Smart People in bad jobs?

I'm one of those people. Or at least, I was. I was top of the class all through primary and secondary school and college, spoke multiple languages, played several instruments well, did computer programming in my spare time for fun, and everyone assumed I'd be some high flyer. Until fairly recently, I was scraping together a living in low paid, low skilled jobs, still living in a shared flat (in my thirties) with not a penny to my name.

There are multiple reasons why that happened, I guess, from graduating into the recession to having an abusive, unsupportive family (and the resulting total lack of self esteem/confidence) to being given very poor career advice to developing long term health issues, but I think the biggest one was that I had undiagnosed autism. The same thing which made it easy for me to become obsessed with things and read endlessly and learn made it impossible for me to survive in a work environment, especially in Ireland where social skills are absolutely everything. I'd just sit there feeling like a fish out of water with no idea what was going on. All the undercurrents, all the unsaid expectations are absolute hell for an autistic person. The misery of living like this led to severe depression and anxiety (very, very common for autistic people, especially undiagnosed, and women) and by my late twenties I was extremely depressed to the point I could barely function at all.

My mental health issues led me to go to therapy regularly and in my early thirties, I met a therapist who suggested I might be autistic. It was like a light was suddenly shone on my entire life and I saw everything totally differently. My biggest mental strain was that I had always believed it was all my own fault, that I just wasn't trying hard enough. Being told I had an explainable condition which was causing these things was life changing. I stopped beating myself up and decided to go into a new career path.

It wasn't all plain sailing and still isn't, but now just a couple of years after my diagnosis, I'm in a new well-paid career, learning all the time and enjoying my job and life. It just took someone who cared enough and who noticed enough to identify what was wrong.

I'd bet that most of these people who were high flyers at school have had similar issues to stop them reaching their potential.

It's worth noting that a huge amount of South Americans over on visas studying English have PhDs, Master Degrees and degrees and they might be working cleaning jobs and the likes.

A cleaning job is tough for anyone but having such qualifications and then working mimimum wage jobs must be frustrating when you come up against a person judging them for their current role in life.

I know it's their choice, I'm just making an observation.

Raconteuse wrote: »

Definitely. And it's not just a case of "smart" - it's a particular type of smarts. People who work in academia forever get slagged off for being in a bubble but it's probably the best place for them as they don't have the personality for a corporate environment. And that's ok.

This I suspect is a huge part of what the OP is talking about all right. Fitting into the "culture" is so essential in recent years. I worked somewhere for six weeks which had this awful culture of forced "fun" and considering you a bit odd if you went for coffee by yourself. I was like "I'm a ****ing adult ffs". Out the door.

A friend of mine recently got let go after six weeks and he was perfect for them on paper (obviously, seeing as they hired him). Extremely hard-working, ambitious, enthusiastic, great career strides, and perfectly well adjusted and level headed, but he simply did not fit into their very specific culture.

So for someone who has autism it could be extremely difficult.

Yep, definitely. I recently read that something like over 80% of autistic adults (including so-called 'high functioning' ones) are unemployed. I wouldn't be sure of the accuracy of that but it didn't surprise me one bit. I've been bullied, mocked, spoken down to and criticised for essentially just being myself. I had an admin role once where I was basically let go for not smiling enough and not being part of the office clique and like you said, choosing to have a coffee or a sandwich on my own to get some 'me' time and not have to be 'on' during my breaks. The other girl in the same role was nowhere near as competent (often lost documents, filed them in the wrong place, double booked meetings, called important clients by the wrong name...I was forever putting out her fires) but it didn't matter because she was friendly and charming.

I think this stuff isn't spoken enough about in schools and colleges. It doesn't matter a shiny sh1te how intelligent, capable or hardworking you are if you can't fit into most workplaces because you don't understand corporate culture, coded messages and cliques. The people who succeed are those who learn to play the game. They often aren't that intelligent (in the traditional sense), they often aren't even that hardworking. I've seen these people get promoted time and time again above people who are grafting hard, just coasting by on great salaries and doing very little other than being able to play the game.

turbbo wrote: »

"Academics make terrible Army Generals." -
How does having intelligence make you bad at something?
It is impossible for it to be a drawback as an Army General.

"The best surgeons have dexterous fingers." - Order of qualities in the best surgeons would be 1. Intelligence. - Dexterous fingers wouldn't be a disadvantage but it certainly wouldn't make them "the best".

"Dentists are failed Doctors" - You don't fail medicine and end up doing dentistry that's not how it works. Have you ever looked at a CAO application?

"One of the thickest dudes in my class is now a senior partner in a big 4 Accounting firm. Earns well over 3-4 hundred a year." - presume you left out the word thousand there - he still possibly hates his job.

The post you quoted about Army Generals never said that Intelligent people make bad Army Generals. It said Academics do.

You equated Academics to intelligence, not the poster.

An Academic may have great knowledge about the subject in their Academia but may not have intelligence in other areas. Also, pure Academics may not be able to lead a team, delegate tasks, problem solve in real time, etc.

An Army General would need a lot more of Academic knowledge to be successful.

OP's story reminds of a lad back in secondary school, (for me that was 95/96 to 00/01 I think) he wiped the floor with the rest of us in nearly every class especially math. PE would've been the only exception, but he was so big no one would tackle him anyway if he bothered to try.

He just sits in a pub most days now doing a bit of laboring on building sites from time to time. Terrible waste of such academic talent, but he seems to be the same happy, cheerful, pleasant giant he always was.

Lonesomerhodes wrote: »

Well it's not really their 'choice' now.

They are here for a year or 2, max and will do whatever to pay the absurd rent in Dublin.

Not really what the OP is getting at in fairness as these guys are doing crap work due to being on student visa's.

In my course are a few Brazilians with Irish spouses and all of them have degrees. Also all of them have the issue that their degrees aren't strictly in a STEM field. And most have the issue that their degrees aren't accredited.
Honestly, most people there have foreign qualifications that aren't accredited in Ireland (vocational schools in the EU for example) that end up working crappy jobs to make ends meet while upskilling. It's incredibly frustrating and it's a lot of wasted talent and also experience.

Those two lads in the first post might have been better off becoming Plumbers. Luck has a huge part to play, there are London cabbies and Tube Train Drivers on 60-75K with s**te for brains but second properties, kids being put through Uni and so forth. I'd imagine being a Dart or Inter City Driver here would be the same, pity is that it's more consanguineous than Dunsink Lane Halting Site.

I think strategy is a big part of it. In school, you are told the rules of the game. You never have to strategise, you know how success is defined and are given a roadmap.

In the world of work, your career is a blank canvas. You have to imagine success yourself and put a plan into action.

I also think that if a person wants to capitalize on being exceptionally intelligent, they need to go into a field that requires exceptional intelligence which most jobs, in all honesty, probably don't. If they go into a field where technical competence is achieved easily by a lot of people, and competition moves more to social skills/emotional intelligence, they have no advantage. They are not playing to their strengths.

padjocollins wrote: »

i think we all know people like that.
pure speculation but a number would feel they don't feel drawn to keep on the high acheiving thread mill or have't found anything to give them focus. Others might feel that they have coasted along in secondary school but once they hit third level they are not used to having to work that bit harder and couldn't be bothered. they usually is still time for them to change up their lives if they want. more and more is possible with mature courses and online education

is college supposed to be harder than secondary school? i found college way easier than school as i was studying something i loved in college but had to do maths in school which i hated, i wouldnt have chosen to study irish either if given the choice. you are usually more mature in college as well so likely to study harder.

I got your typical grad job after college but hated it as i suspected i would, an office job just isnt for me so I quit, set up my own business, its a job a lot of people would look down on and never do but i have never been happier to be honest and the money isnt bad either.


a guy i remember in secondary school was really good at maths, the best in the class by a mile, probably better than the teacher id say, i dont think he was much good at other subjects though and he was late in to school every day for the 5 years he was in school, last time i saw him he was working in a chipper, he looked depressed.

Deleted User wrote: »

Generally yes, but often the people who do bad in school, do well in work too. The problem is that sometimes the people who don't do well in school, fail not because they're not smart, but because they can't conform to the school structure. The way that traditional schools teach isn't suitable for everyone.

I didn't do well in secondary school. Got a relatively low leaving cert. Crappy college degree that I struggled badly to pass. Failed my first degree course. Changed degrees. Failed many of my exams, and repeated a full year. A constant struggle to learn.

Hear hear, I can't think of a more useless place to study and learn things than a Grange Hill full of hormonal teenagers jockeying for position. Most introverted kids would be better off at home with books.