> I think it was the attitude that got to me - the "I can BS my way
> through it" bit that got me. I'm all for newcomers to the industry,
> but not with that attitude - if it were so easy, everyone would be
> doing it and there wouldn't be books, experts, websites, etc. devoted
> to this subject. It is a skilled profession, and while it may not
> require the same amount of knowledge and talent and dedication as,
> say, brain surgeon, it's still not something one can simply jump in
> feet first and expect to excel at. If the post were asking about how
> to get behind the bar by applying for other jobs, you wouldn't have
> seen my post - it was the "I don't function at all in bars" and the
> "I can BS it" that irked me.
Yeah, clearly I can understand that. Though, cynic that I am, I know that
people CAN bullshit their way through pretty much any profession. Perhaps not
brain surgery, but I've certainly worked with people who got where they were
purely through bullshit in my industry. In fact, the people who are good at
selling themselves and playing politics are often more "successful" than those
of us who care about our craft and work hard and try to be successful by
applying their skills and learning new ones for their employer! Pah!
And if that can be done in engineering, which requires fairly low levels of
social expertise, then I would be surprised if that tactic didn't work in a
field based in part on social interaction - such as bartending.
Also, I took his quip about BSing it as more of a joke than anything else. He
went to bartending school, so he doesn't intend to completely scam people...
and there were plenty of people at school that went out and tried to start
companies as soon as they graduated (or before, or instead of). Some of them
became Yahoo! The vast majority of them failed, but I still applaud them for
trying.
--
-If