[Mick]

Clever, except I don't see how a story about a key member of a company leaving for another gig does anything except show that's how the real world works, which is what I was trying to say.

Circular logic.  That's the point I made in the first place.

I've worked with several Stanford students and recent grads in an internship setting, and have interviewed others for more permanent positions, and to a person this kind of experience would have been valuable to them. It's not that I am belittling Stanford students; they have all been smart, thoughtful, often well-qualified, and unbloodied.

Obviously, every recent grad, Stanford or otherwise, needs to have the baby fat of naivete burned off.  Look at the 53% preponderance of 18-24 year olds who (Reason-Rupe survey) believe in socialism compared with the 25% of old farts like me who believe in socialism.

Heck, I've been in the workforce 20 years and am still learning things. Aren't you?

I've been in the workforce for 40 years.  Yes, of course I still learn things.  But I was referencing a specific lesson, the lesson that a key person quits before the job is done.  You're just talking about learning in general.  My point is that this lesson comes a lot earlier in life.  The star of our 8th grade basketball team walked out before the playoffs in a dispute with the coach, or if we want to get a little maudlin, my old man walked out when I was seven.  And my story isn't special or unique in the slightest, I doubt that CMAC's quitting is the first time any of his teammates experienced a crucial teammate quitting before the job was done.

How's this: you are interviewing a member of this year's team for a job at your company several years from now. Are you more interested in what he has to say about how he dealt with the adversity of the star player leaving before the bowl game, or, in an alternate universe, about how they all rode Christian's coattails to a Sun Bowl win?

I don't give two sxxts about how they dealt with the adversity of someone other than them leaving, because that's not real adversity.  McCaffrey's departure doesn't affect the defense, the OL's blocking adjusts slightly for Love or Scarlett, pass blocking doesn't change much.  The QB will have something to say about it, but that's one guy.  If I'm interviewing a Stanford football player, that's a peripheral issue.  My questions would focus on how they contributed, how they learned, how they failed and improved, how they got along with other team members, or if we really wanted to talk about adversity, how they dealt with a terrible position coach or a professor who had it out for them.

Or how's this: you're 16 or 17 and filling out a Stanford application or an SCU application or the application of virtually every four year college on the face of the planet, and the question is some variant of "How have you dealt with adversity..."  Every single answer of every single admitted Stanford student will reflect a heckuva lot more adversity than "I worked on a group project and our smartest member quit a week before it was due."  And every single answer will be some variant of "I sucked it up" coupled with "here's the amazing thing(s) I did to combat that adversity."

[Mick]

Clever, except I don't see how a story about a key member of a company leaving for another gig does anything except show that's how the real world works, which is what I was trying to say.

Circular logic.  That's the point I made in the first place.

I've worked with several Stanford students and recent grads in an internship setting, and have interviewed others for more permanent positions, and to a person this kind of experience would have been valuable to them. It's not that I am belittling Stanford students; they have all been smart, thoughtful, often well-qualified, and unbloodied.

Obviously, every recent grad, Stanford or otherwise, needs to have the baby fat of naivete burned off.  Look at the 53% preponderance of 18-24 year olds who (Reason-Rupe survey) believe in socialism compared with the 25% of old farts like me who believe in socialism.

Heck, I've been in the workforce 20 years and am still learning things. Aren't you?

I've been in the workforce for 40 years.  Yes, of course I still learn things.  But I was referencing a specific lesson, the lesson that a key person quits before the job is done.  You're just talking about learning in general.  My point is that this lesson comes a lot earlier in life.  The star of our 8th grade basketball team walked out before the playoffs in a dispute with the coach, or if we want to get a little maudlin, my old man walked out when I was seven.  And my story isn't special or unique in the slightest, I doubt that CMAC's quitting is the first time any of his teammates experienced a crucial teammate quitting before the job was done.

How's this: you are interviewing a member of this year's team for a job at your company several years from now. Are you more interested in what he has to say about how he dealt with the adversity of the star player leaving before the bowl game, or, in an alternate universe, about how they all rode Christian's coattails to a Sun Bowl win?

I don't give two sxxts about how they dealt with the adversity of someone other than them leaving, because that's not real adversity.  McCaffrey's departure doesn't affect the defense, the OL's blocking adjusts slightly for Love or Scarlett, pass blocking doesn't change much.  The QB will have something to say about it, but that's one guy.  If I'm interviewing a Stanford football player, that's a peripheral issue.  My questions would focus on how they contributed, how they learned, how they failed and improved, how they got along with other team members, or if we really wanted to talk about adversity, how they dealt with a terrible position coach or a professor who had it out for them.

Or how's this: you're 16 or 17 and filling out a Stanford application or an SCU application or the application of virtually every four year college on the face of the planet, and the question is some variant of "How have you dealt with adversity..."  Every single answer of every single admitted Stanford student will reflect a heckuva lot more adversity than "I worked on a group project and our smartest member quit a week before it was due."  And every single answer will be some variant of "I sucked it up" coupled with "here's the amazing thing(s) I did to combat that adversity."