The May 14th issue of Charleston’s Post and Courier contained three evocative articles, each concerning a notably accomplished person.
One concerned the recently deposed CEO of Yahoo, one Scott Thompson. It seems that Mr. Thompson fabricated his resume to claim that he had an undergraduate degree in computer science. When, in fact, Thompson’s undergraduate degree was in accounting.
While that hardly appears, to one as uninitiated as I, to be a significant moral failure, such was apparently not the case to an obviously vocal and influential presence on the Yahoo board of directors, a segment which owns some 6 per cent of of the Internet company’s stock.
But then, when any organization is struggling like Yahoo seems to be these days, it’s not uncommon for at least someone to catch the fallout. Even if the so-called reason might seem picky.
Except, what do I know about the value of a computer science degree compared to a degree in accounting? At least when it comes to running a company like Yahoo.
In fact, this week on television news, there was a segment warning current college graduates about the potential peril of fraudulent claims on a resume.
Football fans might remember, several years ago, the embarrassing circumstances of George O’Leary, the successful coach at Georgia Tech, who was hired as Notre Dame’s new football coach.
Except in a storied program like that of Notre Dame football, more eyes were looking more closely and critically at the crossing of t’s and the dotting of i’s in the hiring of a coach for the Fighting Irish. Only to notice that Coach O’Leary had claimed, publicly, to have earned a master’s degree which, in fact, he hadn’t received.
Which cost O’Leary the job, one of the most prestigious in the college football industry.
Coach O’Leary’s “explanation” of the “error” on his resume was that once the “mistake” was made, some years earlier, in a publication from a previous college where he had coached, it became too easy to just “look the other way.” As in the proverbial, “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”
A few years ago I conducted an “Ethics in the Workplace” training program for a local public organization. And the former Human Resources director told of their once being prepared to hire someone for a particular professional position.
Only to then start thinking that something about the person’s purported credentials didn’t “smell right,” even if he had already demonstrated considerable competence in performing what the job entailed.
Sure enough, the guy was a fraud–and a fairly convincing one at that–his lack of education, training and experience in no way having prepared him for such a job, even though the organization’s leadership had initially anticipated hiring him.
Or as someone has asked, “Is forgiveness easier to obtain than permission?”
A second May 14th Post and Courier article questioned whether 28-year-old genius Harvard drop-out zillionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, is up to the task of running his Facebook empire as a publicly traded company.
Even if Zuckerberg actually settled an in-the-millions lawsuit out of court with some other former Harvard students who claimed he stole the invention from them.
Does being an entrepreneur, however brilliant, involve a different skill set from that of being a manager where any organization is concerned? As in, for example, whatever the difference between a degree in accounting or in computer science?
Except Zuckerberg–not unlike such other cultural icons as Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs–he doesn’t even have a college degree.
Zuckerberg’s critics, in a benign gesture, claim his interest is in enhancing social networking rather than in merely making money for Facebook shareholders.However, they suggest that Zuckerberg is surely smart enough to at least hire the right kind of people to “mind the store” where money matters are concerned.
Sandwiched in between these two articles concerning such high profile business-world figures was an inspiring story about a heretofore unknown Eastern European immigrant, a Columbia University janitor who has just earned an undergraduate degree in classics from the Ivy League school.
Fifty-two-year-old, 5′ 4″ Gac Filipaj had nearly completed law school in Yugoslavia in 1992 when he fled his native Montenegro because he was about to be drafted into the Yugoslav army, led by Serbs who were hostile to native Albanians, such as the Roman Catholic Filipaj.
After learning English, Mr. Filipaj took advantage of his tuition waiver as a Columbia employee. His job title? “Heavy Cleaner.” It took him years to earn his degree, going to classes before his 2:30-11 P.M. shift, mopping floors, cleaning toilets and taking out trash, while only afterward having any time left to study, often pulling all-nighters.
This, while a portion of his $22-an-hour janitor’s pay went to help support his brother, sister-in-law and their two children, whose modest income is derived from the milk they sell back in Montenegro. In fact, Filipaj purchased a computer for the family, even though he doesn’t own one himself.
And yes, if a $22-an-hour job may seem lucrative where I live, that is hardly the case in more costly New York City.
His favorite subject? Roman philosopher and statesman, Seneca. “I love Seneca’s letters,” says Filipaj, “because they’re written in the spirit in which I was educated in my family–not to look for fame and fortune, but to have a simple, honest, honorable life.”
“[Mr. Filipaj] is a man with great pride, whether he’s doing custodial work or his scholarly pursuits,” says the Dean of Columbia’s School of General Studies. “He is immensely humble and grateful . . . [a man] who makes his own future.”
Filipaj now has his sights set on a master’s degree, perhaps a Ph.D., hoping to teach Roman and Greek classics, while translating his favorite works into his native tongue, Albanian.
Except, in the meantime, he’s trying to get a better job at Columbia, perhaps as a supervisor of custodians.
Now a U.S. citizen, Filipaj seems little interested in furthering his studies just to make more money. “The richness is in me, in my heart and in my head,” he declares, “not in my pocket.”
Indeed, whatever one may think of a guy who studies ancient Greek and Latin, at least he’s not delusional, believing he could ever sell such intellectual giftedness for greater financial gain in today’s marketplace.
“Three Different American Stories.” If one suggests that a false claim on a resume may cost more than it’s worth, yet another illustrates how, even for the best and brightest, that pyramid called “success” has a way of becoming increasingly slippery the nearer one approaches the top.
And the third of these stories? I suppose it is each of us who will finally decide its worth–both its meaning and value.
