An Etiquette Education National Business Etiquette Week June 1 - 7 Professional and Graduate University Grooming Etiquette

Outclass the Competition

by Harold Almon baesoe.com
schoolofetiquette@ateasepress.com

An Etiquette Education

"Seek knowledge. Go to college. Stay there until you are through. If they can make penicillin out of mold, that’s true," they will make a passport for you to be you. A’s are pretty to see.  C’s equal a degree.  A degree is a social passport. It can allow you entry into new country. Your transcript may be your ticket. It could determine where you get to sit. Add a course in etiquette; it might be a key to access: how you fit, what you get to see, and how long you get to stay.  

Education without sophistication leads to isolation. There is a social requirement to academic refinement. Get your degree. It is required for long-term stability in an upwardly mobile society. It provides a socially acceptable reason to hang out away from home. It can have little to do with the job that you do. Know your education level. For the rest of your life someone will pay you by it and ask it of you.

Have a major. It can be that your major will support you. It may just be your passport. Your major will allow someone to give you credit, or worse to give you a loan. It can be used to let you take a test for a job, and/or to pay you more for the time you trade for money. “To get a good job, get a good education, (in fields which are hiring.)” Get the certification. Few people will ask you about your GPA or your degree, after you do.

You may have many degrees, as long as one is not a doctorate. Avoid getting a PhD unless your major is a “Hard” science, (here a Masters is the Bobbie prize,) or unless you are willing to be self-employed, to teach, and/or to live off grants or insurance money, and then only if you are lucky.

When you get older, go back and get it. It is a nice passport. It is nice to have someone call you doctor.  Pick up a class in etiquette. A doctorate without etiquette is an awkward fit, is inadequate. Even you would not want to be around you - if you knew. And now you do.  No fear.  Add a course (more than a one day class) in etiquette. Poise is going to look good on you.

In business, you will learn that a degree is only a license to allow someone to let you do what you were already good enough to do, pay you for it, promote you, and to maintain limited liability. An advanced degree is a license to allow you to be a full director in your field, even when the two are non-related. Even from this you will retire.

Have a minor. It is your minor that will give you your freedom. Place in it your passion, your work, and your research. Remember what it was that was important to you, shared with you, and taught to you. While you are busy making money, practice doing the thing(s) that will make you free. If and when your minor gets to be your major you have captured the brass ring.

 Follow the work of your minor. Then teach it. Those who can teach do. It is an obligation. Those who cannot teach, teach teachers. What does it matter as long as the word gets out? When you do get to the table, it will be as an equal.

You can not inherit or bequeath a degree. You can get one or to the same place and do the same thing with a good work summary in a field you have pioneered or explored intently and extensively. It takes a lot longer. 

Get your degree. You can start with CLEP tests, and with life experience credits. How long can you stay dumb or without one? Until you learn and pass tests.  Then who can take knowledge (or your degree) from you? Remember this about education, it is a social passport, even when you are just going home. Etiquette is the rules for the role: what you need to get and how to dress for the trip.