When I was in high school we got to write an essay (or something like that, I don’t remember anymore) on some topic I didn’t have any opinions about, so I gave an empty sheet of paper with only my name on it.
The teacher was really puzzled, an brought up this to me and my mom. She wondered why I didn’t cheat and copy something from the internet like a lot of my classmates did actually. We already had smartphones, it was around 2012-2013. I
didn’t cheat because my parents taught me honesty, that was my answer to my teacher.
Guess what? I got the lowest possible grade (essentially I failed this exam). People who cheated, and she knew they cheated got higher grades. Not that I’m complaining, I got the grade I deserved in my opinion. I would like to note that I wasn’t a lazy student or anything, it was this one time that I slipped up, and preferred to be honest about it.
What school taught me is that cheating will get you further than honesty. If you can’t make it, fake it. This translated very well when I started working in a corporate environment.
In my 20+ years in the corporate world now it seems that everything is just a sale. Every transaction (business to business, business to consumer, employee to business, employee to employee) is a sales pitch. The quality of the transaction matters less than the sale itself.
I got something more important — a life lesson! It serves me well now that I work in a corporate environment and turns out school is not that different, some of the management in my company even gives me back memories of the kindergarden.
When I was in high school we got to write an essay (or something like that, I don’t remember anymore) on some topic I didn’t have any opinions about, so I gave an empty sheet of paper with only my name on it. The teacher was really puzzled, an brought up this to me and my mom. She wondered why I didn’t cheat and copy something from the internet like a lot of my classmates did actually. We already had smartphones, it was around 2012-2013. I didn’t cheat because my parents taught me honesty, that was my answer to my teacher.
Guess what? I got the lowest possible grade (essentially I failed this exam). People who cheated, and she knew they cheated got higher grades. Not that I’m complaining, I got the grade I deserved in my opinion. I would like to note that I wasn’t a lazy student or anything, it was this one time that I slipped up, and preferred to be honest about it.
What school taught me is that cheating will get you further than honesty. If you can’t make it, fake it. This translated very well when I started working in a corporate environment.
In my 20+ years in the corporate world now it seems that everything is just a sale. Every transaction (business to business, business to consumer, employee to business, employee to employee) is a sales pitch. The quality of the transaction matters less than the sale itself.
While you did deserve to fail, you should have at least gotten some points for honesty!
I got something more important — a life lesson! It serves me well now that I work in a corporate environment and turns out school is not that different, some of the management in my company even gives me back memories of the kindergarden.
Oh, come on. If that were true, some of the people in our highest political offices would be incompetent morons who cheated their way into power!
You are right, I can’t imagine that happening in the real world