[lbo-talk] Time Use studies

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On 3/26/07, Andy F <andy274 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/25/07, Tayssir John Gabbour <tayssir.john at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > In that light, I personally found the audio version a good listen.
> > Some of the examples were pretty interesting to me, especially the fun
> > part about chameleons. He claims that a number of these pretenders
> > were outed not because of poor results (allegedly they were
> > well-regarded by peers and clients in terms of job competence), but
> > rather because lacking certain "professional" attitudes was a dead
> > giveaway...
>
> All I remember along these lines was how certain people got dropped
> from PhD programs after the qualifying exams for lacking the right
> attitude, but as I recall he didn't really give any actual examples of
> people, anonymous or otherwise.  Considering his choice of examples to
> illustrate other points, I find that kind of ominous for the picture
> he tries to paint.  Do you remember any others?

Ok, to answer your question, I listened to the radio show where it was
read (by the very kind Lyn Gerry). Chapter 3.
<http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/archive/12.22.03/ug179-hour2mix.mp3>

Here are the examples of "crashers," non-professionals who
successfully posed as having credentials:

    * Daniel Morgan, (career criminal who previously served time in

      San Quentin, Folsom, Jackson, Marquette prisons).

      Became trial lawyer in Chicago, then arrested for contempt of

      court. Reopened for business as personal injury lawyer in

      Washington DC (used name of Lawrence A. Harris) for personal

      injury. Exposed after he rejected settlement by other personal

      injury lawyers. In both cases, apparently had unusually good

      record.

    * Bob Harris CBS meterologist (then NYT and Long Island

      Railroad). Anonymous letter blew his cover.

      <http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Harris_Bob_253092348.aspx>

    * Barry Allen Vanocker (spelling?). If I understood correctly,

      other doctors were offended by him using "MD" on some paper,

      then outed him.

    * Busting of Pedro de Masonis, fake cert seller, which led to

      investigations of:

        ** Anonymous, described by hospital administrator as

           "brightest resident we had."

        ** Raymond Allard, Barbara Gillen. According to NYT, hospital

           staff were unanimous in praise for the two.

There's other interesting stuff in the book I found when reskimming...
he used jury duty to cover non-professionals temporarily becoming
professionals, and what that entails. Also, touched lightly on the
biases of the NYT vs Wall St. Journal (since NYT has a 3:2
professional:manager readership ratio, while the WSJ has a 1:3
professional:manager).

Later in the book, I believe he mentions professional training's
similarity with eight "subordinating themes" used in cult
indoctrination. (Such as promising to reinvent a "new you", an
appealing identity of self-actualized person doing supremely important
work.)

(I hope I didn't make too many errors here; listening to audio is
slower than reading. But Lyn Gerry did an incredible job reading it;
my friend said her voice sounded very soothing and impressive.)

Tayssir