Everyone has a background in Marketing. Try again.

Not only is everyone a critic these days, but everyone has marketing skills. I hear a lot of boasting about being an "ideas person" more so than an administrative person. Hmmm...

Translation:

I'm happy to sit around and think up some ideas, but I'll be damned if I am doing any work!

If you aren't calculating statistical models predicting the impact of your ideas, you aren't an "ideas person". You are a lazy person. Wow, you thought of making the flyer blue? You're A-MAZ-ING. How the hell were you able to come up with that?

Highly paid children with crayons, I say.

Seriously, everyone wants to market something - it's like art class for grown-ups. No one really wants to do the heavy lifting, they just want to daydream and get paid for it. They want to feel like they can be a hero for sticking a stock photo of a koala bear on the packaging and creating a slogan including the "koala-ty" product. (This ACTUALLY happened in my presence. I struggled hard not to burst out laughing.)

The real shocker is how much people get paid to sit around and think about cool ideas. Those people are always making a killing. The people doing the legwork and paperwork? They make close to minimum wage and are treated like garbage. 

Being an ideas person isn't a special skill. Everyone has ideas. You know what actually IS a special skill? Being able to come up with good ideas and put them to work. Another special skill that is lacking in "ideas" land? Math.

Some HR folk are getting the message, they are looking for people who have ideas and can do math. It's a recession you know, employers do have the upper hand these days. There are those of us dreamers who envision a world where truly productive people get the money, but until then, I'm going to keep rolling my eyes at "ideas people".