YMCA Hiring Practices
YMCA Hiring Practices Reviewed
Last updated 6:17 AM 6/11/2014
From my tennis log : "During the (tennis) practice, a big dark bespectacled black guy, who looked like a male incarnation of a nice black church lady, was by himself shooting baskets. I was impressed by how he was upbeat and energetic despite being alone. At one point he looked at me and said 'Paul Mantell?...tell me about it'. Paul Mantell is the YMCA administrator guy I applied to for the Exec Dir Job at the Waltham Y; I've been feeling upset about the people the Y has been appointing while forgetting about me. Having become adept at deciphering modern crypto-language, I figure the big black was saying, 'tell the black dude Kevin Washington who is the greater Y President about your problem with Paul Mantell'. Personally, as of now I suspect that the problem is that the YMCA (and those the Y in its emphasis on 'experience' copies) have become prejudiced in favor of hiring persons who are relatively boring compared to me, because they never get into minor (no-arrest-made) type trouble with police, campus-police, university-administrators etc".
Continuing where I left off re this subject:
I remember, the last week of the previous month of May, I was practicing in the evening (after dinner-time) at the Waltham Y Gym, it was a weekday, a few teenage white boys were playing basketball on half of the court, don't remember which sport I was practicing. One of them said, "he's good"! I figured in gym crypto-language, he meant that I was a good man or that I was good at the sport I was practicing, or that I was good at sports (when you talk about a fellow-player, you say, "good"; when you talk about a celebrity you say "(so-and-so) is good; when you talk about someone else in the gym you don't know you say 'he's good'!). Then later one of them, I think the same one, said, "The French Kid from Rhode Island"!?, in a wondering questioning tone of voice. Deciphering the gym crypto-language again, I knew that the French kid from Rhode Island that he was talking about was Andre Geoffroy, who came out of Johnson and Rose College in Rhode Island to get on the fast track to success in Boston, by first being appointed membership director of the Waltham YMCA by then-Waltham-Y-Executive-Director Pat Barnwell, and then after a year being appointed membership director of the Greater Boston YMCA by Paul Mantell who is some kind of Sr VP at the Greater Boston YMCA.
This because Geoffroy had gotten a job being an account manager with some moving company after he got out out college, by way of having a connection, which provided him with experience; and also because when he was the membership director at the Waltham Y, Paul Mantell credited him, because during that time more people signed up for the Waltham Y compared to any other Greater Boston Y (Geoffroy was appointed by Barnwell who was appointed by Mantell).
Meanwhile we watched in stunned silence, while Andre Geoffroy rocketed over our heads on the fast-track to success, while we were all left behind (my application to the Greater Boston Y was ignored, this despite" me having been a member of the Waltham Y for 20 years over the course of which I have paid around $10K in membership fees; me having spent many summers at Chicago Hyde Park YMCA Camp Martin Johnson; me having attended Chicago Hyde Park YMCA day-camp during several summers (the black-boys had a nickname for me- 'Sparky'); me having attained very high scores on standardized post-graduate exams; me being an excellent athlete and a super-athlete for my age; me producing valuable web-pages about sports; me having become a world-leader in Christian poetry (YMCA means Young Men's Christian Association); me having produced many valuable essays that have been read all over the world; me having gotten hundreds of thousands of hits on my websites; me having a College degree from one of the world's most prestigious colleges; me being (except for the occasional angry (why angry?) rude liar) being considered handsome (don't know about the typical female but plenty of 'conventionally attractive' females have been impressed by me); and, me having had a quotation appropriate for the Y, a quotation on whose behalf I have perhaps suffered much, in the upper right hand corner of my resume (1 Timothy 6:17-19); this despite there being only 20 men in my age-group and weight-class in the entire US, who are recorded as having lifted more than me doing the Olympic Snatch exercise).
My beliefs re hiring practices:
It is not proper that an executive should assume that any special success enjoyed by a branch of his organization, is of course due to the influence of someone he appointed. During the time that Andre Geoffroy was membership director at the Waltham Y, I produced many emails, blog-posts etc that mentioned the Waltham Y and the Oak Square Y without any kind of criticism. I personally overheard an Asian-Indian man who was signing up for the Y tell the clerk that it was "not because of Andre (Andre Geoffroy)". I even heard a TV personality muttering about how "they're crediting the wrong man"; deciphering his media crypto-language (in-context) I knew he was referring to Mantell crediting Geoffroy. I never see, the Y execs from Boston visit the Waltham Y. One would expect, that before an exec credits someone he hires for having accomplished something, said exec would visit the locality where the accomplishment is alleged to have occurred.
It is not proper that those who are unlucky enough to lack connections, and those whose connections fail them, should be treated like krap compared to some connected person.
It is not proper, that 'experience', which is usually obtained through connections, should be emphasized to the point where, ridiculously, nothing else matters. Apparently, personnel officers are so stupid, that they fail to realize that by emphasizing one thing, you de-emphasize other things. I am disgusted by what I perceive to be personnel officers or human resource officers, who act like robotic, somnolescent zombies, who lack appreciation for anything other than a) experience, and b) the being typical. You could walk on water, yet they would prefer the experienced typical.
We are tired of the Podunk-staters making it impossible for us to succeed without a connection bestowing experience upon us. We were able to graduate from elite schools in the first place, because for once we were competing without experience or connections being counted or playing a role. We are tired of Podunk-staters hiring their fellow Podunk-staters. We are tired of Podunk-staters making a preposterously big deal out of 'experience' because they graduated from an obscure school with a reputation as a diploma-mill, whereas we graduated from schools with long famous histories of brilliant achievement.
It is not proper that achievements produced and education obtained, without supervision, should be ignored.
Personnnel officers should not serve themselves by getting rid of persons who are competition for their job or for their crony's job or for some job they or their damned crony wish to be promoted to. Personnel officers should be closely supervised so that their self-interest does not obstruct the interests of the organization (exceptions to the rule such as evil organizations that should self-destruct ignored).
Though I don't believe in cronyism, the hiring of connected persons, I realize groups suffer unfair disadvantage when other groups are cronyistic while they are not. Cronyism is more appropriate for some organizations compared to other organizations. I have my doubts re cronyism being practiced by an organization like the YMCA; a YMCA-type organization should not make experience derived from connections so important that nothing else matters.
'Good-looks' in a man are not insignificant; the human-being enjoys good-looking humans. Those who are 'conventionally attractive' and those who are not 'conventionally attractive' must be assumed (until proven otherwise) to be equal in terms of personality. Hence the 'good-looking' person is personality+looks, whereas the person who is not good-looking, is personality.
As for this talk about 'overqualified': it's not a trifling matter when someone who could have been the greatest Y exec of all-time, ends up never even being employed, because of discrimination against the 'overqualified'. Those discriminated against for being 'overqualified', end up being further discriminated against for lacking the 'experience' that the under-qualified who displace them receive instead. Where is the proof that the expense of replacing the 'overqualified' who move on to other jobs, outweighs the advantage derived from hiring the 'overqualified'? Those who are not 'overqualified' move on to other jobs also. If employers can use the 'overqualified' excuse, then employers are never guilty of discrimination, because discrimination consists of hiring the less qualified person. Putting up with 'overqualified' persons is a price society has to pay if it wants to rid itself of discrimination. Employers who talk about 'overqualified', discourage persons from becoming skilled and educated. Their attitude is basically, 'let us hire the least qualified qualified person', which is ridiculous.
Absurd result of Incompetent Promotion of 'Civil Rights'
The Civil Rights Movement, the movement against discrimination on the basis of factors such as race age and gender, correctly interpreted had a dream. The dream was that we could live in a society where people were appointed to jobs without their race age or gender being a factor. The dream was connected to the cold-hearted economic reality that economic productivity suffers when irrelevant factors are emphasized in hiring; the dream was based on the understanding of how older persons are often of superior competence even though their health-insurance costs more. The dream never was what the reality has become- people being obsessed with race, bug-eyed about color, age, and gender, all in the name of quota-istic alleged attempts to be fair to a gender, or fair to a race. (I realize that a reasonable level of self-defensive prejudice exists, such prejudice guards a group against being taken advantage of by a rival group that is more prejudiced).
The beautiful-saint displaced important
The world contains saints (we tend to be too superficial to appreciate them). The world contains beautiful saints. True love consists of living in a way that is beneficial to these beautiful saints. The saints who are not beautiful help the beautiful-saints. There are those who are almost beautiful-saints* (beautiful-saints* with asterisk connotes those who are beautiful-saints and those who are almost beautiful-saints). Typicals displacing beautiful-saints* when the beautiful-saint is more competent (employment) or worthy (pohilanthropy) than them, is an important serious subject. People either openly or secretly enjoy beautiful-saints*.
Beyond involvement in judging people for their personalities and conduct, there are beautiful-geniuses (beautiful-genius* includes those who are a beautiful-genius and those who are almost a beautiful-genius). People either openly or secretly enjoy the beautiful-genius*. The Typical displacing the beautiful-genius* is an important event. The importance of it is compounded by the fact that poor nations mistakenly or wisely look to the most advanced most powerful nations of the world for guidance. When a beautiful-saint* or a beautiful-genius* is displaced by a typical in America these days the results are horrendous enough. When employers or philanthropists in a poor nation imitate the US and displace a beautiful-saint* or a beautiful-genius* the results are even worse, the result could be the beautiful-saint* or beautiful-genius* starving to death.
Beliefs in Context of YMCA Events
I am not accusing the Greater Boston YMCA of contradicting my beliefs through their actions. In my experience the YMCA employees have been ladies and gentlemen. The question is not whether gentlemen or sociopaths should be hired. The point is, which gentlemen should be hired?
Many gentlemen have gone out into the world; some of them end up having to do physically tiring jobs featuring pay so low, combined with rents so high, that more than half the income goes to pay rent; the jobs, and getting to the job and back home from the job eat up huge amounts of time and energy; the victimized gentleman ends up too tired to exercise despite being a world-class athlete; the victimized gentleman ends up being unable to get to the places where he can practice his sport; the victim-gentleman ends up not being able to afford membership at the places where he could practice his sport; the victimized gentleman ends up not being able to afford the car needed to get to the place where he practices his sport; the victimized gentleman ends up having to invest huge amounts of time and energy just getting to and from the place where he practices his sport; the victimized gentleman on a daily basis has to deny himself healthy foods.
I don't like snobbery, I don't like persons who mindlessly imitate others. Here's how the Y seems to be to me (could be a case of mistaken impressions):
The Y-staff never use the Y, they don't use it before they are hired, while they are hired or when they are no longer employed. And those who use the Y are not hired. There is something wrong with this. How can 'superior' staff never use the Y? How does using the Y make you of less quality as a Y-staff? Why should Y-members be discriminated against when it comes to the hiring of Y-staff? It seems snobby; if Y-staff think that using the Y is beneath their dignity they should not be Y-staff in the first place. Where do the Y-staff go to get their workouts done? Some ritzy club that's too expensive for the average Y-member? They've been influenced by institutions such as Harvard, which appears to have an (insane) policy of punishing Harvard grads for having a Harvard degree. They are imitating the 'professional distance' maintained by psychiatrists between them and their patients.
I have always felt irritated by persons who imitate others. Every body is an individual. The imitated person could be in error. Once I had a dream about the Radcliffe coeds: they were birds in the sky. Bird A was following Bird B, Bird B was following Bird C, and Bird C was following Bird A...it was madness, an insane circle, like a dog chasing its tail...
I don't see myself as making mountains out of molehills by way of writing this. Rather I see a danger of making a molehill out of a mountain. It's not a trifling matter, when someone who could have been, the greatest YMCA executive of all time, can never even get the lowest job.
That the Young Men's Christian Association should discriminate against Christians because Christians allegedly discriminate against homosexuals, is ridiculous. Don't homosexuals discriminate against Christians? How is it that homosexuals expect everyone to rubber-stamp their lifestyle? I never expected everyone to rubber-stamp my behavior. Some schools of tennis are intolerant of this style of play, others are intolerant of that style of play, but nobody complains about such 'intolerance'. If society began to persecute tennis coaches for being intolerant of this or that style, the level of tennis achieved would degenerate.
Last updated 6:17 AM 6/11/2014
From my tennis log : "During the (tennis) practice, a big dark bespectacled black guy, who looked like a male incarnation of a nice black church lady, was by himself shooting baskets. I was impressed by how he was upbeat and energetic despite being alone. At one point he looked at me and said 'Paul Mantell?...tell me about it'. Paul Mantell is the YMCA administrator guy I applied to for the Exec Dir Job at the Waltham Y; I've been feeling upset about the people the Y has been appointing while forgetting about me. Having become adept at deciphering modern crypto-language, I figure the big black was saying, 'tell the black dude Kevin Washington who is the greater Y President about your problem with Paul Mantell'. Personally, as of now I suspect that the problem is that the YMCA (and those the Y in its emphasis on 'experience' copies) have become prejudiced in favor of hiring persons who are relatively boring compared to me, because they never get into minor (no-arrest-made) type trouble with police, campus-police, university-administrators etc".
Continuing where I left off re this subject:
I remember, the last week of the previous month of May, I was practicing in the evening (after dinner-time) at the Waltham Y Gym, it was a weekday, a few teenage white boys were playing basketball on half of the court, don't remember which sport I was practicing. One of them said, "he's good"! I figured in gym crypto-language, he meant that I was a good man or that I was good at the sport I was practicing, or that I was good at sports (when you talk about a fellow-player, you say, "good"; when you talk about a celebrity you say "(so-and-so) is good; when you talk about someone else in the gym you don't know you say 'he's good'!). Then later one of them, I think the same one, said, "The French Kid from Rhode Island"!?, in a wondering questioning tone of voice. Deciphering the gym crypto-language again, I knew that the French kid from Rhode Island that he was talking about was Andre Geoffroy, who came out of Johnson and Rose College in Rhode Island to get on the fast track to success in Boston, by first being appointed membership director of the Waltham YMCA by then-Waltham-Y-Executive-Director Pat Barnwell, and then after a year being appointed membership director of the Greater Boston YMCA by Paul Mantell who is some kind of Sr VP at the Greater Boston YMCA.
This because Geoffroy had gotten a job being an account manager with some moving company after he got out out college, by way of having a connection, which provided him with experience; and also because when he was the membership director at the Waltham Y, Paul Mantell credited him, because during that time more people signed up for the Waltham Y compared to any other Greater Boston Y (Geoffroy was appointed by Barnwell who was appointed by Mantell).
Meanwhile we watched in stunned silence, while Andre Geoffroy rocketed over our heads on the fast-track to success, while we were all left behind (my application to the Greater Boston Y was ignored, this despite" me having been a member of the Waltham Y for 20 years over the course of which I have paid around $10K in membership fees; me having spent many summers at Chicago Hyde Park YMCA Camp Martin Johnson; me having attended Chicago Hyde Park YMCA day-camp during several summers (the black-boys had a nickname for me- 'Sparky'); me having attained very high scores on standardized post-graduate exams; me being an excellent athlete and a super-athlete for my age; me producing valuable web-pages about sports; me having become a world-leader in Christian poetry (YMCA means Young Men's Christian Association); me having produced many valuable essays that have been read all over the world; me having gotten hundreds of thousands of hits on my websites; me having a College degree from one of the world's most prestigious colleges; me being (except for the occasional angry (why angry?) rude liar) being considered handsome (don't know about the typical female but plenty of 'conventionally attractive' females have been impressed by me); and, me having had a quotation appropriate for the Y, a quotation on whose behalf I have perhaps suffered much, in the upper right hand corner of my resume (1 Timothy 6:17-19); this despite there being only 20 men in my age-group and weight-class in the entire US, who are recorded as having lifted more than me doing the Olympic Snatch exercise).
My beliefs re hiring practices:
It is not proper that an executive should assume that any special success enjoyed by a branch of his organization, is of course due to the influence of someone he appointed. During the time that Andre Geoffroy was membership director at the Waltham Y, I produced many emails, blog-posts etc that mentioned the Waltham Y and the Oak Square Y without any kind of criticism. I personally overheard an Asian-Indian man who was signing up for the Y tell the clerk that it was "not because of Andre (Andre Geoffroy)". I even heard a TV personality muttering about how "they're crediting the wrong man"; deciphering his media crypto-language (in-context) I knew he was referring to Mantell crediting Geoffroy. I never see, the Y execs from Boston visit the Waltham Y. One would expect, that before an exec credits someone he hires for having accomplished something, said exec would visit the locality where the accomplishment is alleged to have occurred.
It is not proper that those who are unlucky enough to lack connections, and those whose connections fail them, should be treated like krap compared to some connected person.
It is not proper, that 'experience', which is usually obtained through connections, should be emphasized to the point where, ridiculously, nothing else matters. Apparently, personnel officers are so stupid, that they fail to realize that by emphasizing one thing, you de-emphasize other things. I am disgusted by what I perceive to be personnel officers or human resource officers, who act like robotic, somnolescent zombies, who lack appreciation for anything other than a) experience, and b) the being typical. You could walk on water, yet they would prefer the experienced typical.
We are tired of the Podunk-staters making it impossible for us to succeed without a connection bestowing experience upon us. We were able to graduate from elite schools in the first place, because for once we were competing without experience or connections being counted or playing a role. We are tired of Podunk-staters hiring their fellow Podunk-staters. We are tired of Podunk-staters making a preposterously big deal out of 'experience' because they graduated from an obscure school with a reputation as a diploma-mill, whereas we graduated from schools with long famous histories of brilliant achievement.
It is not proper that achievements produced and education obtained, without supervision, should be ignored.
Personnnel officers should not serve themselves by getting rid of persons who are competition for their job or for their crony's job or for some job they or their damned crony wish to be promoted to. Personnel officers should be closely supervised so that their self-interest does not obstruct the interests of the organization (exceptions to the rule such as evil organizations that should self-destruct ignored).
Though I don't believe in cronyism, the hiring of connected persons, I realize groups suffer unfair disadvantage when other groups are cronyistic while they are not. Cronyism is more appropriate for some organizations compared to other organizations. I have my doubts re cronyism being practiced by an organization like the YMCA; a YMCA-type organization should not make experience derived from connections so important that nothing else matters.
'Good-looks' in a man are not insignificant; the human-being enjoys good-looking humans. Those who are 'conventionally attractive' and those who are not 'conventionally attractive' must be assumed (until proven otherwise) to be equal in terms of personality. Hence the 'good-looking' person is personality+looks, whereas the person who is not good-looking, is personality.
As for this talk about 'overqualified': it's not a trifling matter when someone who could have been the greatest Y exec of all-time, ends up never even being employed, because of discrimination against the 'overqualified'. Those discriminated against for being 'overqualified', end up being further discriminated against for lacking the 'experience' that the under-qualified who displace them receive instead. Where is the proof that the expense of replacing the 'overqualified' who move on to other jobs, outweighs the advantage derived from hiring the 'overqualified'? Those who are not 'overqualified' move on to other jobs also. If employers can use the 'overqualified' excuse, then employers are never guilty of discrimination, because discrimination consists of hiring the less qualified person. Putting up with 'overqualified' persons is a price society has to pay if it wants to rid itself of discrimination. Employers who talk about 'overqualified', discourage persons from becoming skilled and educated. Their attitude is basically, 'let us hire the least qualified qualified person', which is ridiculous.
Absurd result of Incompetent Promotion of 'Civil Rights'
The Civil Rights Movement, the movement against discrimination on the basis of factors such as race age and gender, correctly interpreted had a dream. The dream was that we could live in a society where people were appointed to jobs without their race age or gender being a factor. The dream was connected to the cold-hearted economic reality that economic productivity suffers when irrelevant factors are emphasized in hiring; the dream was based on the understanding of how older persons are often of superior competence even though their health-insurance costs more. The dream never was what the reality has become- people being obsessed with race, bug-eyed about color, age, and gender, all in the name of quota-istic alleged attempts to be fair to a gender, or fair to a race. (I realize that a reasonable level of self-defensive prejudice exists, such prejudice guards a group against being taken advantage of by a rival group that is more prejudiced).
The beautiful-saint displaced important
The world contains saints (we tend to be too superficial to appreciate them). The world contains beautiful saints. True love consists of living in a way that is beneficial to these beautiful saints. The saints who are not beautiful help the beautiful-saints. There are those who are almost beautiful-saints* (beautiful-saints* with asterisk connotes those who are beautiful-saints and those who are almost beautiful-saints). Typicals displacing beautiful-saints* when the beautiful-saint is more competent (employment) or worthy (pohilanthropy) than them, is an important serious subject. People either openly or secretly enjoy beautiful-saints*.
Beyond involvement in judging people for their personalities and conduct, there are beautiful-geniuses (beautiful-genius* includes those who are a beautiful-genius and those who are almost a beautiful-genius). People either openly or secretly enjoy the beautiful-genius*. The Typical displacing the beautiful-genius* is an important event. The importance of it is compounded by the fact that poor nations mistakenly or wisely look to the most advanced most powerful nations of the world for guidance. When a beautiful-saint* or a beautiful-genius* is displaced by a typical in America these days the results are horrendous enough. When employers or philanthropists in a poor nation imitate the US and displace a beautiful-saint* or a beautiful-genius* the results are even worse, the result could be the beautiful-saint* or beautiful-genius* starving to death.
Beliefs in Context of YMCA Events
I am not accusing the Greater Boston YMCA of contradicting my beliefs through their actions. In my experience the YMCA employees have been ladies and gentlemen. The question is not whether gentlemen or sociopaths should be hired. The point is, which gentlemen should be hired?
Many gentlemen have gone out into the world; some of them end up having to do physically tiring jobs featuring pay so low, combined with rents so high, that more than half the income goes to pay rent; the jobs, and getting to the job and back home from the job eat up huge amounts of time and energy; the victimized gentleman ends up too tired to exercise despite being a world-class athlete; the victimized gentleman ends up being unable to get to the places where he can practice his sport; the victim-gentleman ends up not being able to afford membership at the places where he could practice his sport; the victimized gentleman ends up not being able to afford the car needed to get to the place where he practices his sport; the victimized gentleman ends up having to invest huge amounts of time and energy just getting to and from the place where he practices his sport; the victimized gentleman on a daily basis has to deny himself healthy foods.
I don't like snobbery, I don't like persons who mindlessly imitate others. Here's how the Y seems to be to me (could be a case of mistaken impressions):
The Y-staff never use the Y, they don't use it before they are hired, while they are hired or when they are no longer employed. And those who use the Y are not hired. There is something wrong with this. How can 'superior' staff never use the Y? How does using the Y make you of less quality as a Y-staff? Why should Y-members be discriminated against when it comes to the hiring of Y-staff? It seems snobby; if Y-staff think that using the Y is beneath their dignity they should not be Y-staff in the first place. Where do the Y-staff go to get their workouts done? Some ritzy club that's too expensive for the average Y-member? They've been influenced by institutions such as Harvard, which appears to have an (insane) policy of punishing Harvard grads for having a Harvard degree. They are imitating the 'professional distance' maintained by psychiatrists between them and their patients.
I have always felt irritated by persons who imitate others. Every body is an individual. The imitated person could be in error. Once I had a dream about the Radcliffe coeds: they were birds in the sky. Bird A was following Bird B, Bird B was following Bird C, and Bird C was following Bird A...it was madness, an insane circle, like a dog chasing its tail...
I don't see myself as making mountains out of molehills by way of writing this. Rather I see a danger of making a molehill out of a mountain. It's not a trifling matter, when someone who could have been, the greatest YMCA executive of all time, can never even get the lowest job.
That the Young Men's Christian Association should discriminate against Christians because Christians allegedly discriminate against homosexuals, is ridiculous. Don't homosexuals discriminate against Christians? How is it that homosexuals expect everyone to rubber-stamp their lifestyle? I never expected everyone to rubber-stamp my behavior. Some schools of tennis are intolerant of this style of play, others are intolerant of that style of play, but nobody complains about such 'intolerance'. If society began to persecute tennis coaches for being intolerant of this or that style, the level of tennis achieved would degenerate.
posted by David Virgil at 8:27 PM
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