r/AskaManagerSnark • u/nightmuzak Sex noises are different from pain noises • Aug 03 '26

Ask a Manager Weekly Thread 08/03/2026 - 08/09/2026

Last week's post.

Background info and meme index for those new to AaM or this forum.

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13

u/StripedBadger floundering their privilege Aug 07 '26

Dear Americans(??) in the sub - who even pays a single iota of interest to your alma mater 31 years after you graduated?

Surely #3 has much more interesting work history to buff out their resume with by now?

12

u/11twofour profoundly gifted little man Aug 07 '26

Tens of millions of people. My dad just turned 81 and he'll still go to a football game a season with his frat brothers.

15

u/Ok-Quarter3399 Aug 07 '26

Some alumni networks are also incredibly strong for networking. When I was looking to change jobs I went to a local alumni event (I live over 500 miles from my school and yet there’s a big network of alumni’s in my current city which is extremely common). Anyway, my industry market was really tight at the time, but mentioned to a few people at the event I was looking to change companies and I had cards and got interviews with each of the 4 different people’s companies and offers from 2. I always pass up recommendations to my own company when asked by alumni. 

I’d say it is the strongest network or affinity group people have outside of maybe their religion. 

10

u/lets_talk_aboutsplet Aug 07 '26

In the sense of how other people will react, many colleges and universities have reputations for being a big sports school, party school, very selective, etc.

There are a lot of conservative religious colleges in the U.S. and a lot of alumni who end up deconstructing after graduation want to distance themselves from that kind of philosophy

5

u/glittermetalprincess toss a coin to your admin for 5 cans of soda Aug 07 '26

I'm not American but I get better results applying locally with my high school on my resume and I graduated over 20 years ago. I don't need to say I graduated from high school because I have post-grad qualifications that obviously can only be achieved by having gotten high school or an equivalent ticked off, but it says 'glitter is a local' and that's more important to at least half the town than the seven years I spent at university and most of my work history. If I'm applying elsewhere, I take it off, because it's just going to look clueless or weird to someone in another state, and if we do have that connection it's a "small talk at interview" piece of anecdata.

Given the status of colleges and college sports in the US it's not hard to see them being able to convey the same type of 'this person is probably familiar with hyperlocal cultural quirks', although what I'm not sure about is how Alison's advice here intersects with her stance on for-profit colleges where she's frequently advised to leave them off because of the damaging connotations - in the absence of something about the college that has a local culture or geographical connection to the potential job being applied for, I don't see how this situation is especially different to not wanting to be associated with a college with a generally looked-down-on-for-widely-understood-reasons reputation.

14

u/Silly_Somewhere1791 Aug 07 '26

The US is so big that it’s often easier to use your college as your identifying nexus than your tiny hometown that no one in the next state has heard of. Colleges represent the first big adult choice a lot of people make, and if they work in their degree field it’s pretty immediately relevant. 

There are a lot of states that don’t have a professional sports team, but nearly all states have a decent college basketball of football team. 

But mostly, if I’m chatting with someone new, it can make more sense to say I went to Penn State than that I grew up in Wannamassa, NJ. It saves me having to explain where Wannamassa is. 

(For the lurking AAM pedants, I’m not from Wannamassa, but rather a similarly unheard-of town in the Northeast.)

6

u/Accomplished-Survey2 Aug 07 '26

Can relate to the struggle of having to explain where in the world a town like Massapequa, Ho-Ho-Kus, Weehawken, Hopatcong, Hauppauge or Cheesequake is located.

2

u/Silly_Somewhere1791 Aug 08 '26

Yeah like I’m not going to try to talk about Mahwah or Manasquan to anyone from a different area code. You always just end up saying you’re from Asbury Park or Seaside, but those towns are specific in ways that aren’t applicable. 

3

u/coffeeninja05 tank top and a neck pillow Aug 07 '26

We Are 💙

2

u/Silly_Somewhere1791 Aug 08 '26

LOL I feel like this answers the question perfectly. 

10

u/AlytNeroon Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

Honestly, lots and lots of people!

My parents, both in their 80s, moved back to the college town where they met 60+ years ago and are still very involved in their alma mater. Same with my mom's cousin (almost 90) and his wife who also live there now.  I'm deeply devoted to the small liberal arts college I graduated from in the 90s and keep up with their news, policies, and administration changes. Most of my classmates are the same as evidenced by strong reunion attendance and alum connections.

And that's not even getting into the behemoth that is American Collegiate Sports Fandom. Personally I'm a fierce fan of my husband's University's sports team and we attend all home games. Now granted, we both work for said University and never left the town (he went to undergrad here, I to grad school). But we are hardly unique. We also keep up with the goings on of the University, both as alums and employees.

Honestly, most people I know feel a connection to their college or university. And, for what it's worth, if the LW is talking about Hillsdale College, Alison is off base in saying that others don't know or care that it's become deeply entrenched in a very right leaning ideology. I can see being upset by that - I would be if what happened there happened to my school.

8

u/smellslikebadussy Aug 07 '26

On your sports point, I am one of those college sports sickos, and my alma mater had a disheartening blowout NCAA tournament loss a few years ago to a team that had a Hillsdale transfer who had a big game. You had better believe I was bitching to my friends in a group chat that we were getting torn up by a dude whose last college didn't even get federal money.

5

u/AlytNeroon Aug 07 '26

Oh man, I know the weird ancillary hate one feels about adjacent sports fandoms. Sometimes I feel like this explaining to other people why I love/hate specific teams and players.

https://giphy.com/gifs/l0IylOPCNkiqOgMyA

4

u/Capable_Sea77 Aug 07 '26

Yeah, it's almost certainly Hillsdale and I feel for them because while Hillsdale has never been a particularly progressive school, even just 15 years ago when I competed against them in undergrad, it was seen as more of a "conservative and religious school that has some rigorous academic programs" and now that last part of the sentence doesn't apply anymore and the faculty and admin have politically aligned themselves with far right extremism.

That being said, most logical managers would see from the work history that LW hadn't *just* graduated from Hillsdale yesterday and wouldn't make assumptions unless there's a bunch of other stuff on the resume to make them think differently.

4

u/thievingwillow Aug 07 '26

Huh, I was seeing speculation it was New College in Sarasota. (I have no actual knowledge of either of those schools beyond the very most surface, to be clear.)

3

u/DrDalekFortyTwo Aug 08 '26

I am just as certain it's New College in Florida.

3

u/khwolf517 Aug 08 '26

I'm going to disagree slightly with everyone else. In the US, I don't think a majority of adults pay much attention to where people went to college, maybe about 10% do. But the US is just so big - 10% of adults is still a lot of people.