Nerd's guide to coping with teenagers

LsPhotography · 2 Ιουλίου 2008

Nerd's guide to coping with teenagers

Billionaire Bill Gates has stepped down from the day-to-day running of Microsoft, but has a few lessons to pass on to entrepreneurs of the future.

In a recent speech to American high school pupils, he complained that feelgood, politically correct teaching has created a generation of kids with no concept of reality.

Sound familiar?

Gates's words resonate over here, where a chief examiner admitted this week that he had given marks to a pupil who had written only "F*** off" on his GCSE paper.

No wonder employers complain about young people entering work with a ludicrously inflated sense of their own abilities.

Bill Gates gave his young audience 11 tips for success, which they would never, ever learn in school.

For anyone with a stroppy teenager, I reckon it's not a bad cautionary list to stick up on the fridge:

RULE 1: Life is not fair - get used to it! RULE 2: The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

RULE 3: You will NOT make £30,000 a year right out of high school.

RULE 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

RULE 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: opportunity.

RULE 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes - learn from them.

RULE 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills and listening to you talk about how cool you are.

RULE 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT.

RULE 9: Life is not divided into terms. You don't get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you "find yourself". Do that in your own time.

RULE 10: TV is not real life. In real life, people have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

RULE 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one!