After complaining about 1 percenter articles in the New York Times, I’m going to write a 1 percenter, — well, maybe a ten percenter — parenting blog post.

David Brooks’s column is an open letter to businesses about the types of people that they should hire. An excerpt:

Bias hiring decisions against perfectionists. If you work in a white-collar sector that attracts highly educated job applicants, you’ve probably been flooded with résumés from people who are not so much human beings as perfect avatars of success. They got 3.8 grade-point averages in high school and college. They served in the cliché leadership positions on campus. They got all the perfect consultant/investment bank internships. During off-hours they distributed bed nets in Zambia and dug wells in Peru.

When you read these résumés, you have two thoughts. First, this applicant is awesome. Second, there’s something completely flavorless here. This person has followed the cookie-cutter formula for what it means to be successful and you actually have no clue what the person is really like except for a high talent for social conformity. Either they have no desire to chart out an original life course or lack the courage to do so. Shy away from such people.

He goes on to tell them to avoid hiring people who have high GPAs, who have followed traditional paths to success, and who have predictable cover letters. Basically, his post is a rant against the products of middle-class or upper middle class schools and families. Our schools are pumping out boring, predictable, over-scheduled robots. And we should stop rewarding the system that produces them.

Sudden flashback to the video of the meat grinder image in the Pink Floyd video.

It’s funny that this note of rebellion is coming from oldies, and not from the kids. Maybe they are too tired and stressed out to protest.

Tangential rant against the conformity of teenage girls’ hair. Why do they all have long straight hair in a pony tail? What happened to other hair styles?