When I was fresh out of high school, I worked as a transporter for the radiology department of a local hospital. Each modality (CT Scan, MRI, Ultrasound) had its own manager, and a director who oversaw all the managers. Anyway, we got a new CT supervisor, and from the get go, he came in with a “I’m the new sheriff in town” attitude and rubbed just about everyone in the department the wrong way. In addition, he was extremely ambitious and made no secret about having his sights set on the director position. His method for making a name for himself was by constantly undermining the other managers and meddling with all of the workers in each modality, especially the transporters. He was constantly leaving his own department to make rounds to check on what we were doing and report any of us who had down time and weren’t using it to help him. Then he’d go outside and smoke a cigarette for 15 minutes. He seemed to have little to no interest in doing his actual job.
As if this didn’t make him insufferable enough, he was comically insecure and touted his master’s degree from a college no one had ever heard of CONSTANTLY. And I mean constantly. He wore a jacket that had his degree embroidered on the front of it. He would find a way to work it into every conversation. He would regularly ask the transporters what they were doing for college and then belittle whatever answer they gave because…he had a master’s degree!! Anytime someone questioned him or stood up to his meddling, his master’s degree was always the answer. It was downright embarrassing. His Facebook page even had a quote from Sheldon Cooper saying “you thought I would consider a community college graduate the opposite of being a loser?”
Now, about 12 years later, I, too, have earned a master’s degree from a college no one has ever heard of, but it has helped me to fully understand the scope of how pathetic that guy actually was. Like, I can’t even fathom flexing it to colleagues or even worse, kids right out of high school. Has anyone ever worked for an obnoxious degree thumper like this guy?