xkcd: ?Document Forgery?
https://www.xkcd.com/3160/

I need to do this ! Many of my customer assume that I have a PhD in
Chemical Engineering and are surprised when they find out that I do not.

Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3160:_Document_Forgery

Lynn


--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 10/27/2025 6:08 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

xkcd: ?Document Forgery?
ÿÿ https://www.xkcd.com/3160/

I need to do this !ÿ Many of my customer assume that I have a PhD in Chemical Engineering and are surprised when they find out that I do not.

Explained at:
ÿÿ https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3160:_Document_Forgery

Lynn

For years I had a Microsoft Certified Software Engineer in Minesweeper
hanging in my cubicle amongst the others. No one ever said a thing.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 18:08:01 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

xkcd: ?Document Forgery?
https://www.xkcd.com/3160/

I need to do this ! Many of my customer assume that I have a PhD in >Chemical Engineering and are surprised when they find out that I do not.

Knowledge is more important than paperwork.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 10/28/2025 11:56 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 18:08:01 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

xkcd: ?Document Forgery?
https://www.xkcd.com/3160/

I need to do this ! Many of my customer assume that I have a PhD in
Chemical Engineering and are surprised when they find out that I do not.

Knowledge is more important than paperwork.

Except for HR departments.

4 times in my career I was accused of faking my resume with a fake
degree. It was always the same problem: I attended university at
the University of London, in the UK, and US checkers didn't have
a cluse as to how to check that. In each case, I had to pay the
University to send an official letter confirming my graduation.

The last time was over 30 years after graduation, and I had been
working as a software engineer for decades. My degree is in
Biochemistry, and so irrelevant.

pt




--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 10/28/2025 12:08 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:

On 10/28/2025 11:56 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 18:08:01 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

xkcd: ?Document Forgery?
ÿÿÿ https://www.xkcd.com/3160/

I need to do this !ÿ Many of my customer assume that I have a PhD in
Chemical Engineering and are surprised when they find out that I do not.

Knowledge is more important than paperwork.

Except for HR departments.

4 times in my career I was accused of faking my resume with a fake
degree. It was always the same problem: I attended university at
the University of London, in the UK, and US checkers didn't have
a cluse as to how to check that. In each case, I had to pay the
University to send an official letter confirming my graduation.

The last time was over 30 years after graduation, and I had been
working as a software engineer for decades. My degree is in
Biochemistry, and so irrelevant.

pt

We had a graphics programmer back in the dark ages of programming, the
1980s, with an English degree. He was great until he started liquid
lunches. I rapidly learned if I needed some help to get it in the morning.

Lynn


--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Paul S Person wrote:

On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 18:08:01 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

xkcd: ?Document Forgery?
https://www.xkcd.com/3160/

I need to do this ! Many of my customer assume that I have a PhD in
Chemical Engineering and are surprised when they find out that I do not.

Knowledge is more important than paperwork.

So it should be. And when you own the company, it is. However:

A friend at NASA had a number of scientific publications to his name,
easily more than arise from a PhD, but was blocked for further promotion
in the civil service for lack of that piece of paper.

So he took one of the projects he was contemplating and turned it into a
PhD thesis. Promotion followed, and a lucrative private sector
post-NASA position which would not have been available to a "Mr".


For an assistant professor of meteorology position we hired someone with almost no experience in the field, with no coursework, no thesis, and
few publications. But he had a PhD in condensed matter physics, which
was qualification enough. He turned out to be a very successful hire, a credit to the department and university.

But without that doctorate he wouldn't have made the short list, even if
he had more publications than was the case.

In C. P. Snow's novel "The Masters" (1937) Oxford dons get a bit snide
about "Dr" Jago's title. They see a doctorate as something between a
piece of unnecessary frivolity and an ego-trip. I am old enough that I
had a few professors who did not have a doctorate or real-world
equivalent. They were no better or worse on average than the other professors.


William Hyde

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 10/28/2025 3:15 PM, William Hyde wrote:

Paul S Person wrote:

On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 18:08:01 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

xkcd: ?Document Forgery?
ÿÿÿ https://www.xkcd.com/3160/

I need to do this !ÿ Many of my customer assume that I have a PhD in
Chemical Engineering and are surprised when they find out that I do not.

Knowledge is more important than paperwork.

So it should be. And when you own the company, it is.ÿ However:

A friend at NASA had a number of scientific publications to his name,
easily more than arise from a PhD, but was blocked for further promotion
in the civil service for lack of that piece of paper.

So he took one of the projects he was contemplating and turned it into a
PhD thesis.ÿ Promotion followed, and a lucrative private sector post-
NASA position which would not have been available to a "Mr".

For an assistant professor of meteorology position we hired someone with almost no experience in the field, with no coursework, no thesis, and
few publications.ÿ But he had a PhD in condensed matter physics, which
was qualification enough.ÿ He turned out to be a very successful hire, a credit to the department and university.

But without that doctorate he wouldn't have made the short list, even if
he had more publications than was the case.

In C. P. Snow's novel "The Masters" (1937) Oxford dons get a bit snide
about "Dr" Jago's title.ÿ They see a doctorate as something between a
piece of unnecessary frivolity and an ego-trip.ÿ I am old enough that I
had a few professors who did not haveÿ a doctorate or real-world
equivalent.ÿ They were no better or worse on average than the other professors.

William Hyde

My grandfather taught drafting at TAMU with a BS Industrial Engineering
degree from 1938 to 1970. He got his MS in Industrial Engineering
around 1950 or so. He became the assistant Engineering College Dean in
1970 because he was running the Cooperative Work and High School JETS
programs on the side. When he retired in 1976 they replaced him with
three PhDs.

Grandad helped 6,000 Aggie Engineering students find coop jobs so they
could stay in school. He had the biggest Rolodex on his desk that I
ever saw in my life. He would flip around his Rolodex when a broke engineering student came in, call a former engineering student, and have
a coop job for them in less than an hour.

A couple of years later in 1978, one of the new drafting PhDs told me
that he knew my grandfather well and that I was not to his level of
drafting, especially in lettering. I was not hurt, I liked
thermodynamics. I could have cared less about drafting.

Lynn


--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 20:19:40 -0500, Jay Morris <morrisj@epsilon3.me>
wrote:

For years I had a Microsoft Certified Software Engineer in Minesweeper >hanging in my cubicle amongst the others. No one ever said a thing.

Wish I had known about that 25 years ago - I had several Win 98 and
Windows Server certificates at one point but there's not much call for
that these days heh heh. I'd be surprised if they're still in a box
somewhere in my basement which is mostly PHD ("piled higher and
deeper")

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 11/5/2025 7:09 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 20:19:40 -0500, Jay Morris <morrisj@epsilon3.me>
wrote:

For years I had a Microsoft Certified Software Engineer in Minesweeper
hanging in my cubicle amongst the others. No one ever said a thing.

Wish I had known about that 25 years ago - I had several Win 98 and
Windows Server certificates at one point but there's not much call for
that these days heh heh. I'd be surprised if they're still in a box
somewhere in my basement which is mostly PHD ("piled higher and
deeper")

I have a "Certificate of Survival" for completing an in-house programmer training course at a company I worked for 25+ years ago.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)