Cheaters

I read a BBC article that prompted this blog post:

Cheating on exams - whether they're weekly, education certifications or state licensing exams has been available for many years. Cheaters would write answers on their hands or  arms or etch their pencils or pay someone to take the exam for them.

Students who passed the exam would sometimes record their answers and sell or distribute them to others. The cheater could  also easily look at a neighbor's paper and simply copy their answers.

So now we're in the digital age where we have iPods, MP3 players, USB disks, pen drives, mobile phones - many equipped with a Note feature for recording notes, we have texting, we can receive photos via mobile and on and on so cheating has become even easier and more difficult to detect and prevent. Never mind the web sites that purport to have the exam online for would be cheaters to see and memorize for a price.

Today's cheaters are just as dodgy as those from my time. And yes, several of them will gain acceptance into ivy league institutions or colleges with stellar reputations and some will advance the ranks in Corporate America.

The thing is we'll always be able to spot them because they're likely to have administrative staff who do everything for them. Not because they can afford the staff, but because the cheater is absolutely dependent on their skills to compose the memos, budgets, speeches, policies,  etc. that the cheater's pea brain never mastered.

The cheater is likely the manager or director at the office who can't spell worth a damn or compose a standard business letter.  He's the one the staff picks apart his emails and ridicules his spelling and grammar.

He doesn't know how to create  a budget or prepare a proposal. He likely paid fellow students to write his papers and take his exams. Now he's in Corporate America and still at a loss about how to do things.

Look closely and you'll spot him.