my mom would always tell me the same thing every time I came home from being bullied. That I needed to learn to deal with dumber people who might not like me.

She was wrong. Almost everyone I work with is of above average intelligent. That's the nature of a professional career: you're not randomly paired up with some doofus who just happens to share your zip code.

Even in the cases where I do interact with people of below average intelligence, it's perfectly fine and pleasant because adults are generally speaking not assholes to each other. Part of growing up is learning some social graces.

In retrospect, I have no idea where this idea comes from. Do people think that the idiot bully is going to magically get into Harvard and get a professional job?

There's a wide gulf between idiot bullying and just the behavior of people less educated/refined than you. No, you're not likely to have a white collar coworker give you a wedgie (at least, not without swift comeuppance from HR) but especially if you work in IT and have to support users, users who are often not nearly as tech savvy and occasionally can get frustrating, communication with people not on your wavelength is essential.

This goes doubly for high end sales, BTB work, dozens of other professional environments. Maybe you work in a place where the only other people you see every day are coworkers that you like, but in my experience that isn't very commonplace.

> There's a wide gulf between idiot bullying and just the behavior of people less educated/refined than you.

Sure. I'm not claiming that everyone I interact with is as educated or intelligent as me.

But it's not like an alternative education would have zero diversity. When I went to boarding school, the average IQ went way up—but there was still plenty of variation. Plus, I had the whole new challenge of learning to interact with people from different cultures—some of whom had very limited English.

I'm not claiming everyone I work with is tech-savvy or even equally intelligent. What I'm disputing is the claim that being forced to undergo years of bullying and unchallenging instruction is somehow educational.

It's pretty crazy. I'm a Canadian and went to public schools through school, now I'm doing my PhD. When I'm at summer schools or conferences with Americans, it's like half of those students had only ever interacted with other people in gifted programs at private schools.

Except not. You do have to deal with people not like you in 'real life', but the conditions are nothing like school, wherein you are forced to do so under disadvantageous conditions.

Maybe it's worth experiencing this once or twice, but to be put through it for years is nothing more than abuse.

On any given software team of more than 10 people, I can promise you at least 1 of them is regarded by the others as less skilled. The truth of that isn't relevant, the fact is even competent or highly skilled people may have a hard time presenting that skill verbally and/or in writing.

And even if you do somehow manage to go through an entire career without encountering someone like that or dealing with another person who happens to be a little your inferior, I fail to see the downside of learning social and communication skills for people not like yourself. That just sounds like a recipe for a well rounded individual.

> I fail to see the downside of learning social and communication skills for people not like yourself. That just sounds like a recipe for a well rounded individual.

You might also have failed to see all the bright kids who dumbed themselves down and achieved a lot less than they could have in order to attain popularity and avoid bullying. I'll take "well rounded" to mean "not really excelling in anything".