I was a high school valedictorian, and I can't say that I was popular!
I probably wasn't particularly unpopular either, since I did win student body vice president senior year, essentially a popularity contest, to be sure. But I find the same thing when I interview for jobs, or even attend management meetings/seminars in the job I have. I eventually get heard, I have eventually landed good jobs when I was looking, but I have never ever been the sort of person that anyone said "wow, we need that fellow at all costs." I think the reaction to me is more, "well, I think he can do the job if we can't find someone better."
Still, we experienced similar nonsense when I attended the Naval Academy in the 1980s. We had physical training every weekday morning for the first summer, and the top few people got shirts as "supers," while the bottom few had to turn their t-shirts inside out as "subs" (I was neither). Except for a couple of years, we had a Commandant who forbade the "subs" practice, saying it made people feel terrible to be called such. It seemed to me it was good incentive for those fellows to get in shape...Fortunately he was gone by the time I came to lead that Plebe summer "fun," so we had subs both the first year I was there and the last.
But clearly, this not wanting to make people realize the truth about themselves for fear of making them feel badly is nothing new, just more widespread.
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