Off Topic Thread: What's something that seems obvious in your profession, but the general public misunderstands? (24 November 2018)

sadomasochrist · 2018-11-29T18:49:08+00:00

A large portion of goods on eBay and Amazon are counterfeit or bstock. Nothing high volume is worth selling as a small business.

Small businesses are rarely lucrative when factored on a per hour basis.

Employees are generally entitled and all think they could run the show. That included me before I got my eyes opened.

The government actually cares about small business.

killallthenarcs · 2018-11-28T13:29:16+00:00

Ooooh all the jobs I've worked...

Never be rude to anyone who has anything to do with your food.

The bedcovers get washed when visibly soiled.

It is not fraud to make a claim for a government payment you are not sure you are entitled to, that is called "testing your eligibility" and it is a great choice. It is fraud to lie on a claim.

planejane · 2018-11-28T07:35:53+00:00

Between working in substance abuse, the military, and having an emotionally unstable mother...

Psychiatric diagnoses are most definitely communicable and contagious. Do not spend too much time around alcoholics or you'll start to drink a little too much. Avoid people with unmanaged PTSD or cluster B disorders or you may start to develop it yourself.

If you recognize it in the people around you AND you ever find yourself regularly feeling guilty for your actions or experiencing periods where you are not 100% in control of your own actions, recognize you might also be getting fucked up in the head as well and get professional help.

Big giant red flag phrase: "[You] made me do this." No. Nobody makes another adult do things. You either have shitty self-control or you're in an abusive relationship. Those are the only two options when "You made me do this" is used to excuse unreasonable or extreme behavior.

MCAsomm · 2018-11-28T03:34:58+00:00

Most of the plane concepts shown in tech magazines look rarted and wouldn't work. Also, flying cars would be a nightmare for everyone.

larrythetomato · 2018-11-26T22:06:36+00:00

When you buy cheapo insurance, don't be surprised when they do everything possible to avoid paying you.

It is like buying a 25c gas station condom. It'll probably be fine but you never know.

jax006 · 2018-11-26T14:46:10+00:00

2 blade helicopters are the best kind of helicopters

hepaticfeedback · 2018-11-25T18:54:50+00:00

The biggest cybersecurity risk is laziness.

If you use the same password for your bank account as you do for a sketchy forum, and the sketchy forum gets hacked, your bank account is now also hacked.

Software updates don't just change colors and add features, they fix known security exploits.

I don't need to be an elite hacker to open up the note app on your unpassworded phone with all of your and your family's SSNs.

MercedesBenzoAMG · 2018-11-25T16:48:00+00:00

You seriously should try turning it off and on again it fixes most common problems.

passepar2t · 2018-11-25T16:43:47+00:00

Many people seem to think that most bad reporting is due to intentional lying. While lying is an issue, the most widespread problem among news reporters is simple laziness. Lazy reporting is the number one cause of bad reporting in any medium.

Alth12 · 2018-11-25T16:38:32+00:00

Finance. Pretty much everything regards to economics and banking really. But to mention one specific thing- that there is no such thing as free. I see so many people always going on about wanting free healthcare, free schools etc.

They don't seem to understand that those things aren't free, that they will pay for them with their taxes, and if they don't pay tax, others pay more tax on their behalf. It's always costing someone.

Other things. Economists specialize in areas. They aren't a moniform, huge disagreements within economics. Yeah when bad things happen there's always "that guy who warned you and you didn't listen!" But there's actually hundreds of those guys making predictions daily, and many of them are whacky and wrong. Tax avoidance and tax evasion are not the same thing. Most people who put their money into tax havens aren't greedy moustache twirling people evading tax. Most are just expats working away from home and need the services in tax planning and foreign exchange these havens offer. The concept of why a payment they send to another country has a charge (Most people don't know about correspondent banks)

I could go on.

Dweller_of_the_Abyss · 2018-11-25T14:26:13+00:00

The customer is always right.

No, you're wasting employee time and we'll take a reasonable amount of money to get your ass out of the store.

DatasianAssssss · 2018-11-25T06:30:11+00:00

I have IT degree, everyone thinks im a genius bc i can fix laptop and desktop. They didnt know i just look it up in google 🤷‍♀️.

reluctantly_red · 2018-11-25T06:05:30+00:00

Criminal cases settle because its not at all uncommon for both the DA and the public defender to have a very similar assessment of a case's value.

cxj · 2018-11-25T03:24:16+00:00

Most people’s health problems are self inflicted through poor diets and sedentary lifestyles, and it’s rare that anything gets cured so much as “managed.”

👨🏻‍⚕️ 🏥 💉

hotcaulk · 2018-11-25T01:23:08+00:00

I was a phone sex operator. Those guys aren't paying for interactive porn. They are paying to hear a woman say "omg you're sooo right" about whatever BS ideas they have that women in real life find repulsive.

Pesky_Gibbon · 2018-11-25T01:11:50+00:00

Humans really did build all that fancy stuff that's been attributed to aliens...

SmurfESmurferson · 2018-11-25T00:54:57+00:00

Aestheticians rarely wax their own eyebrows - waxing tends to prematurely age the skin (by ripping the upper layer off with the hair, if they're using cheap wax. Which, most spa owners insist upon). They pluck

Buy the cheapest cleanser you can find that works for your skin. Fancy cleansers don't sit on the skin long enough for fancy ingredients to absorb

TheMarbleSlab · 2018-11-25T00:16:15+00:00

Anal sex is one of the most disgusting things and if a man ever asks me to do it, I will leave him. I would also divorce my husband if he asked me for anal sex. Anal sex is repulsive.

wub1234 · 2018-11-25T00:09:38+00:00

Books written by celebrities, TV personalities, or people who have somehow achieved some form of notoriety aren't necessarily very good.

Littleknownfacts · 2018-11-24T23:42:39+00:00

Scientific progress isn't made with a eureka moment. It's mostly made by a team of underpaid students grinding away. And advancements are usually not wholly novel, they are advancements because they are a cheaper or faster way of doing something. For example, "CRSPR" was something I did in undergrad twice as a project that took a whole term and a team of like 4-6 people. But the new technology let's people do it in an afternoon now.

Edit: Also, since underpaid students grinding away is a the main source of research progress, you can have exploratory studies into almost anything, which is why you end up with multiple papers that can claim seemingly contradictory findings. Over time, other looking at both study's methods will likely try both ways to see what works for their experiments, and end up citing the methods that worked for them and this is the general way that "bad data" gets filtered out. So, if your trying to support an argument on PPD with a paper, sometimes it's better to go with an older study that's been cited many times vs. a brand new study that hasn't had a chance to sink or swim yet.

HigHog · 2018-11-24T23:17:48+00:00

The main driver behind the rhino horn trade is not a lack of "boner pills".

BajaBlast90 · 2018-11-24T23:14:37+00:00

Alot of businesses out there fake everything. Those "Better Business Bureau" awards and "Forbes Top 100" lists can be purchased.

Alot of business sites copy and paste from other business sites. (Do a Google test if you suspect this). It's more common than you think.

On advertising- its terrifying how easy it is to manipulate people. Even the most logical/independent thinker can be swayed with the right tactics

Lillizsomd · 2018-11-24T22:57:41+00:00

If you ask for something added to your meal, or "extra" of anything, there will be an additional charge on your check.

PHOENIX_THE_JEAN · 2018-11-24T22:26:43+00:00

That Genetically modified Organisms (GMO) and foods are safer and superior to their naturally occurring counterparts. You immediately look like an idiot (fueled by religious purpose) when you disclose that you like non-gmo foods....

boundarychimps · 2018-11-24T21:57:09+00:00

Your "idea for an app" ain't worth the napkin it's drawn on.

abaxeron · 2018-11-24T21:33:01+00:00

I think I'll speak for all engineers and point out that almost all of the "normies" seem to think that at least some part of civilization's infrastructure sort-of has the mind of its own, works by, and maintains itself.

Speaking specifically of software engineering, I won't say it better than Robert Cecil Martin: Software development is a social activity. The media-enforced public perception of software devs as hermits who have panic attacks if someone says Hi to them - is the opposite of reality. If you want to get paid for developing software, you have to learn to work in the team. Everything depends on it much more than on your by-heart knowledge of differences between smart pointer types. Team work in software dev is more important than almost in every other industry.

whatyoucallaflip · 2018-11-24T21:28:34+00:00

You don't know a woman until you've met her in court

-Norman Mailer

wigglyshark · 2018-11-24T21:19:10+00:00

An antibiotic will not cure your virus. It’ll probably make you vomit and give you diarrhea, though.

Eartherry · 2018-11-24T21:12:07+00:00

You don't tell your audience what they like. If they're not responding try something different. You can have your favorites, but you have to consider everyone when you have an audience, which won't always be easy. You can't make everyone happy. You can't make everyone happy.

Taipanshimshon · 2018-11-24T20:52:16+00:00

If we were in it for money we wouldn’t be in it

Cho_Assmilk · 2018-11-24T20:49:47+00:00

You engineered the machine and you went to school for years to get that fancy ring. I get it. You're special. That doesn't mean you know more about what that machine is trying to do or why that machine isn't working than I do. I do in fact use the fuckin machine all day.

i_have_a_semicolon · 2018-11-24T20:46:28+00:00

Programming / software engineering isn't some adminstrative boring tasks sorry to burst your bubble. Requires creativity and some smarts to be good.

Workaholico · 2018-11-24T20:42:55+00:00

People think we, academics in economy, understand everything about everything related to money. Like we are some gods, or thinks we know nothing about nothing on how the world works.

The truth is we know a lot about a diminute area of economics. And we are quite oblivious to the other areas, as there is too much information going on these days.

So we can get a lot of predictions and investments right in our expertise. But put us where we do not know the market, and we fail horribly, looking like idiots.

People do not understand that are flavors of economists, like doctors. You would never ask a endocrinologist to do a good brain surgery, first time. Same thing with economists.

azngirl7689 · 2018-11-24T20:31:19+00:00

Mortgage person here. Don’t open a new credit line while refinancing or purchasing. Yes, it will affect your approval. Yes, it will need to go back to the underwriter. The new car can wait. STOP.

Also it matters if you’re married. You can’t hide the fact that you’re taking cash out of your home from your wife. Sorry. It’s her home too. Don’t lie- we find out eventually.

To piggyback off that, if you want to buy a house with your mistress in a spousal state, your wife must sign too. Don’t lie and say mistress is your wife. We have access to marriage records.

goatismycopilot · 2018-11-24T19:42:54+00:00

Basically nobody understands what nurses do because of TV and their own fantasies.

Here4thebeer3232 · 2018-11-24T19:19:20+00:00

Nuclear power is awesome.

WestsideMoonWalker · 2018-11-24T19:17:08+00:00

So currently I am doing marketing research. While my company does a lot of political research, I generally focus entirely on building studies for tech surveys, specifically for Enterprise and cloud tech. Most of the projects I end up on are for like, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud platform.

Statistical significance is all about replicability. Seems people don't always understand that one.

When you have a data point and are trying to analyze it, you can't make a sweeping claim based off that individual data point. You need to name a specific claim linked to context and data.

In polling and probabilities, if polls fall within the margin of error, they aren't wrong, even if the outcome goes towards the side that was down in the polls. Just because a poll says someone is more likely to vote for one person than another by say, 2%, if the MoE is 4 or 5% due to n size, the range or outcome is -2% to 6%, and probability of for example, winning and election, is derived from that.

Survey and polling audiences and sampling really matter. If you audience isn't representative and the way you are reaching your audience skews heavily towards a single demographic (for example, polling via landline only), it skews your data because the demographic data differs from the population you are trying to reach.

Other small thing. Depending on if you fall into specialized audiences, you can get paid a whole lot of money to complete surveys. IT security decision makers get 50+ per survey at least.

bluepy67 · 2018-11-24T18:59:49+00:00

That when you feel like you can't swallow right because food is getting stuck (especially bread, pills, dry chicken etc) it's probably actually a problem with your esophagus. Things might feel like they're happening in your throat, but it's usually further down. ETA: The importance of controlling your GERD so this won't happen to you when you're old.

Civil_Seaworthiness · 2018-11-24T18:58:32+00:00

[fancy sounding hard science degree] is not a substitute for the essential question, 'does the shit this person is saying make a goddamned ounce of sense based on the evidence they present?'

Which is not to say 'I can just out-reason this paper that suggests [conclusion I disagree with] because [small-sample-size anecdotal evidence that informs my personal opinion], checkmate!', but which is to say 'read the methods section, don't cite 'discussion' as 'results', and many, many people, with sufficient motivation, money, luck, and time, could eventually get a doctorate, so be mindful of that when treating any kind of PhD as a messiah by virtue of their educational attainment.

toronto87 · 2018-11-24T18:48:45+00:00

I'm not sure if the general public knows my profession exists outside of somewhere where it would be relatively high profile like New Zealand, but we are involved in every road, every piece of infrastructure, every building, etc.

Also, soil is weird and poorly understood but usually stuff doesn't fall over so we must be doing something right.

sublimemongrel · 2018-11-24T18:30:47+00:00

Oh man I could go on for days on this. A lot a LOT of things.

*a lawsuit is not “free money” and it is not a quick and easy windfall. No sorry that stuff about how frivolous lawsuits are ruining the country is mostly propaganda bullshit. It is WAY harder to win than it is to lose for plaintiffs it is in fact set up that way.

*just because you have been injured in some way does not mean you have a lawsuit much less a credible one. No, your foot itching isn’t related to your 2013 hip implant and no Im not going to sue anyone over that.

*no I can’t dictate whether or when your case will settle. You can get mad all you want because your case has been on file for 3 months and it “should have settled by now” but I have no control over that, chill the fuck out

Also all the dumb shit people say around here about family law but I think that’s more manospherian-related than it is a general public misconception.

petrichordium · 2018-11-24T18:27:37+00:00

Blocking development of housing (and density) makes housing more expensive.

Physiologymatters · 2018-11-24T18:17:41+00:00

How to eat and exercise effectively to reach your goals. Seeing the shit people do is part hilarious, part horrifying

Atlas_B_Shruggin · 2018-11-24T18:10:20+00:00

that testimony is evidence

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Title	Off Topic Thread: What's something that seems obvious in your profession, but the general public misunderstands? (24 November 2018)
Author	AutoModerator
Upvotes	12
Comments	214
Date	November 24, 2018 6:08 PM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/a00nyp/off_topic_thread_whats_something_that_seems/
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