I think the car analogy is a good one. When cars were first introduced, and there was still a large fraction of people who didn’t know how to drive, learning to drive was an accomplishment. People who knew how to drive must have felt pretty cool, especially once they were experienced enough to really know how to handle the car in different road conditions. They probably told people they “knew cars”, even though they didn’t know thing one about how the car worked, or how to fix it if it broke.
Now, of course, no one says they “know cars” just because they can drive, because everyone can drive. Driving’s no big deal. It’ll be the same in twenty years with computers.
Either or both, I suppose. I don’t know what bugged me about your comment and I apologize for going off on you. I’ve re-read the entire thread a dozen or so times and I’m baffled as to why I posted what I did—maybe a senior moment of some sort.
Yeah, I knew I wasn’t the only one who had experienced this.
I think a lot of us overestimate our knowledge about certain things. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the sullen denial and trying to bluff it out or fake it that I can’t understand.
There was a coworker at my previous job that was like this. I hadn’t bought my computer when I first worked there, so at first she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. I actually listened to her, and took her buying advice on several things. (She said Packard Bell computers were great, and I ended up buying a Packard Bell.)
After a while, however, it became more obvious that she Didn’t Know What the Hell She Was Talking About. This became more and more embarrassing as my knowledge grew. (Not that I am a computer genius, just an “average user” who knows how to install printers, software, run scandisk, etc.) And she had never done that, didn’t know what that was. But she’d get all glum and try to bluff it for a while. Finally, she gave up and shut up.
This was especially nice (when she finally shut up) for another coworker, who was a Mac person. Because before I got my computer (and therefore had no clue) this Huffy Woman Who Pretended To Know Everything About Computers gave this poor Mac lady a really hard time. Whenever the poor Mac lady (who at least knew what the CPU/RAM/HDD of her Mac was) came around, the Huffy Woman would start in with the Mac-bashing. And the Mac lady, being more mild-mannered and polite, would be made to feel very uncomfortable.
So, when I came to know computers better, I was able to help out the poor Mac lady (I didn’t have a Mac at that time, but was very Mac-friendly). I’d start to talk to the Mac lady about Photoshop, or what her computer’s processor speed was, or whatever. Obviously our conversation (basic as it was) was way over the head of the Huffy Woman. So she finally got the hint, shut her yap and peace reigned in the workplace again!
I usually understate what I know. I like my computer, and there’s some things I know about it-it’s um, a custom built PC with Windows ME and uh, I have two hard drives about ten gigs each.
But I have no earthly idea of the speed, or the RAM or whatever.
Bless you. But sadly, for everyone like you, there’s three who think they checked X and get pissed when you gently say lets’s just try it. Besides, even if we both know you did, I get in trouble with my boss if I don’t follow the Holy Book of Correct Troubleshooting Procedure.
I have to admit to having a little trouble, at times, with tech support folks who slavishly follow that particular Holy Book. If I start the call saying that my cable modem is offline, and my router/firewall is not picking up a DHCP address from the cable system, don’t try to get me to refresh and renew the IP address on my PC, even if the Holy Book says to try that. The IP address on my computer is static; renewing doesn’t do a thing. The problem is the device attached to the cable modem isn’t getting an IP address. That device is not my computer. How hard is that concept? But no, Joe Genius insisted on asking me to ipconfig /refresh and ipconfig /renew, and seemed genuinely baffled when I pointed out that the device he was having me “renew” had a static address.
Still, it was easier to let him walk through his procedure then try to educate him. So I dutifully did both commands and then reported that the problem still wasn’t fixed.
Here’s KJ’s analogy about operating systems. I don’t know exactly how accurate this is, since I’m mostly a PC user, but here goes:
Operating systems are like cars.
Macs are like…efficient little Japanese cars with automatic transmission. You don’t need to know how they work - you don’t even need to know how to shift gears. But if you want to get from point A to point B, it’ll definitely get the job done. And they’ve got a lot of cool extra features. Arguing for why Mac is better than any other operating system is kind of like arguing that your car is better because it has a better stereo system. For most people, that’s the only thing you need to worry about, so for the majority of non-computer users / non-car-enthusiants, the stereo is the determining factor.
PCs are like a stick-shift pickup truck. They get the job done, and you get to feel like you’re in control of the vehicle. But it’s an old truck made with parts that have been continuously replaced, so it breaks down more than the little Japanese car that comes pre-packaged.
Linux is like a super powerful hotrod. People who use it will always try to convince you that it’s the best car / operating system in the world, despite the fact that you don’t care, because even if you had it, you probably wouldn’t know what to do with it. Every piece is specifically chosen to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the machine. It’s not just for getting from point A to point B, it’s about getting there in the most efficient way possible by fine-tuning each individual section and knowing everything about every little nook and cranny in the machine. (I don’t even pretend to know anything about Linux, just as I don’t pretend to know how to maintain a street racer car. But I do have some idea that it can do a lot of things better than Windows…)
And then other operating systems like BeOS are like…oh, I don’t know…a hydrogen fuel cell car. They work perfectly fine, but nobody uses them.
Anyway, I guess that’s my Random Analogy of the Week. Or something.
There’s definitely something to this, I think. Speaking for myself, I do SQL database administration and software support. Put me next to my wife’s technophobic mother, and I’m frickin’ Forbin, Designer of Colossus. But compared to the senior programmer guy in my group who wanders the office barefoot and only rarely remembers to comb his hair, I’m a stumbling, diaper-clad cyber-toddler.
And here’s the key thing: I know this. I know what I know, and I’m honest with myself about what I don’t know.
Looking at the marvelous article linked by The Great Unwashed, I notice that people who place in the 25th percentile on a certain verbal test put themselves, on average, in the 62nd percentile — i.e., they grossly overestimate their own knowledge. Now, if you were to ask me where I think I would place, I’d probably guess around the 75th percentile. But when I think about it, and remember the signs in the grocery store advertising “apple’s and watermelon’s,” I wonder if I might be justified in revising myself upward; I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if I scored in the 90th percentile, verbally, as I could rationally and objectively justify such a score. But then I remember everything I don’t know (I’ve tried to read Moby Dick half a dozen times, and still haven’t gotten past page 100, for example), and I push myself back down to the 75th, just to be safe and conservative.
I know I’m not alone, either. The paradoxical thing is, the more I acknowledge just how much I don’t yet understand and how much more I have to learn, the more I feel like that alone makes my opinion more valuable than people who think they already know it all. But then I pull back, recognizing the arrogance and not wanting to share the crime of the self-professed (yet demonstrably non) expert.
True intelligence results in humility, but then recognition of said humility risks giving one a superiority complex. Rather a conundrum, no?
Yes, I’ve heard the huff from women who call their computer case a “modem.”
My thoery: in the workplace, women tend to customize their deasktops more than men. Where I work, men are content to leave the default settings alone; if they do anything, it’s increasing the screen resolution, getting rid of extraneous icons on the desktop, or changing the desktop background color. Women almost always customize; the majority post pictures of their cats or friends as a desktop background, run various screensavers, install programs where a little cat runs around the screen, print memos using at least ten different typefaces and/or weights, and set the default typeface of icons to 32 point Old English. In their opinion, the customization and ability to use clipart in MS Word documents makes them experts. RAM? Hard drive capacity? Moving a file from one folder to another? Whazzat?
