# What is obvious in your profession that others may not know? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 27, 2019, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290 "2019-08-27T02:45:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Royal\_Nonesutch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@Royal\_Nonesutch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Royal_Nonesutch)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/21 "2019-08-27T11:35:56Z")
Typical public schools in many areas of 2019’s USA are little more than glorified day-care centers for America’s youth, where precious little actual education takes place and the majority of a teacher’s time is taken up by just trying to maintain basic safety and order. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/22 "2019-08-27T11:42:18Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > I’ve heard every conspiracy theory from working in the financial markets. No, no one is conspiring against you to take out your one lot. Also, ATM fees are not where a bank makes the big bucks. ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/23 "2019-08-27T12:56:16Z")
Child support never goes away. If arrears are owed, even if the case closes with the agency, the money is still due and the custodial parent can use many tools on their own to attempt to collect. Child support can only enforce what’s in front of them, as signed by a judge or magistrate. Workers have no control over what is owed. They’re nothing more than bill collectors. If a person is traumatically injured in the commission of a felony, they are not eligible for SSI. Child support does not have access to every known database to obtain information. They’re not Kreskin or the NSA. If a person is working for cash or living off the grid, there’s not much a worker can do. And lastly, workers cannot take sides. We’re not pro mom or pro dad. We exist to collect money according to the court order. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/24 "2019-08-27T13:29:16Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > What causes software bugs; non-coders seem to assume it is typos, when more commonly it’s a situation that was overlooked when designing the system True, and then there are missed requirements, which are things that were overlooked even before design started- generally speaking, they’re along the lines of glaring omissions, not actual bugs where parts of the software don’t work as even the programmers expected. And as a follow up to the missed requirements part, the IT people aren’t mind readers. As a business person you can’t expect them to know every little quirk about your process AND the way that your software works. They’re going to do their best, but if there’s something weird that happens twice a year when the moon is waning gibbous, Mercury is in retrograde, and a specific set of events happens, you’d better speak up because the business analyst is likely to not know about those really weird exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/25 "2019-08-27T13:29:59Z")
**MissTake** , 30 years ago I would have disagreed with you, vehemently, based on personal experience. In my state, child support, indeed health and welfare in general, _has_ benefitted greatly from the privatization of the administration of it. In my industry…Just because your stuff is old, that doesn’t make it a valuable antique, except to you. If you are moving door to door (your stuff is picked up and never comes off the truck) you can leave your clothes in the dresser. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/26 "2019-08-27T13:46:42Z")
If you are poor, fancy private colleges are cheaper than a practical, nuts and bolts State U. Joining clubs and volunteering a hundred hours at the local animal shelter won’t make a difference on your college admissions. Private Scholarships are not major contributors to financial aid: direct aid from institutions is what matters; in fact, in some cases private scholarships don’t help at all. ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/27 "2019-08-27T13:54:16Z")
> [@DorkVader](#): > > **MissTake** , 30 years ago I would have disagreed with you, vehemently, based on personal experience. In my state, child support, indeed health and welfare in general, _has_ benefitted greatly from the privatization of the administration of it. And 30 years ago, I would have agreed with you. When I began here about 22 years ago, it was a much more different organization. As far as privatizing child support, a government agency can truly only do so much. For a while, there was a plethora of private collectors who would make obligors’ lives hell - calling neighbors and family members, shaming them on social media. Levies and liens hitting anything they can. We can’t do that. I mean, we can levy and lien, but only under certain specific conditions, and the obligor can always appeal (in our courts, appeals are almost always granted). And we don’t charge the other party usurious amounts to attempt to collect. Yes, we do suspend licenses, we do garnish tax refunds, we can threaten contempt - most of which are automated processes. We don’t sit around deciding to make someone’s life miserable just for shits and giggles. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/28 "2019-08-27T13:56:06Z")
Your nephew who just started college for CS cannot make a better Web site than me. Cheaper, yes, but not the site you want. You cannot just “blow up” a small GIF of your logo to make a larger, useable version of your logo. Putting a site online doesn’t just put it at the top of Google’s results. There’s a whole thing to it. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/29 "2019-08-27T14:02:41Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Next career involves linguistics: > 3. No language is “the best for love”. > 4. No language is “the best for science”. > 5. There is no such thing as “untranslatable”. Just because one language might use one word to express a concept, it does not mean that another language using a phrase to express the same concept makes the word untranslatable. 1. A translated text is likely to have different punctuation and a different number of words than the original. Some of them may even have different letters, or represent words using symbols which aren’t letters. Bonus points when the person who doesn’t know this already JAQ’d a Hispanic “what’s with the upside-down question marks? _braying snort_”. Extra-mega-bonus points when the person in question is Hispanic and knows at least another language :smack: This one always surprises me when it happens, but apparently some people have problems understanding GIGO at very, very basic levels. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/30 "2019-08-27T14:16:21Z")
As a teacher: if all you can do is teach your plan, your students are going to fail. Be ready to toss the plan aside and make learning happen when needed. As a sporting goods rep: it’s a lot easier to catch fish than it is fishermen most times. As a warehouse worker: body-builders and weight-trainers last less than two months; average humans last much longer and better. If you try to work by strength you will hurt, you will injure yourself, and you will quit. If you take the time to learn the techniques and proper procedures you can last forever. I am in my 60s and I almost always outwork athletic types a third my age; and I’ve lasted 5 years in a job where the average is 7 weeks. ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/31 "2019-08-27T14:25:27Z")
College teachers & professors don’t live in their offices, ready to be at the students’ beck and call 24 hours a day. We actually go home to our families, and have lives. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/32 "2019-08-27T14:38:24Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > 1. No language is “the best for science”. Despite the popular view, there is a language that is not only the best for science, it is required in order to be a scientist- it’s called mathematics. “Explain it without math” is request that can only result in poor approximations, partial translation, and inexact analogy. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/33 "2019-08-27T14:43:52Z")
While your doctor/nurse practitioner may truly have your medical best interest as their first priority, the health care delivery system they work for/with has their own continued financial success as their first priority. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/34 "2019-08-27T14:58:54Z")
That “administrators” at a college is a pay classification (non-faculty and salaried). These include people in IT, Financial Aid, Student Life, Admissions, Athletics, Annual Fund, Business Services, HR, Library, and Public Safety. Yet people still complain about how schools have so many administrators. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/35 "2019-08-27T15:00:37Z")
A previous thread taught me that most people outside of the Phama industry have no idea that, aside from the active substance going off, there are loads of other ways that a drug product can fail its specification (and have to be recalled). Aside from the things that would cause fails at the point of manufacture/release (like drug content per unit; weight, hardness, dissolution rate of tablet; sterility and pyrogenicity of injections etc) other things that can happen over the shelf life to cause a fail include: moisture pickup, physical failures (like changes in appearance, or tablet hardness, or partial crumbling), changing dissolution rate, degradation of preservatives (usually in liquids), pH changes (ditto), mold/bacterial growth, difficulty in redispersing a suspension, particle size changes in a suspension, flavour system changes… I could go on, but I won’t. Here’s an EU-specific bonus, which actually came up in conversation on Sunday. The manufacturer stated on a pack of medicine isn’t necessarily the company which manufactured the medicine; it’s the name of the company (manufacturer) responsible for releasing the product onto the market in the EU. j ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/36 "2019-08-27T15:03:31Z")
In the retail world threatening to sic the Better Business Bureau on us as if they’re going to send BBB henchmen over to force us to right your wrong is usually met with an eye-roll. The BBB is a non government private organization that holds no power over any business. They are more akin to Yelp. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/37 "2019-08-27T15:06:36Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > Here’s an EU-specific bonus, which actually came up in conversation on Sunday. The manufacturer stated on a pack of medicine isn’t necessarily the company which manufactured the medicine; it’s the name of the company (manufacturer) responsible for releasing the product onto the market in the EU. What that’s not is Pharma-specific. Dell has never built a single computer. Some fields and locations require subcontractor codes to be indicated on packaging (right now I’m thinking of “white brand” products in the EU), but in general people have no idea which and how many subcontractors took part in the making of any given item. Heck, my current customer is a subcontractor and they don’t realize it. OK people: if you never design what you make, your customers do, you never do any “make to sell”, only “make to order”, and specially if you make to exact order, you also do some stuff for which the materials involved are provided by the customer, and even some where the machines are the property of the customer, either you’re a subcontractor or you’re a subcontractor’s identical twin. You’ll never see this company’s logos on any of their products: it’s always the logos of the clients. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/38 "2019-08-27T15:07:44Z")
> [@steatopygia](#): > > People lie constantly. That was the piece of advice I received from some colleagues when I told them that I was moving over to criminal law, after years doing transactional work. “Anything to know?” “Yeah, everybody lies…cops lie, witnesses lie, defendants lie…” What is it that you do? > [@Loach](#): > > Everything you see on tv is not only wrong, it gives you a dangerously unrealistic view of what happens. Law enforcement, right? > [@Crafter Man](#): > > It’s better to look good than to be good. Some of you have some _really_ vague jobs. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/39 "2019-08-27T15:14:13Z")
One of the first things you learn on the job as a librarian: People don’t read signs. Adults who will not read waste more librarian time than adults who cannot read. The latter have figured out how to get around without needing to ask for much help. The former will ask you where the bathroom is when they had to walk past the sign pointing the way to the bathroom to get to you. Last week, I had a gentleman ask me several questions about our hours _while standing in front of the sign that explains our hours_. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/40 "2019-08-27T15:19:29Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > In the retail world threatening to sic the Better Business Bureau on us as if they’re going to send BBB henchmen over to force us to right your wrong is usually met with an eye-roll. > The BBB is a non government private organization that holds no power over any business. They are more akin to Yelp. Oddly enough, I usually get really good results going through BBB. I agree that they’re essentially just a review site, but it always seems to work for me. After many, many calls to Linksys, a bad review on BBB got me a new router a week later. Same with Brother. I had a fax machine from them that was junk, multiple calls to them confirmed that it was working ‘properly’, it was just a really, really shitty design that was actively costing me money. One BBB complaint later and a better fax machine was shipped to me. Lastly, there’s a company that cold calls businesses incessantly, last time I checked my caller ID, they had racked up thousands of calls over the last 15ish years. Their 800notes page has nearly a thousand reports. They will not stop calling, no matter what you say to them. I’ve even reported them to their state’s attorney general and was considering filing police reports on the basis that this is becoming harassment. About a year ago I filed a complaint on BBB and haven’t heard from them since. I don’t know why it works, but it does. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290.md?page=3)