# 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:** 4
**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, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/61 "2019-08-27T21:38:02Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Yeah, but what I mean is that people are surprised about that in every manufacturing field. It’s not something people don’t expect about Pharma specifically, it’s something people don’t expect about manufacturing in general. The reputations on which people are often basing their choices often have more to do with marketing than with actual specs or actual processing guarantees. People are terribly surprised when you make them read the small letter in a package of frozen peas and it says “imported into the EU by ES-12345678-B” or “manufactured in Italy by JH-48766897” too, and in a lot of fields we don’t even get that information. > > Pharma often doesn’t have better processes and procedures than other fields, but worse ones. Pharma regulations have historically being reactive and their application is notorious for focusing almost completely on getting the form right. And that certainly is something which does surprise people about Pharma manufacturing. I’ll take a chance and speculate that people have higher expectations when it comes to the information provided with their medicines than with – say – their frozen peas. And thus are surprised when – by regulation – “manufacturer” in patient information does not mean what they expect it to mean. As for pharma regulations being reactive – yes, well, they have plenty to react to. Pharmaceutical technology is a fast moving field. (And BTW I earned a living consulting in (European) pharmaceutical regulation for the last 13 years of my career. I’m a couple of years out of touch, but otherwise OK on that.)🙂 j ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/62 "2019-08-27T21:39:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **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, or some kind of logical flaw. Typos are caught by the compiler (although bugs where the wrong variable is used do happen). Although, I did once work on a legacy code that existed only in the forms of aged hardcopies that had then been re-scanned and OCRed. And yes, it did include variables that differed only in an O vs. a 0, or an l vs. an I. vs. a 1. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/63 "2019-08-27T21:54:23Z")
People would be astonished how many software bugs are caused by a single word - or a single character. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/64 "2019-08-27T22:01:22Z")
This is a very informative thread! I learned far more than I expected to. I wonder if “everyone lies” is limited to the legal process or is it a general rule? I would suspect that one of the reasons is that in the legal realm there is a finish line. Truth doesn’t matter nearly as much as getting the right verdict. Or making the arrest. Whereas in science, just making a true statement doesn’t mean much. To be taken seriously, it has to be verifiable at any time in the future. Even things like writing a good book. It doesn’t mean much if the book becomes “not good” or not popular six months later. ---
**Author:** ![MollyCatherine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc79bd/32.png) [@MollyCatherine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MollyCatherine)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/65 "2019-08-27T22:04:45Z")
Play is really, really, really important for child development. Outdoor play, make believe play, play that involves taking risks. Play with toys and objects that don’t have screens or batteries and are made from a variety of materials. Play with caregivers, play with peers, play with younger and older children. Free, unguided, child-directed play. Active, noisy, messy play. Gross motor play. Fine motor play. Dizzying play, rough and tumble play, play that challenges balance and equilibrium. Play that leads to disagreements the children must resolve. Silly play. Musical play. Exploratory play. Building play. All the kinds of play. But not those damn iPads. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/66 "2019-08-27T22:10:56Z")
Auto-pilots in aircraft are not simple. Airplane automation is tricky, demands pilot attention and requires careful training. While there is a button called “auto-pilot”, you don’t just press it and then drink your coffee. You take several careful actions to set up what you want the plane to do, have the other pilot confirm it\* and then monitor to be sure it actually does what you intended. When I first got into airplanes that had decent automation I was surprised to find how challenging it was to use. Just today in the simulator while training in a new (to me) jet, I tripped over a few nuances that resulted in the plane failing to execute the procedure I intended. I didn’t catch it, the guy next to me didn’t catch it, even the instructor wasn’t certain what caused the issue, although we did eventually figure it out. While it’s true that pilots are largely “managing” the airplane as opposed to flying it by hand much of the time, believe me, we are still flying it, albeit through the automation. And it takes attention and some good technique to get it right. - My background is in the airlines and charter which usually involves two pilots. I am qualified to single-pilot one jet, but have never actually done it and I’m not eager to try. I’ve found the other pilot is way too valuable in catching errors or overlooked items. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/67 "2019-08-27T22:28:47Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > 1. Nobody remembers their passwords. > 2. People protect the wrong things (e.g - carefully filing away their software discs, but losing the license codes). > 3. ISP’s will wreck your computer given half a chance. > 4. People only care about their data after it is gone. > 5. People think that hardware is immortal. I know better. Most of your points don’t surprise me, but I don’t get #3. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/68 "2019-08-27T23:04:13Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Most of your points don’t surprise me, but I don’t get #3. If you complain that you are having problems with email, they will blithely have you change your carefully-tested email account settings, or have you change your password, or some other nonsense that will make the problem much, much worse. Perhaps “wreck” is a bit extreme, but it spend a lot of time fixing computers that have been messed up by ISPs. ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/69 "2019-08-27T23:17:43Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > 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. Oh, so much this. I really do appreciate that you need these lab results before the patient can be treated, or dialysis started, or a procedure performed, or the patient just wants to get the hell out of the ER and I am running them right now. However, I can not make the instruments or the chemical reactions therein proceed any faster without changing the physical laws of this universe. I am unable to do this so you will just have to wait. Or, you know, send me the damned specimens sooner. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/70 "2019-08-27T23:27:32Z")
Debits and credits. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/71 "2019-08-27T23:32:58Z")
Surveying is far from perfect. Oh, the math is easy enough, but tying into Surveys and control points from 100 years ago can be… problematic. Lots and lots of errors are discovered. And you are often left with a 2 inch or 20 foot sliver of ‘no mans land’. Not a surveyor myself, I’m in GIS. I use their data. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/72 "2019-08-28T00:04:23Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Produce PLU codes are universal in the grocery industry, and if you can memorize the big ones - 4011 for bananas, 4012 for naval oranges, 4093 for yellow onions, 4065 for green bell peppers, 4061 for iceberg lettuce, etc. - it’ll be a lot easier to deal with the self-checkout machine at any store. Kind of makes me wonder what the purpose of the four and zero is. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/73 "2019-08-28T00:05:47Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > 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. Jokes, though? You can express things similarly, but how do you translate something like “¿Mande? ¿Mande?” “No, today, bitch!”? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/74 "2019-08-28T00:22:15Z")
Battery charge controllers are not voltage regulators. Battery charge controllers control the amount of charge/current that goes into your battery. Which is only indirectly related to your battery voltage. If you are having a problem with your battery voltage, that means you are having a problem with your battery. ‘Fixing’ the charge controller won’t fix your problem. > [@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. I live in a small economy on the far side of the world. Products have to be registered/labeled with _the name of the importer_. Hang on – it’s not imported, it’s manufactured here in Melbourne! — um — “Oh. Yes, I see that. I’ll get back to you … Just put your name and address in the space on the form where it asks for the name and address of the importer” ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/75 "2019-08-28T00:40:26Z")
When you work for a large corporation, the information on your computer or in your network files is not your information–it’s the corporation’s. This is why a system admin can change your password, log in as you, rummage around in your data, log out, set the “must reset password at next login” flag to Yes, and you have no way to prevent it, or, aside from having to reset your password at an odd time, have any way of knowing that it happened. ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/76 "2019-08-28T01:27:51Z")
The green wire is not always ground, and the ground wire is not always green or bare. Never trust the wire color to signify anything - even when standards say so. I don’t magically know where each wire goes in a panel. When I take off more than two, somewhere I have a record of where they belong. There is a reason my uniform is provided and has no exposed metal. ---
**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 28, 2019, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/77 "2019-08-28T02:19:24Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Debits and credits. Good god, I can’t keep that straight. Don’t get me wrong, I know what debits and credits are, but ask me to journal a number from one account to another, and after I do it I’ll check my work…then probably reverse it. To make it worse, I make a decent amount of journal entries. I have no problem with the ones that are just muscle memory at this point, but something out of the ordinary I’ll have a 50/50 chance of getting it right. For those that don’t know books (as in accounting books) are broken down into accounts so we can see how much money is spent (or received) where. Journal entries take money from one account and put it in another. For example, maybe I purchased something and put it against account X but a few months later I decide that it would make more sense if the purchase was in account Y. A simple journal entry will take care of that. The issue is that different accounts handle debits and credits differently. So a debit on account X may reduce the account while a debit on account Z might increase it. I know, I know, it’s all about whether the account is an asset or liability, but I still seem to get it wrong more often than I get it right. Lucky for me, it’s all electronic. No handwritten ledgers. So I catch mistakes right away instead of our accounting firm calling me at the end of the quarter asking me what I why I did something odd. ---
**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 28, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/78 "2019-08-28T02:40:34Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Jokes, though? You can express things similarly, but how do you translate something like “¿Mande? ¿Mande?” “No, today, bitch!”? Puns, especially, resist translation. Quand est-ce qu’une porte n’est pas une porte? Quand c’est entrouvert. And few English speakers ever understood the pun in the Oscar-winning Foreign Film _Black and White in Color_ (French Title: _Noirs et Blancs en couleur_) ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/79 "2019-08-28T02:48:34Z")
I don’t know. Most of the things seem like common knowledge. It’s just that every so often a totally clueless person comes around and it makes us think that the whole world doesn’t understand us. ---
**Author:** ![sps49sd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@sps49sd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sps49sd)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290/80 "2019-08-28T03:35:49Z")
Flushable wipes may flush in your toilet, but they must be extracted by expensive and power consuming machinery and dropped into Dumpster after Dumpster. Your oil doesn’t need changing at 3.000 miles. Especially synthetic. No movie gets it right. Books? Sometimes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-obvious-in-your-profession-that-others-may-not-know/839290.md?page=5)