• vettnerk@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I am an “expert” in my field. But it’s not because I’m the best in the world at networking and servers. It’s because I am one of the few in the world who knows this highly specialized system setwork, how it integrates across VPN, and a bunch of other niche stuff. Sure, any donky with basic linux and TCP/IP skills could do my job, but it’d take years to train them on this particular setup. And that’s because experts are mostly this: highly specialized in what they do well.

    We have multiple experts at my job, and we frequently have to call each other due to ineptitude in what is outside of what we normally do. Ask me how to right click on a mac and I’ll come up short. Ask me how to fix some broken O365 setup and I’ll have to guess based on 20 years outdated IMAP setups that I haven’t touched in one and a half decade.

    It’s easy to find experts. But experts in the exact thing you need are rare.

    • flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      It’s also a separate skill to actually listen to the expert once you’ve got their advice. Look at climate change, basically anything to do with politics, etc…

      As the great theologian J. Biafra said, “give me convenience, or give me death”