I brought a new shirt to my tailor to get it slightly adjusted. As usual he asked me if I wanted him to &#$^% or to *@”{+>. And as usual, I said, “do what you think is best.” I can do basic sewing, but I never understand his terms. I think it’s kind that he thinks I know what &#$^% and *@”{+> mean, and that he thinks I know which technique would be most suitable for my shirt, but I bring him my shirts and whatnots because he has expertise in those matters. And I am all in on respecting the expert, in part because I want to be respected for the expertise I have developed over 20 years in my small niche of corporate finance. Mess with my spreadsheets at your peril.
I trust experts and I think that experts should be trusted, although they do occasionally fall down on the job. I bought a new Apple gadget this summer and when I said that I wanted a keyboard cover for it, the person who was helping me told me that Apple didn’t sell one, but found me the right size at on on-line store. I bought it and… when it arrived the keyboard cover didn’t fit. I find this sort of behavior maddening. Of course, Darling, we start with the premise that no one is perfect, however, it must be stated that if you are wearing an Apple shirt and working in an Apple store, one ought not give bad advice about Apple products given that they are finite set.
Not to stray into politics (heaven forfend!) but I think people who spent a lot of time questioning Covid vaccines and Covid precautions are people who, under the bluster, feel that they aren’t specialists in anything, hence they have to try to tear down “the experts.”
If a person has spent years or decades learning how to do something, anything from washing a dog to suing companies for ruining the environment to tap dancing to packing school lunches to building flagstone patios and they are calm and confident in their knowledge set, they are more willing to let others have their own knowledge set.
People who have spend their lived rehabilitating wild birds will call someone else if they find a hurt hedgehog – they know the wee beastie is out of their field of expertise and want to bring it to someone who knows what it’s all about hedgehog-wise. Someone who is excellent at planning children’s birthday parties will call for help for a wedding party.
People who are confident about what they know are happy to let other people handle the heavy-lifting in other areas of life. Never, Darling, I mean never will you catch me trying to an instruct the person who cuts my hair or the person who cleans my house or the person who does my taxes or the person who books my travel. If I thought I could do it better, I would do it myself.
But this respect should be granted only for work that is out of your field – if it is your field, then you need to do the heavy-lifting yourself. Case in point (you may need to grab your teddy-bear as this is a horror story!) – at a recent work meeting, the chief executive officer of one division told their senior staff that on the Day of Judgement, they would be asked about their work.
This in infamous, as it means the CEO is delegating their responsibility to… a Higher Power. It’s the CEO’s job, their raison d’être, to make sure the work is done right. There is no off-loading the accountability to a deity. Darling, you simply can’t say to people: “do your work well or you will be punished when you die.”
If you accept the CEO title and the CEO salary and the CEO perks, then you accept that you must check your division’s work, commending, training, warning and rewarding as need be. You’re the expert. Be the expert.
Dispatches from Etiquette Central – Good Intentions Don’t Count
Tales of Feuds, Tribes and Water Bottles
Quality TV: The Proletariats’ Revenge (or Watch the Executives Suffer)
How To Behave - Etiquette Central 