Blind faith

In every situation, in every field, there are people that are considered, rightly, or wrongly to be experts in their field. Some are actually experts, others aren't. Some are really smart at some things and not so smart at others. Regardless of what they are talking about, people who are perceived to be really smart, are often taken at their word. They are believed when maybe they have no clue at all. Or maybe they are just good at crafting something that sounds good enough to avoid the shadow of doubt.

But be forewarned. No one is an expert at everything. You must not fall into the trap of believing everything that someone says just because they sound smart, or have even been proven to be smart at something in the past. Check their comments/advice with what you know. Listen to everything with a healthy dose of skepticism.

At a meeting several years ago, a co-worker of mine made a comment during an introduction of someone else that exemplifies this. He was saying that this upcoming speaker was so smart, and such an influence on him that he had even changed the way he did his dishes because of what this man had to say. (This was not a dishwasher's convention, nor a meeting about any other domestic duties.) He went on to say that, for efficiency's sake, he placed all the spoons in one slot in the rack in the dishwasher, and all knives in another, etc. The premise was that, by spending a couple of seconds doing that chore when he loaded the dishwasher, he would save the sorting time later, when it came time to put the dishes away. He could simply grab the handful of spoons and put them in the drawer, then grab the forks, etc. This certainly was a practice that everyone should emulate because of it's obvious efficiency. The rest of the overworked audience was elated that now they would be gaining another 3 seconds in their daily routine that could be used else wise for more productive endeavors. I was less so.

First, let me say that I have no empirical evidence as to whether this practice would work or not, but two things bothered me about this practice. First was that everyone simply blindly believed it. Second, my experience has shown me that if you do that, the spoons end up sticking together and not getting clean, thus adding more time as now I've wasted the time attempting to clean them one time and needing to put them back through a second time to accomplish what I tried to do the first time!

I'm not saying that the speaker was wrong, or that his way doesn't work for him, or that it won't work for others, but don't just accept things without thinking about them. Sometimes we lose all sense of reality when in the face of an "expert."

P.S. Keep this in mind when you cast your vote next year.