Have you ever noticed.......

[WillowTree]

.......how often people seem to think the other guy's job is undemanding compared to their own?

[raccoon]

1. Oh, yes, I know some of them at work. I guess most of us do.

But unless they're around us 8 hrs/day, how would they know what we do or don't do?

Some people like that have very undemanding jobs themselves. Ever heard, "If you can spot it, you got it?"

[hunter]

2. Public school teachers are often treated like that.

Asshole billionaires think they know how to fix public education when in fact they would not survive an hour as a teacher in a rough community.

[raccoon]

9. Amen! I've often wondered why being a billionaire makes

a person an instant expert on education

[Populist_Prole]

3. Oh hell yes. All the time...over a long time too

I've run into those gits scores of times.

Everybody else's job but their own is too easy and/or pays too much for what they do. They themselves could hop in and straighten out any messes in mere minutes with bold decisive action; but they're equally convinced nobody knows how demanding and unrewarding their job is.

What really burns their asses is when employees of occupations they deem are superfluous, beneath them, or "fun" sounding have higher pay than they do. Tying in with this, they also tend to have a hyper "consumer" mindset and rail on how much further their own money would go if the employees for the entities they consume got paid less.

In short: Total "I got mine" nastiness and concern only for their own comfort levels.

[SheilaT]

4. Yep.

And the show "Undercover Boss", regardless of how scripted it is, shows this rather clearly. Just about invariably, the boss is totally crap at doing the jobs that are essential to the business, especially the down and out dirty jobs, such as sorting the garbage (recycling company) or harvesting lettuce (some food thing, I forget the details).

But it goes beyond that. A lot of people haven't a clue just how much of a learning curve might be involved in a job that looks very easy. Or the day to day realities of certain jobs.

[Populist_Prole]

5. Good example

"But it goes beyond that. A lot of people haven't a clue just how much of a learning curve might be involved in a job that looks very easy. Or the day to day realities of certain jobs"

Very common trait of know-it-all gits: They don't see the back story and don't want to. In fact, they don't think there even is a back story or behind the scenes learning curve.

A funny but true little anecdote that points the dynamic out well:

Customer brings his car to a mechanic and complains it runs so bad it's barely driveable. Mechanic raises the hood, listens, takes a scewdriver and slightly turns a couple of adjustment screws and the engine smoothes right out. He says to the customer "that'll be 15 dollars". The customer, indignant, counters "Fifteen dollars for tweaking two screws?!". No, the mechanic says. "The turning of the two screws, that'll be free. The fifteen bucks is for knowing what scews needed adjustment and why they needed adjustment, and how much to adjust them".

By that logic, some people think that all there is to being a doctor is to say "Take two aspirins and call me in the morning". But then there's no shortage of second guessing know-it-alls.

[SheilaT]

7. Yes. I've heard that story and variations on it many times,

and it's a good one to keep in mind.

[KatyMan]

8. Yes.

Sometimes people are paid for what they know, not what they do.

[treestar]

10. my father and his brothers

OMG they are irrational!

Two of them have advanced degrees, so you'd think what they know about their own field would let them know how much they don't know about other fields.

They were certain they knew more about their bodies than the doctor and that the doctor should do things as they said!

They are willing to lecture me on how I should practice my profession (which they never went to school for and know nothing about).

Yes, I am very familiar with know-it-alls.

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. Some people.. yeah