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Comment by adamors | Hacker News Reader

Having been in IT for close to 15 years now, a lot of good minds work in IT a lot of good minds don't.

But I've encountered a lot of stupid (for lack of a better word) people in IT who were convinced they are good at _everything_ just because they grokked algorithms and data structures. Not sure it's a phenomenon unique to IT, but what DOGE is doing is exactly what I mean.

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Can confirm, this isn't just an IT thing. Physicians are a prime example—people tend to put doctors on a pedestal, and some doctors start believing they know everything about everything, even when it's clearly outside their wheelhouse. Being smart in one area doesn’t automatically make you an expert in another, but it’s easy for everyone involved to forget that.

I'm a retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist; you are correct about this illusion that physicians often labor under. But it's worth noting that when medical topics are posted here, the responses from non-physicians are sometimes so nonsensical that I for one laugh out loud reading them. In fact, I look forward to these discussions for this very reason.

I’m a CFO that used to work in healthcare. Have had many cases where a doctor tries to explain to me how accounting “should work” and I have to tell them we have this little thing call revenue recognition or GAAP or how accruals work, etc. basically the stuff covered in accounting 101.

I’m used to fielding questions about numbers from all types but only doctors will immediately jump to telling you it’s wrong without asking questions and adamantly insisting they know the right way to do things is what I’ve noticed as a personality quirk generalization.

I like it when they explain to you how hard they work and how it’s unlike how anyone else works and they are super special because of it.

> how accruals work

Slightly off-topic but I worked at a UK research organisation that was a privatised entity recently spun-off from a civil-service organisation. The new CEO (who came from a finance background) got a tour of each department. He apparently listened to all of the tech evangelism from the department directors and then asked them how their department's accruals were doing. Those department directors who asked him to clarify what he meant by accruals didn't stay in post very long. Allegedly.

Us lowly engineers just kept our heads down.

Oh nice. A culture where asking questions is punished. If this was a problem don't fire people. Train them. Make sure everyone does required training. If they refuse then you may have a case for PIP.

Otherwise it is just landmine driven performance

Rant not at comment! But the situation of the comment. Hope it worked out for you!

This is a bit extreme. I've worked in many industries where the word 'accrual' is kind of internal to the finance/accounting department. I'd estimate over 70% of very good functional department heads I've worked with in the past would ask for clarification too. If they were still confused after further clarification or weren't able to comeback with an answer, then there is a bigger problem potentially with their ability to own a budget/manage spend.

This is kind of like punishing someone for not knowing your preferred buzzword. I've seen dozens of times that when a new high ranking person joins, their language quickly starts to become the defacto language of the org. If they like the "headwind" "tailwind" terminology, then it becomes what people everywhere start writing in the slides and how they discuss items of risk. You shouldn't be punishing people for asking for clarification (and there certainly a whole group of people that like to ask versus sitting silently then looking it up later). Hopefully there was more too it.

The worst thing is, most doctors aren't even smart in their own domain. They are nothing more but trained monkeys who follow a flow chart that has drug sales at the end.

This is called "engineer's disease".

You can regularly find it on this very site :)

I mean, there are probably only a few places on the internet with more people who believe their insights into other disciplines are profound simply because they understand how computers work than the HN comment section. So we should all be able to relate.

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