What insight have you gained from you profession/education that the layman doesn't understand?

As a lawyer, I am constantly reminded by the laymen on this site that, as a general rule, laymen simply don't understand the law -- not that their ignorance prevents them from opining at great length about the law, of course.

Librul elitist!

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I don't just get those reminders here, but yes, definitely, I see/hear them as well.

my insight that I have learned in my career that I would give to laymen...

That so many more people than you imagine really do not want to put forth any sort of effort to improve their condition This is even if they are provided with all the tools, placed easily in their reach, and are constantly encouraged to use them.

That is so true!

How to teach Chaucer to a second string NCAA forward after consuming half a bottle of wine.

I think that's about it.

Oh no, I'm definitely pro-elitism. Indeed, during the last election campaign, I started a thread titled What's so wrong with being an elitist?. Needless to say, the thread wasn't up to your standards, and so you never posted in it.

Oh good, someone else in the computer field! I've usually been in support, help desk, and instruction.

One bit of advice here: When your computer breaks (and it WILL), and you call for help, do NOT supply any theories on why it broke or what is wrong with it, ever (such as, "I think it must be X.")

You will be made fun of (for weeks, possibly) behind your back by the Help Desk folks ("OMG, he thought it was X! Hahaha!")

The astonishing thing about computers, esp. networks, is that they work AT ALL, given their complexity and astonishing delicacy. (Echoing DrewDad here!)

No one person understands everything about, not only a single computer, but a computer network... the Internet is entirely beyond the comprehension of any human being (in my opinion).

When you meet a computer "know-it-all," I suggest you run away screaming. He/she does not, and cannot, know it all.

Oh, and hubby is an auto mechanic. Same advice here: When you take your car to be serviced, do NOT supply those tempting "I think it's X" comments. You're likely to be wrong, and ridiculed.

Instead (as with computers), simply state, "It's doing this..." focusing on your own experience, or "When I do this, it does that."

These comments are SO much more helpful than saying "It needs this."

Cars are, these days, almost fantastically complex. That they have computer chips, which actually work most of the time (and some cars have Many of them), still amazes me.

Many years ago, hubby taught me a very handy abbreviation, "DKDC." He wrote this on auto work-orders that said things like, "At 53 mph every other Tuesday, but only during rain, there's a faint rattle in the dashboard."

The abbreviation means "Don't Know Don't Care."

Dashboard rattles are notoriously difficult to locate and repair, as are electrical problems.

And with computers or cars, anything that happens "sometimes" is much more difficult to diagnose and repair than something that Always happens. Your mechanic/computer repairperson must (almost always) cause the item to fail in order to fix it.

Hopefully this helps someone.

Sadly, I completely agree.

From P.R.:

Too many people in advertising are under the mistaken impression they are in show business. They are not. They are in sales.

Here's an insight that crosses beyond the computer field:

Be the same person in private that you are in public. Don't say something to your co-workers that you wouldn't say to your customer's face.

From clinical and research technology - science is fun.

From landscape architecture - a surprising number of people never seem to notice their environment, urban or countryside. I got "new eyes" myself learning about what I've been looking at all my life, and "more eyes" learning about designing for people moving through spaces.

From art - creating art yourself, however pleased you are or are not with a given piece, is very engaging, and also promotes "new eyes" as does landscape architecture and med research. Seeing/hearing other people's art obviously does, at least some of the time.

Ya'lls fancy words confuse and anger me.

Got a beef with my words? tell me about it.

Of course not...just playing the uncultivated laymans part.

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We ate at "Popeys" tonight....cajunish fastfood chicken place....I spent most of my time staring out the window admiring the landscaping....dark brown lava rock, accented with some very nice variegated liriope...the lava rock ended in a really nice curvy line of what looked to be Kentucky bluegrass. The Olive Garden next door, has some of the largest and greenest Maiden grasses I've ever seen....I enjoyed the scenery much more than the food.

There were two very large weeds growing in with the liriope...it took all I had not to go out there and pull them.

Ok, 2p. I've always figured you understood space... and some other stuff.

Gotcha.

A lot of learning for me has been cases where common sense "crystallized" in my head. I'm not sure if that expression I've been using with myself makes sense to others but what I mean by it is when experience takes common sense you already knew and gives you a much deeper understanding of it. Many times the insight I've gained is not that it is wise to do X but a better understanding of just how important it is to do X and just how often you will fail if failing to do so.

Web Development

The layperson consciously notices largely aesthetic elements of the UI (e.g. does it look pretty?) while the bulk of their experience is driven by less flashy parts of the function (does the information architecture make sense?).

So when you put function over form, remember that the guy that gives it a better paint job might get more buzz. You can get a lot of mileage out of the paint job, even if it's a superficiality to the app.

Shakespeare said it best about dress, and it applies to almost everything:

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, / But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; / For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Appearance may be superficial, but it's very important to the first impression of most users.

Design
This is from a famous quote I can't remember the source for right now: Perfection is often achieved not when you can't think of anything else to add. But when you can't think of anything else to take away.

Basically, it's a "less is more" and it was a big lesson to me in design, where my natural instincts are toward "more is more". For a guy like me, when I've found I can't take any more of the minimalism I'm enforcing upon myself I'm usually got it about right.

Poker

The 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration rule.

Sometimes all the skill in the world isn't as good as discipline and patience. You can be the most skilled player on the table but consistently be the biggest loser. Sometimes the less I try to outplay people and force the action the better I will fare. Letting the game come to you is a lesson in patience and timing. The best moves you have aren't nearly as good as merely picking the best spots. Learning to wait for the right "when" is often more important than the right "how".

Logistics

Time is money, distance is money. Everyone knows this but in logistics you learn it a different way, where late can mean thousands of dollars in costs. Logistics is all about moving things around which ends up being much more complicated, and crucial, than I'd ever expected prior to becoming an impromptu logistics guy.


Marketing

Being more specific and more targeted isn't as sexy as going broad and glitzy but tends to have a much better ROI. So all the "glamor" marketing such as TV, radio, and print won't tend to do as well as something like search marketing, where you market to someone searching for exactly what you are offering.

Very few cases are good fits for general branding, and if you focus on getting your message to the few people most interested in it (as opposed to everyone you can get in front of) you'll have the best ROI.

The the next thing you learn is that scale is the enemy of ROI when it comes to marketing. So your cost per acquisition suffers if you let volume dictate your strategy, and your volume suffers if you let ROI dictate your strategy.

Picking the right spots in marketing is the lesson least learned by marketers, who often fail to marry their creativity with objective measurement. Getting the right balance and starting with ROI lets you out-finesse your competition with a lot less and marketing is direct competition sometimes.


English Teacher

You don't need to know anything about the rules of grammar to use the language, which is best done by rote (remember this when you try to learn a language). But grammar becomes important when interfacing with different languages.

Often the ESL student will understand English grammar better than native speakers.

Hiring people

You really need to be more pushy ("persistent" if you are a salesperson) than I ever want to be to be successful in sales. If you like helping others you may just be the wrong kind of person for sales. For customer service you must be much less aggressive, while as outgoing and social.

Getting the right personality types for the job makes more of a difference than anything else will tend to for sales and customer service positions. You want aggressive and outgoing for sales, passive and outgoing for customer service. For operations personality isn't as much of a king maker, but the general profile is less outgoing and social.

For sales and customer service you can actually do personality tests that will fairly accurately predict how someone will perform in specific roles. I was very surprised to find out how accurate some of the pre-employment tests could be (I have specific ones in mind, such as the "Predictive Index").