Ever Notice People Who Say "I've been doing this for XXX years" don't know squat?

ibleedburgundy

ibleedburgundy

The Anti-Lambo
Ever Notice People Who Say "I've been doing this for XXX years" don't know squat?

After trusting yet another person who told me they have 25 years of experience and then painfully realizing he didn't know WTF he was doing, I've come to the realization that people who say "I've been doing this for 25 years" as if it substitutes for an actual substantive argument for why they are correct don't know what the hell they are doing.

And if they truly did have that experience, they wouldn't have to say it in the first place because it would be obvious.
 
Perhaps he does have 25 yrs worth of experience. Just that it's 25 yrs experience of doing it badly and getting it wrong?
 
Yeah 25 years is enough time to have bad habits and wrong methods thoroughly ingrained. Generally if you're good at something it don't take 25 years to get that way.
 
Unfortunately, 25 years plants him back in the 80's. Some of the 'rules' have changed since then, especially when it comes to digital recording. Some people learn the 'right' way of doing things and then don't change their methods when times change.

Also, if he has been home recording for 25 years and has no real training, it's very possible that he just found a way to make his own stuff sound ok using his goofy methods based on misunderstandings of proper methods.

You can only judge people by their results. That is the only indication that they know what they are doing. Of course, there are plenty of people who get good results in spite of their wrong-headed beliefs.
 
Sorry IBB but that is way too much of a generalization...but yes I do find that some people say something like that that are all wrapped up in their own little micro cosmos and totally oblivious to change or possibly "new and improved" ways of doing XYZ.

Conversely, I have met people who say something like that that really know their shit and I can learn a ton from...it is not black and white.
 
Is it any better than someone who says "i've been doing this for 2 years so know what I'm doing'? (And you know that it isn't right)
 
Farview said:
You can only judge people by their results. That is the only indication that they know what they are doing. Of course, there are plenty of people who get good results in spite of their wrong-headed beliefs.
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This. "Do as I do, not as I say", etc.
 
Ever Notice People Who Say "I've been doing this for XXX years" don't know squat?

I've been noticing it for about 30 years now, yeah.
 
TAE said:
Sorry IBB but that is way too much of a generalization...but yes I do find that some people say something like that that are all wrapped up in their own little micro cosmos and totally oblivious to change or possibly "new and improved" ways of doing XYZ.

Conversely, I have met people who say something like that that really know their shit and I can learn a ton from...it is not black and white.
Click to expand...

It is too much of a generalization.

But I've been in similar situations where the same thing happened. Years ago I was questioning a legal decision about our pension plan and guy looks at me, (I'm 25 years old at the time), and says "with allllll due respect I've been doing this a long time..." We were having a discussion about the legalities of business classifications and then somehow it turned into him talking about how old he was. That guy, unlike this latest guy, was at least good enough to do a mea culpa the next time I saw him.

Yet another time we were negotiating a construction contract in NYC and the implementation lead came back with this shit price. I told him he was way off and recommended he clarify that the construction contractor fully understood the work and was not overestimating the difficulty. And then I get the "Well I've been doing this a long time, NYC unions, teamsters blah blah blah" and he says there's nothing he can do. So our subcontract manager finally concedes and makes a 30 minute phone call the construction contractor and boom, price goes down by $212,000.00 on what was ultimately a $1.2M construction job.

No doubt there is a time and place to tell people how much experience you have. Like in a job interview. Or on a resume. But NEVER as a substitute for what ought to be a technical argument.
 
Much worse are the people who think the longer we've been doing this the less we know. I've met plenty of these. I've been doing this right since 1978, but I knew a lot of people then and over the years that did not and do not know what they're doing no matter how long they're been doing it. This isn't rocket science... it's more difficult than rocket science. Everyone and their grandmother thinks they can be a great recording engineer/composer/musician. Well, they can't!

Of course it depends on the situation when it comes to deciding who under the circumstances doesn't know what they're doing. It could be the inexperienced/less experienced person that doesn't know enough about what he's doing to understand what the veteran recordist is doing.
 
Well, one thing I have noticed is a general lack of respect for experience on the part of people who don't have much.. not that that's the case here. ;)
 
I get tempted to use that line. I'm in a line of work where, because no-one else gave a rat's, I'm the expert at business level. Curiousity... I like knowing how stuff works - now I'm the only one who does. So now everyone who, from the IT side develops stuff knows that the easiest way, the cheapest way, is to work with me very early on and we get to the end state as quickly as possible. Mutual respect abounds. I have the discussions with business stakeholders that they don't know how to do when something's not technically possible, and from the business side, I talk directly to IT and get what the business wants, if it's gettable.

Every now and then someone blows in, usually a contractor with a specific, narrow objective, who wants to change the world.

I'm not so arrogant as to adopt the "we'll do it this way because that's the way it is done" argument, because I'm always open to new ideas and methods, but sometimes you can see they're going to butt their heads up against some walls, and despite having this pointed out, tactfully, they're determined to continue, for any number of reasons to do with age, self-belief, the need to carve out turf, whatever.... pissing everyone off all the while and tarnishing the little reputation they have.

I'm at the "whatever dude!" stage with these guys. And I hate to quote Ayn Rand here in PT, but one of the central themes behind Atlas Shrugged, that when the world just keeps kicking against you despite your best efforts, and no-one listens, then you drop the damn thing, sometimes is the only way to move these things forward.

But I still don't say "I've been doing this for XXX years and let me tell you....." Or I hope I don't!;)
 
I think three important attributes of an expert are skills, knowledge and experience. None of these appear magically. All require time and effort. Generally, the more time and effort you spend on something, the better you will become.

It doesn't always work, though. I started playing guitar when I was sixteen, and so I can claim about 48 years of experience. But though I developed expertise quite quickly, I also plateaued quickly. So maybe the first ten years was highly productive, but not much happened in the following 38 years. So my claim of 48 years is a bit hollow, because it is really the same as my claim of ten years.

In a slightly similar way, a friend of mine was heavily involved in theatre lighting from a young age, being a lampie and doing lighting design for much of his life. However, his knowledge, experience and skills were bound up with conventional analog lighting systems, and he is totally at sea with LED lights and digital desks. His thirty years of doing theatre lighting is no help in, nor an indication of expertise in, modern lighting systems. Techies who are considerably younger and who have claim to fewer years of doing lighting run rings around him.

So while there is no doubt that many people can legitimately count their years as being indicative of competency, it is not always the case. And sometimes the experienced old-hand is just bullying, i.e. using a claim of experience to shut down opposition: "what would you know, you young whipper-snapper? I've been doing this for forty years, and I know."

As IBB notes earlier: a statement of experience should be "never a substitute for what ought to be a technical argument". The wise veteran will have the edge on the arrogant upstart, but will not use years as a weapon.
 
If you have to say you've been doing something X years, then it's probably not very evident in the work you're doing.
 
Ive been making music for 25 years now. Granted, not very good music. Actually, I really dont ever admit it because (1) it makes me feel old and (2) nobody cares. I can assue you there are people with only a couple of years experience that can run circles around me. I agree that your work should show your experience. If I have to convince you that my work is great because I have been doing this for xx years then something is missing. Heck, my wife has been driving for 20 years, so that should qualify her as a great driver right? Well you sir, would be wrong. It just means she has been a horrible driver for twenty years. No, really, she is a horrible driver. So take it in stride. If someone qualifies their work with ive been doing this for xx years take it in stride. Let their work speak for itself.
 
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