an indication that if they are doing the work as part of a living for several years they are most likely doing good work.
All evidence to the contrary. Just some personal examples:
My mother's primary care physician has been a doctor for some 15 years now, and the guy is a complete hack who I don't trust with her health any further than I can throw a battleship. This is not just personal bias on my part; as she has other doctors (her diabetes and thyroid doctor, her cardiologist, etc.) who out of professional courtesy never directly disparage the guy, but I can almost set my clock by the times when they have to correct or append some bad or missing diagnoses or treatment that he gives or advises. But folks like my mom won't change doctors because "Oh, he's so nice."
And, BTW, when was the last time you met a nurse who you actually trusted to take proper care of a friend or family member while in the hospital? Hell, you're lucky to find one that can draw blood better than your average leech.
I have a friend who is an independent building contractor who does a lot of re-building/refurbishing work who is constantly coming home with detailed horror stories of the building they work on with absolutely shoddy workmanship that not only often times barely meets code (if at all), but barely even makes sense when you look at how it's done. When you get called in to paint a *brand new wall* and you first have to first re-nail, re-joint and re-spackle the three-week-old wall because there are a dozen nail heads sticking out and visible seams at the drywall joints, done by a licensed and bonded contractor, there's something horribly wrong. Or how about those home foundations that you can visibly see have 8" walls that vary in widh by a good 3" and look like they've been drawn free-hand by a 6-yr-old?
I worked in software development for many years, and I can tell you with certainty that it's not unusual to find big-budget software development firms that have project architects with absolutely no training or knowledge in the industry for which they are developing the software, developers that had no training or experience in the language in which the project is being written, QA checkers who know nothing about testing software outside of following a basic checklist, and who purposely push out as production versions software versions which fail the beta testing phase just to meet deadlines. How very professional.
And do you even want me to go down the road of talking about the idiot stock brokers, traders, and bankers who followed on blind faith practices which made no sense whatsoever by even the fundamentals of economics, simply because that's what their neighbors were doing, and almost brought the entire world economy to it's knees?
And as far as audio engineering, I have just one thing to say. Turn on the radio and listen for yourself.
The vast majority of the work force is in the wrong line of work, or in over their heads in job position even when they are in the right line of work. But because the consumer has become just as lazy as they have, there is no "invisible hand of competition" when the consumer is willing to accept shoddy work without putting up a stink anywhere except to their neighbors at the backyard barbecue.
G.
