Would you consider yourself an expert in your chosen field?
 

I know the question is a bit open ended.

Been reading and watching a number of things about people working on their craft or becoming experts in their chosen jobs and it is always interesting to me. Saw a few documentaries with a few guys...one is a famous fashion photographer for the NY Times and the other owns one of the world's most highly regarded sushi restaurants (it only has 10 seats).

It was eye opening how both of these guys made their work their lives...there wasn't room for anyone else. They are at the top of their game professionally and still are never content rest or even admit success. In the first example so much that they wondered if he ever had a romantic relationship in his life.

These are extreme cases but do you constantly work and strive to improve your abilities or what you bring to the table in your line of work? Would you call yourself an expert? Or do you get to that point where you reached a level of happiness where work maintains the life you want to live away from it.

Currently contemplating my own work life balance and I always find the varied perspectives of CP'ers compelling.

I can color inside the lines, show up for work with both shoes tied, and have 0 DWI's.

I'd say I'm easily in the top 10% at work...

There is ALWAYS room for improvement, but yeah. I'm pretty damn good at what I do.

ROFL

who's political office do you work for?

I do my job, but I have no passion for it. It's not something I ever anticipated doing and I don't want to do it for the rest of my life. But I'll probably have to. That's just how things have played out.

As far as being an expert, well, I have a lot of issues to work through. It's difficult to explain without going into my life story (which most of the old timers have probably heard by now) but I have to fight every day against low self confidence and low self esteem, basically an attitude burned into me growing up that I'm worthless and nothing I do will ever be worth a damn, so why even try. I think I'm fighting it harder now than I ever have before. But I'll never be able to think of myself as being good at something, or the best at something, and that's because I know I'll never have the ambition or the drive or the dedication that it takes to get there. "Good enough to get by" is about the tip of the iceberg for me. And I am good enough to get by at my job.

Yes, with room to grow.

LOL...expert? Ummm...no!

My profession is a jack of all trades kind of thing. I'm really good at some of them, weak at other aspects, shitty at being a mechanic and fab work. Most of it though is more management, and I'd say I'm pretty decent.

Unless you're talking about the part time tax work I do. Then I suck.

I've been doing the same thing for over 20 years. While I'm very good at what I do, I also know that you never know it all and there's always room for improvement

This is pretty much my assessment of myself.

Of course.

I've been at mine for 20 years, and I'm using all of the state of the art technology available that is actually worth using. The things I don't enjoy doing, I refer to a specialist, even though I used to do just about everything myself. For better or worse, in my job, you have to be an expert or you aren't going to be doing it for very long.

Changed roles at my company about a year ago. Went from being a data analyst (manager of a team) to a business analyst.

Still have a lot to learn in the new role and I am working towards a certification. Not an expert in the overall job but working of getting there.

nope. i scraped by on good luck and sleeping my way to the top.

I'm an expert, but the whole single-minded savant thing isn't me at all. I love my teaching duties, but I do a lot of other stuff as well to keep me sharp. I tend to get really excited and passionate about things in waves, which is why I do a lot of freelance as well as help my wife with her business. At core, though, my love is teaching because it's dynamic, rewarding, and enjoyable.

My wife, on the other hand, is a single-minded savant. She works probably 12-14 hours a day at her job and is completely passionate about it... at times annoyingly so in that she's bordering on workaholic.

I haven't worked with any politicians.










Yet...

are you a butt doctor:)

same company for 30 years now. started writing code, changed to networking, changed to installing access points on towers, changed to fiber/switching.

i have no idea what the **** is going on anymore, but they're still paying me.
sec

I have been with the same company for 14 years and luckily still have a pension. I don't LOVE my job but I am damn good at it and I have been promoted 4 times.

Fortune 100 company with plenty of room to grow and develop. Again, Can't complain.

Yes,I consider myself in an expert but always with room to grow.At 50 I don't work near like I used to nor do I have the passion to do so.My company will be 23 years old later this year and I have actively started seeking a person or persons who either may want to join the business and/or better yet buy it with the option of keeping me on in sales only if they want.

Not even close for me. I'm more of a "jack of all trades/master of none". In my job, I've been an engineer, splicer, central office tech, maintenance tech and heavy equipment operator. I can do my job from top to bottom, but I have co-workers that can do each individual job better than me.

So there's 2 honest people in this thread...

Nope, but pretty much everyone I work with seems to think I am for some reason. I've gotten sent TDY to fix things at other sites numerous times, but when I get there more often than not it's something that seems like common sense that needed fixing....I come out looking like some damned genius for not doing much.

If I got paid for what I actually do vs what they all believe I do, I would probably be broke.

I'd like to think so...been doing my Art as a living for 18 years this June.

I know I can learn more, but I think I am an expert anyways in my field of work. Not much to it but it has it's moments to think during situations that erupt at a whims notice. Knowing what to do in crisis situations is very important. Being patient and tollerent are virtues one must possess when working with individuals with disabilities. It's harder working with n00bs & or idiots that are here LMAO

I think I am pretty knowledgable about my field as a whole and would consider myself an expert with lots of room to learn. I really want to be an all out expert in a specialized area of my field which I am probably about 3/4 of the way to that.

No, I am good at what I do, and I take pride in it, but our field changes daily, and im not an expert on the past knowledge yet. My dad would definitely be considered an expert in our field, he is extremely respected in our area. I am good at what I do, but I have years worth of knowledge to learn at this point.

I'm good at the key elements of my trade. I'd love to make enough to hire an bookkeeper to push papers and bill my clients because I loathe that part of it. It's an ever changing industry with regard to new technologies, materials, building codes, and style choices. That's what keeps my attention. I love that aspect of it the job.

I'd rather write and interact with my community on a full-time basis but that doesn't pay the bills right now so it remains a hobby.

Pretty interesting thread idea that makes it challenging to be humble. :D

Having been in a very niche technical field for the last 21 years that the majority of people aren't even aware exists, I am at the top.

Our industry peaked about 1998 and is a technology that is being designed out, where possible. Since it's inception, the Electronics Industry has been a constantly changing playing field to get smaller, cheaper and better.

Counting the days until my full time occupation is whatever the heck I decide to do that day.

Oh, and **** you China!

Part of being an expert is understanding how much you have yet to learn to perfect your given craft, thus creating the situation where you think you are not an expert based on the things left to learn. Which is constantly changing with the technological advances in todays society.

Nobody is as good as they think they are and as bad as other people tell them they are. In my 35 years of computer support, I have repaired over 40,000 computers and 10,000 printers of all kinds - ranging from desktops to mainframes. I had to work with:

1. DOS
2. Unix
3. OS/2
4. Novel
5. Microsoft
6. Java
7. Appletalk

And just about every email system devised by mankind.

At one point I was considered an expert but now I don't give a crap. Its called input overload. I have one standing professional rule...Never argue with an idiot.

Just about any monkey could do my job.
But I am a dam good monkey

I'm going to school for what I want to do so definitely not yet but I plan to be

If the magic 10,000 hour rule is true, then yes, at least a couple times over... but, there's so much to learn, I don't really feel like one. I had an interesting conversation with someone about whether you can be an expert in IT without having extremely deep knowledge in one area... I've never stuck with one thing long enough to know it inside and out, but have been troubleshooting problems with everything from Cobol to networking to Windows, Unix, scripting, Java, etc; for several years.

Sometimes I feel like I should specialize and become a subject matter expert in something (especially if it means never working with Windows again), but I like the variety and know quite a bit in several areas, even if it's only at an intermediate-advanced level.

I've done the same job for 26 years, so yeah, I pretty much got it down.

No.....but it's hard to be in this area of work because of all of the ever changing laws.

I can rent out a boat like you wouldn't believe. Never been in one before? Give me ten minutes and you'll be an expert.

Actually you probably won't listen. Most people don't.

Don't know if you have any ideas but on my new i-phone 5 I can receive e-mail but not reply nor create and send,I've even spent over 2 hours on phone support with Apple and they are at a loss. :banghead:

I've been sanding glory holes for 25 years now. In a few years I think I'll have it mastered.

If it's an ISP's email, it's pretty much always because the outbound smtp settings aren't correct, so Googling 'iphone send email [your isp]' is a good place to start. Most ISPs should have a page like this that makes it easy. Of course, this would be step one for any competent help desk, but there's a reason I never talk to them...

That's dependent on your mail server. Apple technicians wouldn't be able to help. Who is your e-mail provider?

Usually in situations where you can receive but not send, you're using a POP3 type e-mail account. Which has separate servers for receiving mail(POP3) and sending mail(SMTP). Things are working with the server that receives mail, but not with the server that sends mail.

Check with your e-mail provider to see what settings you need for the SMTP server. Including SSL authentication if needed, and port number. When you have that, get on your phone and go to Settings\Mail, Contacts, Calendars\AccountName\Account\Outgoing Mail Server. There you will enter the correct SMTP server, and any settings necessary to make it work. Usually you need SSL enabled, and not having that enabled will prevent it from working.

Hope that helps.

Yes. You could write several term papers on my Slapdickery.

Eesh

Correct it is a pop3 account and I have contacted my e-mail server,my web page designer,Apple and even had a close friend who is good with these things and still no luck.I have the phone set up like my laptop which works fine and my previous phone,an android was set up the same and worked fine.

this

I can change the battery in the smoke detectors with the best of them.

Well the problem must be with the SMTP configuration portion. Something in that portion is not correct. That's the only logical possibility. I'd go back to the SMTP server settings, and when you get to the Primary Server field, click again on the server listing to bring up the details of the SMTP server. Ensure that host name is correct. Ensure that the user name is correct. I'd try both youremail@yourserver.com and simply "youremail" without the @yourserver.com. Enter your password again there as well. If you need SSL, be sure that it's turned on there. Be sure the port number is correct.

Be sure that you're using the e-mail address from the server you're sending from too. Meaning if you have 2 e-mail addresses, like joeblow@yahoo.com and joeblow@gmail.com, and you're trying to send mail using gmail's SMTP server, you have to provide the joeblow@gmail.com name and password for authentication to your SMTP server. I've seen people in that situation use another e-mail address, but SMTP servers will deny it unless it's an address from their service.

This type of issue is generally always a mixup of SMTP info details. There's very little else that would cause it to fail.

If none of that works, I'd delete the account from the phone, and add it again. You won't lose any e-mail or anything.

Operated CNC machines for 15 years. That industry has evolved a lot over the years. They basically want engineers running machines. I'm done with it.

I begin CDL training on the 28th.

I've been in my field for 37 years....I mentor all my Team members and am asked to speak at Industry Group Meetings and National Conventions. But the one thing I am sure of with all my experience, I still have a long ways to go.

Why did you switch? And do you like the change thus far?

I have been in my business for ten years+ . I pretty much know nearly everything there is to know about my part of the field. I do accept there are still some things out there I could learn, but I have a wealth of knowledge.

have 5 dwi's (all collected 20 years ago, had a bit of lapse)
don't care about the lines
|I am everybody's first source for questions

I am alright

was the best at what I did (in the 90's)
and what IU do is unwanted right now

Yeah, whatever...as long as there's a place to take a shit after eating those belly-bombs they feed us for lunch, that's all the knowledge I need.
Sec

I'm very good at what I do and have a different approach than most in my field. My issue is that Being great today doesn't mean you're good tomorrow, because things change so fast. Too many things in my field for someone to know everything.

Hell, today my new guys were showing me something I didn't know how to do.

I think any time you get significant experience in a field, it's not so much that you know which button to push every time, but have the know-how and the can-do that you know what you want to do and you can figure out a way to do it to get the desired outcome.

That's the difference between someone who is good and someone who is experienced and good.


I'm a life-long learner.

Honestly I don't think about it. I live by an old rule. If you have to tell someone you're smart then you're not.

So as a parallel if you have to tell someone you're an expert then you're not. Just do your shit, if you're good people will listen to you or ask your advice. That's your answer to if you're an expert.

I'm an expert at the things that I'm really good at, and I'm not an expert at the things that I don't know very well. My field has a lot of different facets.

I think "expert" is determined by your value to others not based on a self assessment. How often do people come to you for assistance? How often do they return for more advice later? If you're the local, regional, or national go-to guy for a particular subject matter, trade, or craft, you're an expert.

I'm an office manager and I would consider myself pretty damn good at what I do (especially) compared to the others at my work, but I know there are thousands of people in the rest of the world that would just annihilate me at my job. I'm the best where it counts though lol

well if that's the benchmark I'm the ****ing man lol

I take great pride in my work. & will put my skills up against any mason out there.

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...31109210_n.jpg


https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot..._6041770_n.jpg

Looking out across the Platte river bottoms. Stoning the chimney
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot..._7810049_n.jpg


https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot..._2489590_n.jpg


Rebuilt this tunnel opening couple summers ago

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot..._6900886_n.jpg


The start of a 200 foot railroad trestle
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot..._1536666_n.jpg

Free standing arch.
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...33753990_n.jpg

I just retired after 37 years in health-care and every day I went to work it wasn't work, it was a love affair. I know I have a lot to learn yet but I am very good at fixing spines. I can fix most herniated discs that I see and can restore the natural curves to a patients spine if they will do what is asked of them, which will cure a myriad of problems. My field is constantly changing so I am still learning more and more. I love it. I had to retire because after 37 years an old spinal cord injury finally caught up with me. Although they said I would never walk again I was out of my wheelchair within a year of being told I would never walk, which was 40 years ago, and tried to help as many people as I could with disabling injuries or conditions. I have a Masters Degree in nutrition also but always felt that spines were my forte'. I just wish I didn't have to retire because I love helping people so much. Am I an expert? No because there is so much more I could learn and will endeavor to do so until my time here is up.

Nice post man. I wish i had those kind of smarts. I dnt. Not even close.
I do use what god gave me. Brute strength & I do love what I do for the most part.
Loving what you do for a living IMO is the most important part of a choosing a career
Choose wisely,all you lil whipper-snappers

Started my career in May 2012. Hasn't been a year but I don't think I will ever been an expert in my field. Anything in the medical field is constantly changing, which is a reason I love my job so much. Not to mention how everyday is vastly different from the next. Learning never stops!

Well, if it makes you feel any better, knowing you're a dumbass makes you smarter than most dumbasses.

:evil:

As long as your doing what you love, you're ahead of most people. I have found a lot of people hate what they do everyday. As far as smarts I would say I don't consider myself all that smart. Any intelligence one has is from their parents anyway so we don't have that much to do with it. I am glad you love doing what you do and enjoy it. I have learned we need people in all fields from ditch diggers to brain surgeons. I believe all people, regardless of job description deserve respect. Some of the people I respect the most are hard working people who might not have a lot in the way of "stuff" but they have the important things like integrity, they love their family, they work hard and are a good neighbor. Personally I don't like hanging around with most doctors and other "highly educated" people because all they do when you are around them is talk about themselves and what they have. While you're talking to them they might as well say something like, "well, enough about me, let't talk about you, how much do you love me?" lol

That is some beautiful work. I envy your skill.

Nailed it, and what LiveSteam said is spot on, too.... find what you're good at and work your hardest at it. Do what you love. No way in hell I could design or create a house, and I could definitely see why it would be more satisfying to be able to point to what you've accomplished for decades to come, as opposed to sitting in a cube all day and having to deal with office politics and what not.

I guess I've got it down but in my field you constantly have to be learning. It never stops. You stop learning, you stop working.

I work with stuff people don't even know exists yet. Thats pretty cool. Like the others said.....whatever you do, do what you love.

I started doing medical research about two years ago, and HOLY **** DO I FEEL LIKE I DONT KNOW WHAT IM DOING. I study metastatic breast cancer (laboratory science has an APPALLING lack of [literal] hands-on experience, but I digress) and I can tell you that in science, expert is a tough term. If an expert is someone who understands biochemistry, then there are a metric shit-ton at any university. But if you define expert as "someone who has the answers", in cancer research there are none. Every day I learn something new about receptors or kinases, or G-coupled protein receptors, or chemokines, or even the behavior of mice. I'm a good lab tech, decent research assistant, but goddamn do some people at work make me feel stupid. My PI (lead investigator and owner of the lab) has an MS from Northwestern, a PhD from Harvard, and worked at MD Anderson Cancer Center for a decade. I might as well just be smashing bricks together when she talks to me.

Run for Mayor and then take bribes to make a living? ;)

This thread made me think of a post from a friend on FB. He was reading this book during his holiday break and came into the new year focused on improving his own professional skills.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1455509124

http://www.georgemillo.com/blog/wp-c...Cover-Big.jpeg