The Dunning-Kruger effect states that: Focus: Know someone who over-estimated their own skill (possibly to disastrous effects)? Was it you? What happened? Alt. Focus: What are you absolutely convinced you are great at or know everything about? Has anyone ever challenged you on it?
Focus: Comcast overestimates its skill on a daily basis. They think they are an internet provider, however, often utterly fail at actually providing internet. I overestimate my life skills on a daily basis. I think that I am great at going about my day, only to be proven time and time again that I am an utterly incompetent human being with no skills of any sort. Even worse, apparently sleeping acts as a 'reset' button wherein I wake up the next day totally convinced that I have life skills again, only to be proven horrendously wrong throughout the day. Rinse and repeat. Bump.
I think the main problem with Comcast is that they acquire so many smaller companies quickly and have become so big, that they have a really hard time at standardizing their operational flow. They don't integrate (read: force) their corporate image on their acquired entities anywhere near the way they should. The result is wildly varying degrees of expertise and experiences with their products and services. Personally, I've never had a negative experience with them. A few up-sell calls here and there, but nothing worth sending to Consumerist. The only thing I don't like is I have zero alternative choices where I live. Its Comcast or I dont have cable/broadband. Focus: I way over-estimate my ability at skiing. I've gotten myself in a few perilous situations where I can ski down an ungroomed trail and clear a few small drops and cliffs along the way or I can sit at the top and freeze to death. Ive done one helicopter drop once and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. Alternatively, after a decent day, Ill cruise down an easier trail, get plowed into by a little kid, and break my hand in 4 places thus ending my season after 1 outing like this year.
Every time I want to do some home improvement or fix something that breaks, I convince myself that it won't take me very long. I always know what I'm doing and if something comes up, I always have the Googles. No project is too big and no timeline is too short. When my wife and I moved into our house, the front flower beds had shitty wood chips over the dirt, as did the steep hill in our back yard. Smart people would have hired a landscaper to take it out. Not me. I convinced my brother to come over to help me do the front beds. By the time we had finished, it had taken the two of us almost all day to clear out roughly 30 to 35 square feet of wood chips that were 4 inches deep. It was right about when my brother started laughing when I asked him to help me with the back that I realized I was in way over my head. Never mind the fact that I didn't even decide on what I was going to do with the beds once I had them clean. I also didn't take into account that the only way up to the backyard that didn't require going up stairs was blocked by a 6 foot tree. By the time the landscaper that we hired had finished, it had taken a team of 4 guys over the course of 12 hours and multiple runs to the dump to clean out and mulch the back yard. If I ever want to make my wife mad at me, I mention how I'd like to build a retaining wall in the back yard and level it out a little.
Focus: A friend of mine seems insistent on working on his car, no matter how many times this proves to be a bad idea. He's not so much mechanically incompetent as he lacks attention to detail. At various times he has had minor disasters such as starting his car after an oil change and watching all of the oil pour out onto his garage floor. Last year he had to replace his timing belt. I asked if he really wanted to take the project on given his track record, and the fact that installing it wrong can damage the engine. He said he'd think about it. I got an email a couple weeks later saying the shop quoted him $3000 to fix the damage he'd done by installing the belt wrong. Whoops.
My dad is kind of the opposite with home improvement. He's a very determined, detail oriented person, he just sucks at home improvement. I remember when he retiled the bathroom floor, he got the job done, but dam was he pissed off the whole time. Then there was the time he put hardwood floors in the kitchen, another fun project that severely pissed him off but he eventually got done. I'm sure he did it to save money, which when you have a young family makes sense, but I'm confident he lost a few hairs over these little projects.
I like to think that I have the ability to fix anything on my Car or Motorcycle I just lack the tools. If that slack jawed waterhead can do it, I certainly can. As it stands I have yet to get in over my head with my Car and Motorcycle. That probably has more to with me knowing my limits though. Focus: I recently tried to build a hammock stand with some 2x4's and a pipe. It didn't turn out like I wanted and when I realized it wouldn't support shit I decided I really shouldn't waste my time and should just buy one.
My dad is much like that, he's a former Navy guy and is an electrical contractor, so on a job he's either calm yet determined or a hooting, roaring gorilla. Just today I was at his new house hanging drywall with him and he was cool all day until I raised my voice slightly and he suddenly shouted MUCH louder that I was being too loud. I later apologized but he laughed about it later. He just turned 63 so I think his grumpiness is only going to increase with age. Eh, he's like a grumpy old cat that you have fond memories of as a young kitten and such. Focus: I utterly suck when it comes to doing any sort of mechanical work on any variety of vehicle without competent supervision. Otherwise, it is very likely I will destroy or damage something. I can competently put the proper fluids in the right places, fill it with gas, clean the exterior and that's about it. Alt-Focus: I am fairly skilled with anything having to do with animal or plant husbandry, killing animals or tracking them, general woodcraft, etc. I worked as a butcher's assistant for a while and frequently have to butcher my own animals, and since I have kept/am keeping many different sorts of animals I can pretty confidently give you an outline of their care in captivity.
Focus: My old roommate and his home renovations. Specifically anything involving woodworking. He and his buddy were pretty good at tiling and painting, but doing a lot of framing and drywalling when they were drunk and/or stoned meant much of that work had to be redone, if not several times. It was woodworking and wood finishing that he was particularly bad at though, and that happens to be a stronger suite of mine. While I did my best to stay out of his business, he did ask for my advice on occasion but never took it because my methods would require more effort than he was willing to put in. When he went to work on the trim and cabinets in the kitchen, the same wood (white oak) was in three different shades by the time he was done. Kept trying to match all the colors but wouldn't bother with just redoing everything together in one go after he'd installed the pieces in place before finishing them. When he re-finished the oak wood floors covering the main level, he insisted on keeping the doorways open and not needing to dust and clean before starting and after sanding, etc... Of course he seemed genuinely surprised when the floor felt like sandpaper after the finish was cured too. The icing on the cake? He dumped all the fine sawdust from the power sanders out along our walkways in the backyard, thinking it'd add traction and then wash away, but soon it literally looked like shit after the snow melted a bit and stayed put for months afterwards. Looked more like a feedlot than a yard. Spoiler Alt. Focus: What are you absolutely convinced you are great at or know everything about? Nothing, because complacency is the antithesis of craftsmanship to me. If you aren't constantly exploring and working towards improving your craft, you're slipping. Like the saying goes, "the more I learn, the less I know."
I did well in Contract Law in school and even did background research for one of the professors on Commercial Code issues. And, after I graduated, I did contract litigation for a while. So, when a professor I knew at one of the small law schools (California is rife with them) asked me to fill in for a year for a contracts professor who failed to show, naturally I accepted. I mean, I'm an expert, right? Holy shit was that humbling. I ended up doing at least 4-6 hours of preparation/research for each hour of class and still couldn't answer a lot of questions my first year students came up with. That said, I really enjoyed it and would love to teach again sometime. If you think you know something, try teaching it.