Under-appreciation of technical understanding & skills

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There are few things more frustrating that people who don't appreciate the intricacies of a complex technical procedure - yet look at you as if you're the idiot.

For example - someone may think you're doing something too slowly, or that you're being deliberately difficult...when in fact you know exactly what you're doing, only it's too complex to explain to the other person in that moment.

The result is that you have the entire procedure in your mind, are in the middle of doing it, and then somebody comes along and tries to "help" by "snapping you out of it" and insinuating that you should "hurry up and finish" - even though they don't have a clue what's going on.

Isn't that frustrating? I'd say it could even be grounds for a meltdown.

People in Sales & Marketing seem to have the impression that we Engineers work solely for them, and that we only have to connect the parts in the right order and add batteries to give them the features that they've convinced the customers they need.

According to the people in S&M, when we lose customers, it's not because S&M made promises that Engineering can't keep, but it's the Engineers who are too stupid and lazy to keep the promises that S&M makes - in spite of the fact that most salespeople seem to have little (if any) understanding of engineering practices or scientific principles, and they seem to be more concerned with being believed by the customer than with actually telling the truth to the customer.

When I am doing something for others, I like technical.

When others are doing something for me, I like speedy.

There is balance between technical and speedy.

There's also the opposite, though. The academic world makes it easy to overappreciate technical skills and solutions that are correct. In the real world, unfortunately, other things often matter more. Microsoft always made rather crappy products, but Bill Gates sure is richer than, for example, the people who worked at Xerox PARC or the ones at MIT-spinoffs that made Lisp machines. Gates's breakthrough was MS-DOS, a piece of c**p that he didn't write himself and that the guy who coded it up as an educational exercise for himself thought had little commercial value--Gate's genius was in selling it to IBM for lots of money even though IBM had many smart people who could have written something better in two weeks if given the task and freedom to do so. Insight into social processes will trump being right almost any time.

I often feel unappreciated for my computer/mechanical skills. I'm excited when I get to use them and not have to work with the public, but my coworkers tend to resent it. I know that I'm very good at what I do and save them a lot of money by performing these tasks, but comments at the speed in which I do them (often due to internet speed/computer speed) and unrelated problems that occur after I remedy the problem are common complaints.

I had a major meltdown last month when I tried to install some new front desk computers. I ran into a number of problems with meshing tech from a decade ago with the new tech over the course of two weeks. It was the catalyst that lead me to seeing a therapist.

:sigh: The problem is that most people deal with technically complex a few times a year, if that. Therefore, most people don't have the regular background to realize when an issue is technically complex, and that it needs the proper attention.

Hence why lawyers and plumbers can charge so much.