'She wanted to buy grass-fed pork. There is no such thing': 20+ Professionals who rolled their eyes at people who think they're experts, when they're actually just wrong

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Sep 11, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

Your years of career expertise are no match for someone who watched three YouTube videos on the subject. 

Learning is a lifelong endeavor for some people. They always want to read up on new ideas and form new opinions based off what they're reading or watching at the moment. Sometimes, people think they're so educated on a topic that they know better than a person in that profession. From lawyers to healthcare professionals to software engineers, these professionals have all met ordinary folks who believe they're much more educated on the subject than the person who studied it for years and does that job every day. Who needs expertise when, instead, you have your own strong opinion that can't be changed by facts and evidence? 

U/Phoenix-fyre asked "Professionals in any field of work, what is the most ridiculous thing that anyone outside of your profession has claimed to know more about than you?" More than 20,000 people answered. There were people from numerous careers, and it seems like a lot of them have to answer the same sorts of questions and misunderstandings all the time. At least some people actually listened to the pros, while others doubled down on their misinformed hot takes. 

After you scroll through these entertaining stories, read up on these workplace red flags to spot before your first day. 

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  • 01
    Font - Professionals in any field of work, what is the most ridiculous thing that anyone outside of your profession has claimed to know more about than you?
    via u/phoenix-fyre
  • 02
    Font - Proteinmonger Got in an argument with a woman at Whole Foods, she wanted to buy grass fed pork. There is no such thing, grass cannot support a pig they have to eat a heavy grain filled diet. Woman did not believe me or my 10 years of farm and meat selling experience. Got to the point I told the woman I would ship her a piglet so she could raise it completely on grass and watch it d e from starvation. I don't do demos at Whole Foods anymore.
    via u/Proteinmonger
  • 03
    Font - PedanticPedant I study sonar. When I tell people that, a surprising number tell me that there is no sound underwater. I mean, you don't need to be an expert in the field. You can just put your head underwater and hear sound.
    via u/PedanticPedant
  • 04
    Font - pw_15 Them: "We determined that the wall is not loadbearing." Me: "How did you come to that conclusion?" Them: "Because of the way it is." Me: "It's definitely loadbearing, allow me to show-" Them: "We already decided it's not loadbearing, weren't you listening?"
    via u/pw_15
  • 05
    Font - solife Software engineer. "How hard is it to fix a few bugs? It should just be a few lines of code." edit: seems this struck a chord with people. Part of why I love my job is my manager (and even the CEO) don't do stuff like this. I've still had plenty of conversations outside of work though (oh god every game forum).
    via u/solife
  • 06
    Font - digeratisensei I have been developing custom software for over 20 years. 98% of my customers have thought they shouldn't have to pay the price it costs to build their software. Mostly because "I can do X in Excel."
    via u/digeratisensei
  • 07
    Font - rideaspiral I work in tax policy. One time on Reddit someone tried to prove I was wrong about tax policy by citing a report I wrote.
    via u/rideaspiral
  • 08
    Font - [deleted] I used to work in Auto Detailing. The one thing we NEVER did was power wash the motor of a 90's model Jaguar. The electronics were sensitive and the slightest amount of pressure would make the instrument panel light up like a Christmas tree.
    via u/deleted
  • 09
    Font - A dealer wanted us to clean this fleet of Jaguars, so we did. All 9 of them. He checked the motors and one of them still had a little dirt on it and he got ped. He starts yelling at me so I explain, "Jere, the electronics are super sensitive, the slightest amount of high pressure could cause the instrument panel to light up. We have to hand wipe the motor with wet rags and cleaner, sometimes we miss a spot."
    via u/deleted
  • 10
    Font - He calls his porter over and tells him to bring that car around to the repair side and he'll clean it himself. He opens the hood, grabs a garden hose, and starts blasting the engine bay. "See! Clean." I say to him, "Absolutely." He goes and starts the car, looks down, shuts the car off, gets out, and apologizes.
    via u/deleted
  • 11
    Font - SimonProctor Optician.... Woman brings her sons in for exam. Both have EXTREMELY high minus Rx's. Mom is okay with with older son's Rx and glasses order, but is mad about younger son's Rx. She wants to order his glasses, but wants his Rx changed to be less than the Dr's prescription. I told her I can't do that, because I can't change the Dr's work. She's mad because she thinks the Rx is too high for him because... "His eyes are like my eyes and my Rx didn't change this much from my exam l
    via u/SimonProctor
  • 12
    Font - forkandbowl I had a lady ask me what makes me qualified to tell her she needs to go to the hospital... I'm a paramedic....it's literally what I get paid to do.
    via u/forkandbowl
  • 13
    Font - Bearsandgravy "Um, it's my car and I think I know more about getting insurance on it than you do."-Friend who just bought newer car who wanted liability only "Well this lady hit me and she said she'd just pay out of pocket for it. I called my dad and he said to just do it that way. No, I didn't get anything but her name and phone number."- More idiotic friend who called me after she hadn't been able to reach the other driver Licensed auto and property claims adjuster
    via u/Bearsandgravy
  • 14
    Font - N_DuX_M A company rep once told me he wanted to get 100% disk and cpu utilization on his server that was writing to a database. I tried to tell him that that is a bad thing and means that his data will take an infinite amount of time to perform operations on. He then told me that he didn't care... what a good time.
    via u/N_DuX_M
  • 15
    Font - Dan_the_moto_man. I'm a welder. One of the biggest hazards I face is UV damage to my eyes from the electric welding arc. That sis incredibly bright and just a glimpse of it can leave spots on your vision for hours (at best). I once had some random guy try and tell me that only the initial 'flash' is dangerous when you're welding, and that after you strike an ark you can just stare at it without any trouble at all.
    via u/Dan_the_moto_man
  • 16
    Font - Letmepickausername I am a hotel manager. People seem to think that we should prorate rooms based upon the time they checked in. It's not a prorated type of thing, it's did you use the room or not. If you use the room then the same amount of effort has to go into housekeeping and the labor cost is the same. It's not as if a guest can only be there for 2 hours and all we have to do with a minor touch-up. No, we still have to go through and clean everything and sanitize everything. We
    via u/Letmepickausername
  • 17
    Font - don't know what you used so we have to do it all regardless of how long a person is there. When I've had a couple of guests get angry because I don't prorate I tell him that renting a room is sort of like buying a bottle of beer. You can't go to the merchant and say that you only want one swig of b er so you shouldn't have to pay for the whole thing because once the bottle is opened it's a used product. Likewise, when a guest uses a hotel room it is now a used product.
    via u/Letmepickausername
  • 18
    Font - * A lady brought her husband in for elective surgery and he required general anesthesia. She comes in with an old dog eared book and asks to have a meeting with the surgery team. We humor her, and apparently she wanted specific anesthetic agents for her husband, since she did research on all of them. All the agents she wanted were essentially removed years ago due to harsh side effects or there were better medications. When I looked at her book it was published in 1965.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 19
    Font - BigPoppaJay I buy and sell junk for a living, everyday is a constant struggle with buyers who have been in this for years and know all the prices. You can't argue with market set prices on eBay but old men can argue that it sold for so much more in 1980.
    via u/BigPoppaJay
  • 20
    Font - o Celsius90 I work in IT. For some reason, a lot of employees like to blame the company's firewall for every IT-related problem. The Internet is slow ? It's the firewall I try to send an e-mail to a wrong address? F ing firewall I forgot my power adapter, low battery? That's because of the firewall ! I can't receive any calls on my phone! --> FIREWALL AGAIN
    via u/Celsius90
  • 21
    Font - CityParkRanger As a park ranger I regularly get lectured by the public about what is allowed and not allowed in parks. I even used to carry a copy of the municipal code to show people and even that would not stop them from arguing. Now I just have them sign the ticket and they argue less.
    via u/CityParkRanger
  • 22
    Human body - + [deleted] Archaeologist here. Two words: Ancient Aliens.
    via u/deleted
  • 23
    Font - Beegrene Game developer here. A lot of the son r/gaming or r/games is just hilariously wrong. Most recently was the guy who insisted that MMORPG servers are basically just fancy databases.
    via u/Beegrene
  • 24
    Font - spectralvixen I am an attorney. Family member was arguing with me over dinner about something stupid (whether or not someone could "lose their house" for their business selling a faulty product), and he decided to make his final stand on the distinction between "negligence" and "gross negligence." I asked him to explain the difference and he started bulls ing, and when I opened my mouth, he cut me off and said "IN MY OPINION." That was the point when I decided to ignore him and enjoy the
    via u/spectralvixen
  • 25
    Font - (FTR, this person argues the law with me all the time, and thinks that because he is old and white collar, he is as knowledgeable as a licensed attorney. He is also one of several family members who thinks the Professional Rules of Conduct are just suggestions and expects me to break them for him because "who would know?" Sorry, I am silly enough to think we should follow ethical rules even when there's little chance of getting in trouble. Call me crazy.)
    via u/spectralvixen
  • 26
    Font - JoanofArc5 I've done research in both the Arctic and the Antarctic. Someone told me that the polar bears hunt the penguins. I told him that they don't. He, angrily replied that "yes they do!" Polar bears only live in the north, and penguins only live in the south. So....
    via u/JoanofArc5
  • 27
    Font - [deleted] Linguistics PhD here. A grad student in the English department was telling me about how French is inherently superior to English for poetry (complete nonsense, for so many reasons). He specifically said that iambic pentameter sounded unnatural. I spoke to him in iambic pentameter for the rest of the conversation and he never noticed.
    via u/deleted
  • 28
    Font - DextersLittleHelper. After leaving a ring with our jewellery for over three months and, after countless calls from us asking her to kindly come and collect her jewellery, finally turning up and telling us, "This isn't my diamond. You swapped my diamond. My diamond was completely different to this."
    via u/DextersLittleHelper
  • 29
    Font - She then proceeded to throw the biggest tantrum I've ever seen, refusing to listen to reason, disregarding our store's 75 year reputation. Thankfully, we keep meticulous records, including the weight of the ring, any flaws in the customer's diamond, and diamond measurements. Eventually, she realised that it actually was her diamond. We got a sincere and heartfelt apology for all the hassle she put us and our other customers through... Just kidding. She left in a huff.
    via u/DextersLittleHelper
  • 30
    Font - Little_Motel I do video work. There's been a good number of people who have come up to me in the middle of a shoot saying how they can do what I do since they got a DSLR for Christmas last year. That's always fun.
    via u/Little_Motel
  • 31
    Font - choochy I'm an electrician and when I called about the warranty on my electric lawn mower, the girl asked what size extension cord I was using. I told her 50 foot, 12 gauge. She says, "Oooh yeah, the recommended size for 50 feet is 16 guage.", which is a much smaller wire and therefore not as good as mine for a 12 Amp motor. When I explained that my cord is more robust, she says, "Yes but a bigger wire can let in more electricity, burning up the motor." Um, no. It doesn't work like that.
    via u/choochy
  • 32
    Font - Thyri Working in software/database support I get told on a weekly, sometimes daily basis how our software works and what it is doing wrong by users. 99.9% of the time they are using it wrong or just don't understand. My favourite quote recently has to be 'I don't see why we should use the software as it was designed...we should use it how we want it to work and you fix all the problems it causes and make it work how we want it!' Sure, the other 3000+ customers have no issue but let's just
    via u/Thyri
  • 33
    Font - crt134 I'm a tax accountant. I get arguments all the time from clients who heard from their brother's uncle's sister that you can do this or that to avoid taxes. Sorry but no, that's not how it works and continually telling me they said that's how it works doesn't matter
    via u/ crt134
  • 34
    Font - dislikedwiseacre My wife and I are wedding photographers. She's been told that she should have turned off the shutter noise on her camera (a DSLR) out of respect during the ceremony. The woman said that if it was possible to do on her iPhone, we should be able to do it with our fancy expensive cameras too.
    via u/dislikedwiseacre
  • 35
    Font - I have had quite an opp experience... The guy who came to clear my house of bed bugs, used bug spray obviously. That s is without a doubt toxic. And he was wearing no protection whatsoever. No face mask, no hand gloves, nothing. I told him how dangerous it is to not wear safety gear, and he was like "yeah, my company has given me all that, but I don't like wearing it".
    via r/AskReddit
  • 36
    Font - + [deleted] As a dietitian I've had several people tell me eating fat is the reason we have an obesity crisis and not added sugar in our foods.
    via u/
  • 37
    Font - isawaufoonce I had a patient family member tell me "I'm taking her off of (insert psych med here) because she doesn't have any symptoms of schizophrenia any more." Yeah you dumba that's because she's on the medication. You can't just rip some body off of a medication like that you egotistical d bag. I told him that wasn't a good idea and he just shrugged me off. I may just be an EMT but I know that guy is f king stupid.
    via u/isawaufoonce
  • 38
    Font - [deleted] Okay, so this isn't really professional, but when I did computer repair work at a chain office supply store I had an upper class woman insisting that her virus was installed by the meteor shower the night before
    via u/deleted
  • 39
    Font - SoftandChewy IT person here. I once had an idiot insist to me that a computer "freezing up" was because there was too much cooling on the CPU.
    via u/SoftandChewy
  • 40
    Font - FeralCalhoun I manage construction projects, and I had a leasing agent brag to me about how he climbed up a rickety ladder to remove a light fixture on the side of a building, showing how he was leaning and how unsafe it was, then called the electricians pies for asking for a lift. I was just thinking "yeah, I'd fire you. They needed a lift."
    via u/ FeralCalhoun
  • 41
    Font - canaryherd I'm a specialist in cognitive bias and I've lost track of the non- scientists who have told me they know more about the Dunning- Kruger effect
    via u/canaryherd
  • 42
    Font - some peoplewait I studied to be a teacher, but decided to pursue another career path, partially because teaching is so time- consuming. So I've always found it ridiculous that people claim to know what a teacher's schedule consists of, when they've never graded a single paper in their life, written a single lesson plan that conforms to specific state standards, never been forced to learn new curriculum each year, never had a conference with a single parent, etc.
    via u/somepeoplewait

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