People who talk as if they know

[cjsmith]

I have a coworker who talks as if he is an authority -- full of confidence, very firm statements -- when he doesn't have any information or experience to back it up.

Random person: "Hey, where's a good dosa restaurant?"
Him: "Restaurant A is the best."
Me: "I like Restaurant B, too."
Him: "A is way better."
Me: "Have you ever been to Restaurant B?"

No, of course; he hadn't. I had to ask him twice before he admitted it, too. So he knows when he's doing this, and he doesn't like getting caught at it.

In another hallway conversation, just now, he spouted off about flying airplanes, a subject I have some minor experience with. Now that I know he doesn't like being confronted, I stopped myself short of asking outright if he had a pilot's license. (Obviously, I'm convinced he doesn't.) I did go ahead and mention what "my flight instructor" had "taught me" about the topic "when I was getting my license". He had the grace to stop making shit up for a few minutes.

How the heck do people deal with somebody like this? Dude, you're POLLUTING THE DATA STREAM. Shut UP. But maybe I'm oversensitive about people making things up and presenting them as truth. Maybe people are smarter than I think, and there isn't any increased tendency to believe a person just because he's confident and loud. (And maybe the Easter Bunny really is ten feet tall.)

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right that one very real effect is that I now mistrust what he says. Of course, it's not exactly "starting" any more. :-) But I could, if I chose to broach the subject, phrase it as if it were.

Isn't it weird when a whole office seems to get under the spell of one of these numbskulls? Is it really that much easier for a woman to see through the snow job, and if so, is it because we get them aimed at us relentlessly throughout life and thus we develop detection skills in self-defense? Sadly, this picture seems all too plausible. I weep for the state of humanity. How much more we could accomplish if we weren't spending energy on our collective boneheadedness!

I too have trouble deciding how to present my level of certainty. Usually, I err on the side of caution -- the "at least I'm not being dishonest" approach -- and I routinely get ignored. I'm grateful that my current workplace seems to be a bit less prone to ignoring me. I don't know WHY, except perhaps that we have a surprising number of women for a techie startup, but I'm grateful that it happens.

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

true, you are not "starting" to mistrust all he utters -- you're well into it. Anyway, I'm not sure that this is helpful to tell him anyway. But sometimes I've felt I *needed* to tell someone this -- like, um, to explain why I'm ignoring what they say...?

In the case of the guy I was citing, I think he treated others really differently -- there was some personality quirk in it somewhere -- like it was ATTRACTIVE to people to like him???? Or um, something??? He had some kind of energy-warp effect.

Maybe the problem with "how to present" is the whole thing just leads to being EVEN MORE detailed. Which, um, obviously, I already am (detailed) to a degree that can drive others batty. And then, if I take the "at least honest" approach, I'm not always doing justice to the ideas I'm presenting -- but to present them (without exaggeration, or generalizing) means mega-detail. Or else I'm missing some accurate-and-true-to-both-sides option that is also SHORT ??