When have you been told you know nothing when you really do?

[Whenwillglorioussummercome]

There’s a topic on MN that comes up relatively often that used to be my job. It’s a subject of fairly big public interest. I have posted what I know to be factually true and frequently told how very wrong I am. Once someone quoted something I’d actually written back at me to prove me wrong!

Has this happened to you, either on MN or online elsewhere?

Not on MN but a regular occurrence when married. Lots of mansplaining.

I work in a mental health field which isn’t the NHS but works closely with NHS teams. You get patronised a lot because people assume you don’t know what you’re doing.

Someone tried to explain to me how to work with people with a particular health condition. I ran a regional training programme related to this condition and delivered it to senior staff in their trust. I also was on the organising committee for an annual national conference relating to best practice for that condition. I wrote guidelines for working with this condition; which this person was misinterpreting when he was telling me what to do.

I have some less common chronic health conditions. It happens every time I see a GP. They don't believe me about what is happening in my body.

I went to a presentation given by a colleague. He liked to do an informative slot each week on things that were happening in our industry. One week he chose an accident investigation into a crash that had occurred. He had misread and misinterpreted several aspects of the report. I didn’t challenge him in front of the team, but had a quiet word afterwards. He curtly told me that he had read the full report, and I didn’t know what I was talking about.

I asked him to check the name of the author…

After many years in healthcare (including professional qualifications to degree level) I had a change of direction for a number of reasons and went to work for a care agency. After about 4 weeks there I was given a lecture by another care worker about how to do the job and that ‘when you’ve got the experience in care work that I have, you’ll understand a bit more” -
said by someone who had worked for the company for less than 6 weeks more than me
and had come to the job after being made redundant from a corporate role and had no background in care!!

I'm an author, reasonably successful in my genre, awards, decent sales, all that. I was on Facebook moaning (as we all tend to do) that I'd reached a sticking point in my manuscript and was struggling a bit with the story. Someone (why, yes, it was a man, now you come to mention it) waded in with a whole spiel about how to structure a story, how I should be plotting, the best way to work a character arc, etc etc. I just said thank you, and then, after a somewhat awkward silence, another author came in and just said 'I think you ought to google who you're giving advice to, mate.'

The man giving advice was, fairly obviously, an unpublished author himself. I know his 'advice' was coming from a good place, but - honestly, know your audience!

My DH had one this week when he was in a meeting with various uppity people. He'd moved from frontline to IT within a company and was giving advice to said uppity people on how to approach something. One tried to shoot him down saying well you wouldn't know... Until someone pointed out DH had actually worked in the dept before and had first hand experience. This getting the job he was now doing in the first place.

I experience this a fair. I am a SENCO and find that other professional (speech and language, educational psychology etc) tend to assume you know nothing and have nothing of value to offer to the conversation. They act as if they are coming in to fix everything for you. It is very odd how the knowledge and experience of teachers is seen as lesser than other the other related professions.

There was an infamous thread on here about Canada, a poster was coming out with loads of misinformed statements and another poster kept saying that they weren't strictly true. First poster said "you obviously have no idea". Second poster ..."I am Canadian"

Get a cup of tea ☕️ and settle in for a read

to think its irresponsible for my OH to leave our 2 yr old downstairs on his own? http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/1015826-to-think-its-irresponsible-for-my-OH-to-leave-our

Anything and everything I say if my SiL is present.

Recently, we had some building work done and the builder remarked that it was no wonder the back of our house was cold, as there is no cavity insulation. He showed me some of the holes in the brickwork, we looked inside and I had a feel with my hand.

Relating this, she said, with a contemptuous sneer, "Rubbish! Your house is too old, it has solid walls."

There was some more in this vein and I snapped at her. She posted her igorant, ill informed diatribe on the family what's app. I replied, "You're talking crap."

She made some fake outrage up and pretended I'd made her cry.

She messaged me privately and said, "How dare you take that tone with me!"

Excellent!!!!

Hi 5 @CrashTestDummy44

Along similar lines...

Last year I was way for the weekend with some friends in a coastal town in the NE of England. There were also some people there who I didn't know, I was starving in the sea next to one of these blokes, who started to tell me about how every 7th wave was meant to be bigger than the others, but he'd been counting and it was nearer 4, and look at how they broke round the headland. He had a very patronising tone. I said that I'd written a couple of papers on wave morphology in the North Sea for JONSWAP. He said "JONSWAP?", I replied "yes, the Joint North Sea Wave Analysis Project between the Dutch, uk and German governments. The papers are referenced in my PhD thesis.". He shut up then.

Obviously I was "standing " in the sea.

I moved to a new area as part of a work assignment and my partner kept telling me “you know nothing” when I do know some things.