Self-Delusion

Experts are especially prone to claiming they know more than they do. Because it benefits them more for others' perception of their expertise to continue. Because being ignorant is socially undesirable, and may lead to all sorts of bad consequences. Because for many things in modern life faking it is sufficient to get through.

Believing the lie, though, is something else entirely. Because it can lead you to not paying more attention to the stakes of what you're trying to bullshit. A professional does his assigned job, and asks for help when he needs it. The product is the point, and compromising it because your personal stuff got in the way is inexcusable.

This is something I try to keep in mind, because the self-delusion has been mine. Hindsight has been painful, and I have had made many mistakes. In the field that I work in now, I have to focus on making sure that I communicate correct information or the project can get derailed.

For examples, take every episode of Kitchen Nightmares. At my work there's the guy in a supervisory position who brags that his job is to "plan things," but who had to do nine hours of overtime for a presentation the next day. And there's the woman who keeps arguing over the usage of "If I were..." and "If I was..." She keeps talking about present progressive tense and whatnot - but the correct grammar has to do with past/present tense indicative versus subjunctive; the way she was BSing makes me think she didn't look it up, even though we're all in the age where looking up the correct answer only takes minutes.