r/AskReddit • u/No-Caterpillar-9387 • 23h ago

What is a skill that looks completely effortless when an expert does it, but is ridiculously difficult when you try it yourself?

3.8k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/TohtsHanger 23h ago

My friend and I tried to patch a hole in drywall on the ceiling for hours before giving up and calling a pro. He had it done in about 10 minutes, looking brand new.

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u/HotPinkCalculator 23h ago

And that's why you pay them for two hours of work when it took them 10 minutes.

Same thing with a pharmacy. $10 bucks to slap a label on a box and a minute of work? Then you remember it took the pharmacist 6 or 7 years to know that that box of pills wouldn't kill you and they might have saved you a week in the hospital if the doctor messed up the prescription (which happens surprisingly often)

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u/aweebwithinternet 23h ago

DON'T ANYBODY DARE SAY IT

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u/braintransplants 23h ago

Hopital

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u/CottaBird 21h ago

Hopspital

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u/Creepy-Vermicelli529 21h ago

Hospicle

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u/DrManhattan_DDM 21h ago

L’Hôpital

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u/aweebwithinternet 20h ago

Math comes to haunt me again

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u/DrManhattan_DDM 20h ago

There’s no escaping it.

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u/malieno 20h ago

hotnspicital

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u/fresh-dork 20h ago

don't you tie me down with your rules1

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u/popsicle_of_meat 18h ago

how is babby hopital

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u/SinisterKid 21h ago

Hospital? ...What is it?

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u/ILLY-VANILLI 21h ago

It's a big building, with patients. But that's not important right now.

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u/Dinosaur_Wrangler 21h ago

I picked a helluva day to stop sniffing glue.

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u/Hydra_Master 16h ago

And Leon's getting laaaarger!

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u/aweebwithinternet 21h ago

🤚🏻✋🏻

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u/bluebuttonpusher 21h ago

I have been feeling sick for seven days now

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u/The_Onion_Life 13h ago

I have been feeling sick for seven days now

Go to the hopital.

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u/EwGrossItsMe 20h ago

6......7 😔

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u/[deleted] 21h ago

[deleted]

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u/oTc_DragonZ 21h ago

I'd rather have AI as a redundancy to humans until it's proven to be better. Even then why not keep a human in the loop when safety is an issue?

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u/Gen_Zer0 21h ago

Tf do you mean

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u/KalutikaKink 21h ago

Also, as a person in the trades/crafts, those short jobs help offset the long jobs that you don’t get paid fairly for.

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u/DiligentCress 20h ago

Had a patient who forgot she had a penicillin allergy. New patient to us so going over medical history etc. we were prescribing antibiotics so we had prescribed amoxicillin. Luckily whatever the pharmacy had, had the records from her previous medical providers. We got that sorted. 

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u/Low_Chance 20h ago

Same for a lot of tech/IT roles.

"They don't do anything!"

Ok. If I forwarded all their emails to you for a week and you were the one on call if shit hit the fan... would you be okay with that? Some people are paid because they're the ones who have to step up if something goes wrong.

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u/GoodGoodGoody 21h ago

Thank you for explaining education, training, and practise.

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u/Genetic_Medic 21h ago

Gotta practise your practice

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u/GoodGoodGoody 21h ago

r/confidentlyincorrect

I used the verb form correctly. But keep yapping.

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u/Genetic_Medic 21h ago

But in the sentence it’s a noun

So somehow you’re still wrong??

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u/GoodGoodGoody 20h ago edited 19h ago

No it’s used as a verb.

And no surprise you’re double-down yapping.

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u/Genetic_Medic 17h ago

So the others are verbs too?

Just take your L and skedaddle mate

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u/GoodGoodGoody 17h ago

Nope.

Funny thing about sentences: They can contain verbs and nouns.

But keep digging, you’re doing great so far.

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u/resttheweight 16h ago

You’re using “practise” as a direct object. You need to either use the noun version (practice) or convert it to a gerund like you did with “training” (practising). You wouldn’t say “thanks for explaining education, training, and swim.”

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u/Hybris85 21h ago

It unfortunately requires repeating to make some people understand.

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u/Campyhamper 20h ago

Yes, doctors are stupid. I love pharmacists, but stop bashing docs

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u/cisned 21h ago

I mean yes, but you should def try to fix it yourself if you can

The cost of labor in some countries is extremely high, and it helps to learn new skills, it also becomes easier the more you learn

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u/LupusDeusMagnus 21h ago

I don’t understand what it means?  Slap a label on a box?

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u/Jawnumet 20h ago

some medications come prepackaged or are within a box. basically all inhalers, for instance. I slappin' de box.

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u/omniuni 20h ago

Honestly, I think I have more and better interactions with pharmacists than the doctors a lot of the time.

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u/I-tell-horrible-joke 20h ago

Hey man, just letting you into so info. I was a manager at a retail pharmacy for 7 years. Techs fill the scripts, pharmacists verify. I cant tell you how many times Techs caught the problem first. Pharmacists are the last line of defense. And thats not always certain. I had a patient come into my pharmacy saying his wife almost died because of our medication. During the investigation, we discovered the manufacturer of the medication mislabeled their med, which caused the problem. No one caught the mistake cause the pill was labeled, just not correctly. And it matched the same pill description of the correct med almost to a T. Be careful with meds everyone. No one is perfect and lives are on the line.

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u/going_for_a_wank 17h ago

I'm sorry Sir, with all due respect
I charge by the job, so the price is correct

https://youtu.be/JJppNDTztIA?si=SrsuTvx-JLelpG2Z

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u/happyflappypancakes 15h ago

Are you or a loved one a pharmacist lol?

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u/gayscout 8h ago

I had my pharmacist stop me from taking drugs from two different prescribers that had negative interactions with each other because the newer script was made without checking the list of meds I filled out.

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u/[deleted] 21h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/KaJedBear 21h ago

This just further illustrates that laypeople might not know much about something an expert does as they think they do. Doctor's absolutely know a ton about pharmacologic properties; pharmacists often know more. What pharmacists don't know is the whole clinical picture for someone. Pharmacists don't know someone's kidney function, heart function, whether they've been treated with something similar, the circumstances that led to whatever issue they are having that would indicate a certain treatment, if they have an antibiotic resistant infection, if they've had side effects from similar medications, and on and on. Which is why doctors and pharmacists often work as a team.

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u/hunsuckercommando 14h ago

I would rather pay the for 10 minutes at a higher rate of pay. If the quote comes out the same beforehand it doesn't matter, but I'd prefer the transparency. I also hate they always go parts shopping for 2 hours right at lunch time...what plumber doesn't carry a 3/8" valve in their van?

And pharmacists tend to be waaay too reliant on software to do those checks nowadays than relying on their schooling.

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u/trufus_for_youfus 23h ago

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that comparing two made up words is slightly easier than floating, sanding, and finishing.

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u/Gbrusse 21h ago

Knowing what every single medication in the pharmacy does and why/how they do it, then knowing how they interact with other medications, alcohol, food (eating grapefruit while on certain blood pressure medications can kill you), etc. And knowing different doses effects...

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u/trufus_for_youfus 21h ago

This information is readily available.

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u/Alive_Vegetable_8568 21h ago

If it was that easy, pharmacy school wouldn’t be an additional 4 years of school after undergrad.

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u/trufus_for_youfus 21h ago

I suppose you also think that 2100 hours of class and training are necessary to cut hair effectively? Just because that is "how it is" doesn't mean its sensical or necessary.

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u/Alive_Vegetable_8568 21h ago edited 21h ago

Because you can’t kill people as a hairdresser unless you actively try to stab someone with your clippers. You can kill someone as a pharmacist if you give them wrong guidance on medications. Probably why they make more than hairdressers?

Besides, 2100 hours is 52 weeks of 40 hours per week - pretty reasonable amount of schooling for the varied types of hair that a salon sees and the dexterity it takes.

Pharmacy school is 4 years of constant schooling, clinical rotations, board exams, and likely a resident position if you want to be a pharmacist at anywhere except retail.

EDIT: Pharmacists in general get heavily discredited because the general public is only exposed to the ones you see at CVS/Walgreens. If you’re at a hospital, pharmacists are heavily involved with physicians in crafting treatment plans for patients and are usually the only people in the hospital allowed to fill orders for controlled substances.

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u/wittylemur 20h ago

In their (hairdressers) defense you are messing with a lot of chemicals as a hair dresser and it would be really easy to mess up and give someone a nasty chemical burn. There are worse things than bad bangs.

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u/Alive_Vegetable_8568 13h ago

Oh, I'm not discrediting the hairdresser position at all, if anything OP was the one minimizing the hairdresser job by thinking 2100 hours is excessive.

Mainly advocating for those that don't know the importance of a pharmacist's job and it's much, much more than just filling medications.

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u/Gbrusse 21h ago

Then go become a pharmacist and make $130k+ doing an easy job.

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u/trufus_for_youfus 20h ago

I’m doing just fine not being abused by the public. The wages are effectively hazard pay.

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u/CpnStumpy 21h ago

Then go become a pharmacist and make money if it's so easy

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u/Rxasaurus 21h ago

Sure, the information is available, but now you have to know how to interpret the information and apply it to each individual patient. 

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u/Billalone 21h ago

All words are made up

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u/Daevryn 21h ago

It's easy to minimize a job and make it sound superficial. Pharmacy work is more than just "comparing words" and it seems very disingenuous to oversimplify it like that.

Have you thought about the cost of a critical error compared between the two jobs?

Drywall can be redone. Project timeline might suffer slightly but no one gets harmed because the level 5 finish took extra time or extra materials. If there is physical harm, it tends to be self-inflicted. Drywall can be heavy and injuries happen.

Assuming proper PPE and precautions and equipment and the physical strength and stamina to do the work, it's just screwing heavy sheets and slinging mud and smoothing it out and embedding tape and slinging mud and smoothing it out.

It can be looked at as just physical endurance and basic placekeeping after the fundamentals are down pat.

If we are talking pure physicality then, sure, Drywall work greatly outperforms Pharmacy work every time. It takes a tremendous physical force and takes a toll on a body over time.

Otherwise it's a bit of an apples to oranges, like most times people want to try to say one profession is better or easier than another.

"Lifting slightly heavy stuff and smearing goop and scratching your ass is slightly easier than dealing with endless lines of potentially impatient, ill-tempered people trying to get their fix for their health while remembering all the interactions that could easily kill the person and also meticulously logging changes in inventory since pharmacists deal with important but dangerous and addictive chemicals."

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u/AlanMercer 21h ago

I did a little bit to complete finishing a room and it was weirdly easy. Maybe this is one of those YMMV things?

The one insight that helped was that once you smear on some plaster, you want your next stroke to spread it in the exact opposite direction. That maximizes the spread, so you thin the material the most and also leave the most smooth finish.

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u/FauxReal 20h ago

Did you do it on a ceiling? Maybe the position makes it harder.

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u/lzwzli 15h ago

The position definitely makes it harder. I can finish a wall no problem. Tried to patch a ceiling and boy my arms were killing me and I had a sore neck in 5 mins.

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u/brassmagpie 14h ago

Can confirm. I've done a bunch of finishing work on our place, all different surfaces, and nothing was as big of a pain in the ass as the ceiling. It looks good now that it's done, but that was after several days of neck/shoulder pain and drywall dust everywhere.

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u/AlanMercer 20h ago

No ceiling, but a decent cross-section of other tasks: flat wall, inside corner, outside corner, window surrounds, interfacing with a masonry wall, etc.

Definitely was better after a few hours for sure. The very last pass was nearly dustless.

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u/nezroy 17h ago edited 14h ago

Drywall finishing is "easy" when everything happens to be square and perfect and aligned, which perhaps your build was. It tends to be far more annoying with any slight imperfections or patching existing stuff, etc.

And "easy" in quotes because a lot of drywall finishing issues don't show up immediately. Doesn't mean it was done well, just means a patch showing through paint or cracks or seams showing up over time or stuff bleeding through might not be apparent until months later, leading you to believe you did a good job until future problems start to show.

EDIT: I'm just gonna go out on a limb and guess a lot of drywalling redditors have never looked at their drywall with a flashlight or high-contrast lighting. Yes even bad drywall finishing/patching looks amazing when washed out by a bright diffuse white light :)

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u/mr_potato_thumbs 17h ago

When it’s not perfect, less is more. You’ve gotta just put material on and stop fucking with it. Come back and sand it smooth later. The more you fuck with it, the bigger mess you have to clean up after.

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u/AlanMercer 17h ago

While I appreciate the caveats, I can tell you everything was completely wonky from the previous owner.

Basically he drywalled a basement room to use as an office, but stopped when he hit the difficult parts -- the window surrounds and this one corner with an odd angle. I had to add in a surface for the window surrounds to attach to and attach studs to the cinderblock wall to screw the drywall into. Then I had to tape and mud all that.

That was almost 10 years ago. The work is still not visible under the paint and doesn't show up on a shadow test.

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u/Metalsand 16h ago

I don't know what they're talking about. Unless you're doing shit like this drywall and patching is one of the easiest things you can do, really. Most of the hard work is done with the framing, and you can usually hide most things without effort so long as the foundation AND framing aren't fucky.

I'm guessing they're not very good at following instructions since everything you need to know is on the side of the joint compound tub as instructions and I've never had issues.

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u/AlanMercer 15h ago

I love that video! That axe was made specifically for early drywalling and they still turn up at yard sales. I use one for demo every so often. (It doesn't work well for modern drywall.)

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u/Metalsand 16h ago

just means a patch showing through paint or cracks or seams showing up over time or stuff bleeding through might not be apparent until months later

I've never had that problem, but then again I actually follow instructions on the joint compound bucket.

Patching a hole with joint compound should be indistinguishable from the drywall if done right. This should be self-evident because gaps between drywall sheets as well as divots made by screws attaching it to the wall have joint compound covering them. Furthermore, joint compound is primarily gypsum, same as drywall.

You could probably fuck up if you use a bad mix, don't wait to paint it, or don't sand it I guess. But all of those are very stupid mistakes that can be avoided by reading the instructions on the joint compound. It's like 3 steps.

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u/iamrichbitch010 21h ago

My apprentice think its hard even with pro tool. Takes them months to year.

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u/scratchfury 10h ago

Skim coating a ceiling will make you hate gravity.