The death of expertise

YOU'RE NO SAL.

Sal

The man walked into the diner. It was quiet and warm. Not many customers, only two tables full and one young couple at the counter. That's where he saw Sal.   Sal was right out of central casting, with her big hair, overdone make-up, and a pencil behind her ear.  She was taking the couple's order or, rather, tolerating them while the woman asked her endless list of questions: 

"Do you do substitutions? What kind of cooking oil do you use? Can you put the dressing on the side?"

Sal had a small smile on her face. "Sure, hon," she said, repressing an urge to say "You know this is a diner and not the Four Seasons, right?" But instead, she patiently answered each question while looking around the diner, noting who was finishing their main course and if the cook was still on the phone with his pain-in-the-butt girlfriend.   

Finally, the young woman stopped talking and looked imploringly at Sal, whose pencil still sat unmoving in her hair. There was a moment's pause, until Sal asked, "That It?" 

The girl nodded. "Yes, I guess so." 

I could tell she was worried. I could tell that she didn't know who she was dealing with-- that Sal always got her orders perfect, dressing on the side and all.   

Sally  

The man walked into a Starbucks, annoyed that it had taken him so long to find one. "Thought there was one on every damn block," he muttered to himself. He got to the counter and saw Sally.   

Sally was young and had one of those perfect smiles. Resting her hands on top of the register, she exuded pride and confidence. "Can I help you?" she chirped.   

"Yes, please," he said. I'll have a grande latte with mocha and non-fat milk."

Sally continued to smile at him. She then asked, "That's a latte?" 

"Yes."

She then began to type.  "Caramel?"

"No, mocha."

"What size?"

"Grande."

"Will that be all?"

"Did you get the non-fat milk?"

"Oh, you want non-fat milk?"

"For god's sake! Did you hear anything I said?  Why didn't you enter it while I was giving it to you?"

So, what's the lesson of this tale?   The problem is that Sally, as young and bright as she may be, is no Sal. She merely believes she is. She doesn't understand that Sal has been working at that diner for years and has taken every type of order from every type of customer. Sal doesn't need to write things down because she knows the menu by heart and what the cook will and won't do, and she is so completely competent at her job that she can get people's orders right while also keeping her eye on her other customers.

Sally, on the other hand, assumes that by acting like a pro, she is one. She suffers from a classic case of magical thinking, which in her mind grants her the status of expert without having done what it takes to become one. She expects to automatically achieve mastery and deserve respect, no doubt because she was told as a child that she was special and that she could be whatever she wanted to be.   

We now live in a world predominated by Sallys, due in large part to our culture of unearned status, in which everyone is equally capable and qualified to do and opine about everything. We are on our third generation of post-World War II exceptionalism, which tells us that we are the best and brightest in the world.   The days when one needed to undertake a process of exploration in order to learn and develop are long gone. We are inundated with the noise on televisions and radios from an unending parade of speakers with a superficial, if any, understanding of issues going on about the economy, terrorism and what they think is in the constitution.  This babble from charismatic and uninformed, even blatantly dishonest, entertainers blurs the line between off-handed opinions and serious discourse in a society which confuses, as in Sally's case, potential with expertise.   

So on goes our intrepid customer, from restaurant to store to office to telephone customer service agent to technical support chatroom, like Diogenes seeking an honest man, praying that maybe today he'll get lucky: maybe he'll find someone who actually can provide him with the answers or services he needs and who might even get his order right, just like good old Sal.