ProSoundWeb: I’ve found that when you introduce yourself as an audio engineer, people expect you to know things. The word “engineer” seems to impress them. Their eyebrows raise, and they immediately assume you’re good at math. (I’m passable.)
Even if you use the less impressive and more user-friendly title of “sound person,” the standard response – one so common it’s become a running joke amongst sound people – still indicates the expectation of knowledge: “So you know what all those knobs do?” (No, I only adjust the red ones.)
2 comments:
Throughout high school and into college I've had this same kind of brain in which to really understand something I need to know why I do something a certain way or why something works the way it does. It's very clearly annoyed my teachers before, and it annoys me too when I have a mental block about something I know how to do. It's one of those instances when I push myself too hard and end up exhausted when it could have easily been avoided. Trying to understand something beyond what is necessary, working hours that are far too long, and putting too much on my plate work-wise are all bad habits that I am trying to learn. I need to convince myself that taking more time for myself will likely improve the work that I put out, and won't make me seem like an underachiever. Asking questions is important most of the time, but for small tasks it isn't always necessary.
I can always tell when I'm at the end of my metaphorical rope, because I stop being curious then. My brain treats it as a luxury, and the 'why?' instinct that I am often so proud of is one of the first capacities to go when I am under stress, crabby, or just tired. Admitting that you don't know something is hard to do, especially when you have a title that makes people assume that you're going to be the expert in the field. It's easier in the moment to come up with some BS answer or to talk around what you think the solution is, but most of the time it's more efficient to come clean and then immediately start working towards finding the right answer or the solution to the problem. Audio is one of those fields where the bleeding edge is always able to be pushed further, and there's no reason to stop asking questions just because you have a working knowledge for where you are now.
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