Alright kids it's time for some learnin'. Time for me to drop the knowledge bomb on your face. Let's play pretend. Let's pretend I'm a train driver, an engineer, in other words. My responsibility is to make sure the train, however large or small it is, no matter who or what it is carrying, stays on the tracks. Now let's continue this thought exercise and say I'm good at my job, like scary good. Like I'm the Tiger Woods of train driving without the awkward looks whenever the ex-wife drops off the kids for me to watch while I'm playing the back nine with some TGIFriday's waitresses... I'm a train idiot savant with more emphasis on the savant than idiot and definitely more on the train.
Now, no matter how good I am at keeping twenty tons of coal fired steel on the tracks between here and Portland, OR. No matter how many different engine configurations and specifics I know about trains. None of that knowledge will give me any special insight on anything else in the world. For instance, just because I'm great at being an engineer, that does not make me an expert on Indy Car Racing. Oh sure, these two vastly different things may have some superficially common factors, such as wheels...and...people being in them...but my train expertise does not translate into car driving expertise. In fact it would be ridiculous, downright ludicrous, if not outright PAINFULLY OBNOXIOUS if I started acting like I knew everything about Indy car racing to the point where I told other people how to drive and “win” at races. “Hey, Danica, I know you're supposed to be this really good driver and all, but you know you could go faster if you could blah blah blah blah.” That statement was so obnoxious, even in hypothetical, that I really couldn't finish it.
Are you with me so far? Good. That means you have that special something other people on this planet may lack. I like to call it common sense, being aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are, or, in other words, not being a Grade F Shipping Crate of Douche. Now, let's take it one step farther. Let's imagine that I'm not actually good at my job. I'm horrible at what I do, and yet I've become so far stuck in Delusionville that I've convinced myself I'm amazing at being a train engineer (which, incidentally, this train does stop at Delusionville, the place where no one has a drinking problem, everyone looks like an underwear model, and your political party is always right). I'm so bad and so deluded that I'm yelling at the other people in the train cars to get their job done right. I'm yelling at the diner car that their meat is undercooked. I'm yelling at the drink car that the drinks are too weak. Heck, I'm yelling at the caboose because it's not doing a good enough job of providing backup to the train. I'm so busy yelling and micromanaging these other cars that I fail to do my own job. You know, my job as a train driver... The one where I should have to maintain a safe speed, ensure the train is on the right track, make sure we're not going to fall off a cliff, etc. And when the train does go too fast, derails, and falls off the cliff, and kills a bunch of people whose fault is it? Oh no, it's not my fault as this hypothetically horrible, self-deluded train engineer, it's everyone else's fault for not doing my job. (FYI if the last sentence doesn't make sense to you, it's because...well look at the top of the paragraph)
Yes, sadly there are train engineers out there like this. Yes, they are dangerous and should be put down like rabid dogs. Unfortunately, in reality you can't do anything to deal with these horrible train engineers because people can't be killed for being stupid.
Want to know the worst part of all this is? People will still get on trains that this hypothetical, imaginary engineer is driving because they had to have learned from the last trainwreck. Right? Right....?
In closing. I'm getting a train whistle for my phone. Every time you hear it, another idiot has crashed a train...
