My problem in everyday work is so often I have to deal with so-called software engineers who fancy themselves quite the scientific thinkers but whose irrationality borders on delusional. In fact a lot of them believe "I'm very smart, so I am therefore the most rational" which is obviously not true at all. In fact this will probably make a lot of so-called software engineers angry but I tend to think of the non-technical folk as the rational ones and much easier to deal with as a result. Purely anecdotal though.
I appreciate the humor, but I'm not. There are bitter disagreements based on different interpretations of the facts, and there are bitter disagreements based on a complete disregard for the facts, a refusal to verify assumptions, a persistent use of arrogance as a substitute for competence, blaming the tools for failures of the person using them, and more. In fact there is nothing so maddening as dealing with a delusional person and being told, "I don't know why you're always getting in arguments with them!" as if it's just one of those "personality conflicts" - I would describe it as practically a personality disorder conflict.
I have observed that behavior in many other professions where the participants view themselves as very smart. Physicians and lawyers are at the top of that list.
I was chatting with a couple of software engineers, one of whom had just come from working at a research hospital on a project involving some imaging devices. The other engineer asked him if the physicians were tough to deal with, and he responded that no, not especially. But the physicists! Oh, the doctors hated the physicists for thinking they knew everything!
Indeed. Academicians are some of the worst offenders in my experience.
Also, you know how software engineers like to think that they're rocket scientists? Well, it brings me no pleasure to report that rocket scientists think they're software engineers.
