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[RC] It could have been done better <> I could have done it better (was: some thoughts) - kathy swigartBruce Weary said:
> When someone complains about another's performance,
> insisting that it ought to be better, this implies,
> at least to me, that they think they have knowledge
> of just how that should be done, and that drives
> their dissatisfaction.
This is not necessarily so. People file medical malpractice suits against their doctors all the time, not because they think that they could do a better job at being a doctor than their doctor does, but because they think their doctor should have done a better job at being a doctor than their doctor did.
When your engage somebody to do something for you (for example a doctor or a mechanic) you do so under the assumption that they are competent to do so. And if they let themselves be engaged for this purpose, you are quite within your rights to make this assumption of competence. If they are then uable to perform the task competently, you are well within your rights to complain, no matter what your own competence in the matter at hand (in fact, probably the reason you engaged them to do it for you in the first place was that you recognized your own incompetence in the matter and wanted to engage the services of an expert).
You don't have to know how to do something well yourself to know when it isn't being done well by somebody else. For example, you don't have to know how to fix a car yourself in order to take your broken car to a mechanic, have him undertake to fix it for you, only to get back a car that is still broken. And it is perfectly reasonable to complain about it if you do...after all, you hired the mechanic to fix your car. I doubt it would go down well if the mechanic were then to tell you that you have no right to complain because, after all, you couldn't do a better job yourself.
When I take my car to a mechanic to fix it and he doesn't fix it, my dissatisfaction comes not from thinking that _I_ could have fixed it better, but rather from thinking that he should have been able to fix it better, after all HE'S the one who claimed to be a mechanic who could fix my car. _I_ shouldn't have to know how to fix the car, that's what I hired him for.
kat
Orange County, Calif.
:)
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