My work apparently. Other people got promoted for solving problems quickly. I didn’t have problems. At least, I did, but I solved them without help or advertising them enough probably.
Network Administration.
If the network and servers all work: What are we paying you for?
If the network or one of the servers are down: What are we paying you for?
infrastructure in general - even beyond IT. No one sits at home thinking: The sewer system is great! How reliably my shit vanishes from my toilet! Until it doesn’t.
A goalkeeper in soccer or similar. It’s a thankless job, you save 10 shots, nobody notices. But you miss one and you’ll be called a bum by your own fans. As opposed to a forward striker, who might miss 10 shots, nobody notices. But you make one and you’ll be a hero being paraded on shoulders.
Bass in music. If the bass play right, you don’t hear it, but if they miss or play wrong there is immediately something missing
It took me a while to respect bass guitars but they definitely provide that musical umami
Pretty much all safety regulations
Every safety rule is written in blood but due to no one getting hurt (because of said rules) people begin to think the rules aren’t necessary.
It’s the same concept with preventative measures like vaccines. Vaccines worked to the point we had an entire generation grow up in a world without the most common forms of debilitating diseases and as a result we now have anti-vaxxers everywhere.
It’s even prevalent in things like the hole in the ozone layer. When it was first discovered EVERYONE was panicking about it. But then we fixed it to the point some people think it was never really a problem at all.
Sound quality.
I worked in life theater for almost a decade as a sound board op and audio engineer for a few local theaters.
People would always comment to the lighting board op how good the lights were.
But maybe one person in a whole run of a show would compliment the sound.
Boy oh boy, if a cable died mid show… The whole intermission and afterwards I’d have to hear “I do sound at my church and,” or some variation of “I’m just a hobbyist but,”.
You think I wouldn’t pull that cable and replace it if I could???
Yup, came to say the same thing. People only notice good lights and bad audio.
The whole intermission and afterwards I’d have to hear “I do sound at my church and,” or some variation of “I’m just a hobbyist but,”.
How many audio board ops does it take to change a lightbulb? One to do it, and ten more to comment that they could’ve done it better.


