Too smart for their own good

[werk]

How many people out there know people that are too smart for their own good?
Not necessarily saying it is a bad thing, just something that tends to get in the way and cost a lot more time and effort in most things they do...usually in an effort to same time or effort. "I've got a better way to do it."

I have a friend here at work that fits this description nicely. One of his most recent 'projects' was to upgrade his car to have an MP3 player/library and GPS system in it. But he can't go buy a new deck with the feature he wants, he needs to build it! A couple of months later, it turns out that he has spent twice as much as he would have buying out of the box, and it is still buggy and takes a lot of TLC to work properly. Now he's a little frustrated and is weighing options of spending more to fix the problem, or just scrapping the whole works.

Does this sound familiar?

 

[Infiniti2000]

Sounds familiar, but I wouldn't call that "too smart." It wasn't very smart to spend twice as much and take 2 months vs. 1 day, was it? I usually see it where people always want to write their own source code library because "no one else did it 'right'". Same thing with RPG houserules. They end up either making it worse or at best just wasting a lot of time because they didn't make it any better.

As to the actual phrase "too smart for their own good" I have a friend who is like that. It ends up that his personality clashes with many others because he understands point so much more quickly and gets frustrated having to explain things a lot more slowly than he would like. I get along with him because I can follow along just as quickly, but I also know how to communicate with others a lot better.

 

[Mycanid]

Yes - I have a friend who now lives in the country of Georgia (see the sig) who exACTly fits the description. Maddening sometimes ... although I can understand where he is coming from often. The problem is that he NEVER has time to do these sorts of thing. I often have thought that it is an aesthetic. SOme folks like to take such an approach on things because they themselves enjoy doing it that way ... even if its not practical or they know (somewhere in there) that there really just ain't the time to do such a thing....

My friend is a computer fiend who loves linux, old systems and hardware, and getting the most out of things without spending money. He loves, for example, to "write his own drivers" in Linux (which is fine) and recommends the same approach to others (which is just plain impractical for me).

 

[genshou]

As to the actual phrase "too smart for their own good" I have a friend who is like that. It ends up that his personality clashes with many others because he understands point so much more quickly and gets frustrated having to explain things a lot more slowly than he would like. I get along with him because I can follow along just as quickly, but I also know how to communicate with others a lot better.

You just described my life perfectly...

 

[Meloncov]

Sounds familiar, but I wouldn't call that "too smart." .

It's the whole wisdom vs. intelegence thing.

 

[werk]

It's the whole wisdom vs. intelegence thing.

That's pretty much it right? High Int, low Wis.

Another example of this, from my buddy downstairs, was that he wanted to make a CD/DVD duplication station. He wanted to record (techno) shows, then burn copies so DJs could hand out demos before they even left the club. That's nice and all, but my question was, how are you going to pay for the equipment and blank media? He said it would be a free service for a while, then he'd charge a by-the-disk fee, like $30 per show. See the trouble coming?

So he bought some special tower with like 12 external 5.25 bays, and started putting it together. Gotta have the fastest burners, gotta have the fastest drive controllers, tons of memory, etc, etc. He got hung up on power supplies, and eventually used two PS that he had to modify (of course). He gets it all together and it works great, 10 copies at a time, bang.

He goes to a show, and records it all night off the board (we do this all the time, but I usually record to VCR then capture and rip it at home). 6 hours later, the show is over, and he starts burning copies. At 2am, with bar staff yelling, is not the best time to hand out demos... I think he gave away maybe 20 CDs to people who weren't terribly excited to get them. Rinse and repeat about 15 times, and my buddy starts telling people that they need to pay him for his service, and no one is interested. He's out all the cost of hardware, time (lots of time), and hundreds of blank CDs. Now he's wondering why he made the thing.

On the plus side, I may be able to get nice burners cheap!

 

[Arnwyn]

Does this sound familiar?

Considering the examples in this thread - not even remotely.

 

[IamTheTest]

Funny enough, Ive never thought of myself that way but yesterday a friend of mine described me that way to a gaggle of ladies. It was good that they laughed.

 

[ceratitis]

i'd say i'm too smart for my own good. then again so are most of my friends so we get along just fine. we're the biggest collection of geeks since the last MIT reunion
Z

 

[werk]

i'd say i'm too smart for my own good. then again so are most of my friends so we get along just fine. we're the biggest collection of geeks since the last MIT reunion
Z

Then you should appreciate this

http://f9.putfile.com/videos/24412412355.mp3