“Never Trust”: 25 Industry Insiders Share Red Flags

Professionals often receive a great deal of respect, as people tend to believe their credentials reflect deep expertise, extensive study, and intelligence. However, having qualifications doesn’t always guarantee true proficiency. In reality, some experts may fall short of the expectations their backgrounds suggest.

Redditors have recently shared the biggest red flags they use to gauge the trustworthiness of industry professionals. We’ve sifted through a thread inspired by u/ ShapingTormance to highlight some of the most insightful opinions on key warning signs—useful for quickly assessing a worker’s true level of expertise.

#1

Don’t trust a principal who was never a teacher. .

#2

Never trust a librarian who agrees to ban books.

#3

Don’t trust a minister of God that preaches hate.

#4

Don’t trust a religious person who is loud about being religious.

#5

Don’t trust an unvaccinated health care worker.

#6

Don’t trust the scientist who can’t say “I don’t know”. A good scientist knows they don’t know everything.

#7

Don’t trust any life coach/consultant who uses “we all have the same 24 hours in a day” as a comeback to the “I don’t have time” excuse.

I absolutely do not have the “same” 24 hours in a day as child free Oprah Winfrey, with her paid staff and zero daily commute.

#8

Don’t trust a man who bankrupts casinos with your economy.

#9

Don’t trust a pastor who wears expensive shoes and watches.

EDIT: of course I’m not saying “don’t trust all pastors because all pastors are awful!!!” The point in the original question is about YOUR OWN INDUSTRY.

Since I’m an actual pastor, I thought you might want to know how I determine whether or not someone who claims to be clergy puts me on guard or not – and wearing flashy clothes, watches, shoes, or who drives a luxury car (that’s obviously not an cold clunker that they’ve fixed up) – THOSE are reasons for me, a pastor, to be made wary of other people who claim to be a part of clergy.

For those of you who just don’t trust pastors of any kind because of the hurt you may have experienced at the hands of the unscrupulous or the awful representatives of the cloth – I deeply and sincerely apologize for that pain. I, too, wish that had never happened.

#10

Famous psychologists that are tv personalities are not famous because they are “the best”. “The best” exists in research and or the clinic.

#11

Don’t trust a wine sales rep that wears heavy cologne/perfume. It messes up your ability to taste samples in sales meetings.

#12

Don’t trust a writer who doesn’t read.

#13

My job seems to get new ones every day recently, not sure why… The most recent is Don’t trust a doctor who recommends women of childbearing age refrain from using Tylenol.

#14

Don’t trust a restaurant manager who’s never waited a table. This includes brewers who open and run brewpubs.

#15

Don’t trust a writer who doesn’t have a strong opinion about Oxford commas. Preferably, they should have the right opinion about them (they are good and everyone should use them) but even if they’re wrong you should still trust them to write better than someone who doesn’t care either way.

#16

As a perpetually single/never married divorce lawyer, I don’t love this question…

#17

Don’t trust a home care aide/special needs provider who claims to know what causes autism.

#18

Don’t trust a hiker who says they love nature but leaves trash behind.

#19

Never trust a therapist who hasn’t been to therapy… extensively..

#20

Always let the nurse give you the shot, never the doctor…

#21

Don’t trust an IT person who hasn’t caused an organization wide outage at least once, if more than 5, also don’t trust them.

#22

Don’t trust any “professional” artist who likes AI.

#23

Don’t trust a dentist who’s anti-fluoride.

#24

A teacher who isn’t interested in learning new things.

#25

Don’t trust a software engineer that thinks AI is good at programming.

Shanilou Perera

Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.