[raducu]

> well, they absolutely know what they are doing

My grandfather had neighbours whom he routinely looked down upon because of their alcohol problem.

Very late in the life of one of their children I talked with him and found out he was a really smart guy, knew a lot of IT stuff, 3D design an all, but he simply lucked out in late 90's Romania, used a lot of alcohol and could not pull himself out of it. He died because he was drunk and after loading a wagon of wood for my grandma he struck his head on the pavement. My father insisted he went to the hospital because he has not feeling well but the guy refused. He died a couple of days later because of brain hemorrhage, in his early 50s.

Another guy in the village, a really helpful fellow, you would never believe it by his appearance or demeanor, but he was a retired secret-service officer and used to brief the president.

A female child development therapist that made a bad impression on myself(she seemed fixated on puzzle solving) was later recommended by others as an expert in her field.

So yes, everybody can have a bad day and its really easy to misjudge someone by their appearance.

[dhosek]

I’m reminded of when I was in college in Model U.N., there was one guy in the group who presented very socially awkward (his posture made him look like a question mark in profile, he was kind of physically awkward, didn’t participate in the social activities of the club). My senior year, I was the secretary-general¹ of the club. We’d finally let him chair a committee at our annual conference that we held for Southern California high school students. I was walking from committee room to committee room during the conference checking on how things were going and when I looked in on his committee—well, he was totally rocking it. I realized we had squandered his talents for four years because of surface appearances.

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1. The pretentious way that Model U.N. clubs name what’s effectively the president.