Bonafides - n - evidence of one's qualifications or achievements.
One minute you are explaining how a component works, next minutes someone is asking how you know. It's as if the degree or work history has no merit. You are then left having to continuously defending yourself and your expertise. Sound familiar?
For example, a friend of mine was troubleshooting a fire alarm control panel. The issues being frequent frying of circuit boards. As it turns out it was a rather large relay that was not suppressing the transients from the coil. A co-worker said he never heard of a relay that injected power back into the circuit. The co-worker said it was not possible, and could not believe my friends hypothesis. My friend would elegantly explain how the relay coil can actually cause a spike while discharging, the co-worker would be defeated, only to return with more questioning. My friend's bonafides were under scrutiny at all times.
I too have experienced quite a bit of the same issue. Often, my factual knowledge is tested by those who "feel" what ever the subject is can not be true. Explaining then turns into class sessions of the basics followed by the answer to the original contested fact.
Although explaining, teaching, you knowledge does nothing but sharpen your understanding, it can get annoying. Has this happened to you? Share some stories.
Cabe
