Trust, reputation, and credibility carry a ton of weight in most professions. If you’re not dependable and don’t look like you have any integrity, you’ll have an awful time trying to get your job done. Especially if your work requires you to interact with other people throughout the day.

Industry insiders took to an enlightening AskReddit thread to share the biggest red flags that a ‘professional’ is untrustworthy. Scroll down to pick up some of the signs that you shouldn’t blindly trust just any ‘expert,’ no matter how wide their smile.

#1

Never trust a librarian who agrees to ban books.

Image credits: sotiredwontquit

#2

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

Image credits: CantBuyMyLove

#3

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.

Image credits: Wonderful-Power9161

It might sound surprisingly like common sense, but in order to do your job well, you need to know what the heck you’re doing. Then again, common sense isn’t all that common.

If you lack the experience, skills, and knowledge base needed to perform well, there’s no real reason for your clients to trust you. All you can do is put in the effort to upskill, improve, and grow as a professional.

Well, either that or pretend that you’re better than you are… until your customers eventually catch on to the lie. Then, your profits and career take a hit. The smarter (not to mention the more ethical and, in the long term, more sustainable) strategy is to strive to be good at what you do and build trust in a genuine way.

As Reader’s Digest points out, untrustworthy individuals often lack integrity. They’re often dishonest, prioritize their gain over honesty, and aren’t accountable.

What’s more, they are manipulative. For instance, they might apologize to you for their bad behavior, but they won’t change their behavior to match.

#4

Don’t trust an unvaccinated health care worker.

Image credits: InfernalWedgie

#5

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

Image credits: RomanoCheesed

#6

If he’s got an ipad and a white button down shirt, he’s not there to fix your equipment, he’s there to try to sell you new equipment.

Image credits: Abrandnewrapture

On top of that, untrustworthy individuals often don’t trust others, have a history of being unreliable and inconsistent, don’t care about rules, and lack empathy.

“They are like slot machines. They know exactly how much they can get away with, and just when you are about to walk away, they do something wonderful so you will stay,” etiquette expert Jodi R.R. Smith told Reader’s Digest.

Other signs of untrustworthiness include a person’s unwillingness to respect your boundaries, their tendency to dominate the conversation, trying to one-up you, hogging the spotlight, and blaming others instead of accepting responsibility for their actions.

“Trusting your instincts and previous experiences is an important tool for spotting red flags and choosing whom to spend time with. Life is hard enough on its own. It’s important to seek out trustworthy folks who you can consistently rely on for emotional and practical support, who can be honest with you and help reduce your stress,” psychologist Jeff Temple, PhD, explained to Reader’s Digest.

#7

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

Image credits: tmotytmoty

#8

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

Image credits: chrza

#9

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

Image credits: nekosaigai

We’d like to hear about your work-related experiences, dear Pandas. What industry do you work in? What are the biggest, brightest red flags within your field of expertise that someone isn’t trustworthy at all? On the flip side, what are some subtle or overt signs that a professional actually knows what they’re doing and talking about? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

#10

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.

Image credits: TheHarb81

#11

Don’t trust a parenting support professional whose adult kids don’t speak to them.

Image credits: Royal_Tonight4033

#12

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

Image credits: Fearless_Lab

#13

Don’t trust an education consultant or curriculum writer or admin that never had any classroom experience.

#14

Don’t trust a cowboy with clean shoes.

#15

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

#16

Don’t trust an HR person who seems to know A LOT about the company and the people in it. If YOU know that they know a lot, it’s bc they’re telling you stuff you shouldn’t be told. They aren’t discreet. And won’t be discreet when they know something about you.

#17

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

#18

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

Image credits: Affectionate-Bad4890

#19

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.

#20

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

#21

An IT person who doesn’t have a special interest in something.

#22

Don’t trust a dog groomer who breeds doodles.

#23

Never trust an esthetician who has no strong opinions about sunscreen in any way.

#24

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.

#25

Don’t trust anyone in education who stopped teaching before covid. Oh, you want to tell me what to do in this classroom when your last cohort of students was in 2018? No thank you, babe. You have no idea what we’re dealing with here in the trenches.

#26

Don’t trust a monolingual linguist.

#27

Don’t trust a wedding photographer who uses a camera with only one SD card slot.

#28

Don’t trust anyone in fashion whose pants and/or bra doesn’t fit. If they can’t handle the basics of fit they won’t make you or your clients look good. That’s my old job.

I work with intelligently disabled adults now. Don’t trust anyone who is overly enthusiastic to spend time alone with a client and emotionally involved in an inappropriate way. Also anyone who lacks empathy or has a short temper.

#29

Don’t trust a 22 year old management consultant.

Image credits: hx87

#30

A salesman who says his product does everything you’re asking it to do exactly as you are asking for it is lying.

Image credits: wastedpixls

#31

Don’t trust a physicist with a neat haircut and a suit .

#32

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

#33

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

#34

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

#35

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

#36

From a client perspective; don’t trust a tattooer with no tattoos.

From a tattooer/employee perspective; don’t trust a shop owner who doesn’t tattoo.

#37

Don’t trust the stylist in the salon that has the best hair.
(Another stylist did it.).

#38

Don’t trust hospital administrator who never worked clinically.

#39

Never trust a cook that holds their knife with their pointer finger out.

#40

Don’t trust a dispatcher that didn’t drive truck for a few years himself.

#41

Professional grade gear is never advertised as “pro”.

#42

In the funeral industry it’s don’t hire the goths. There are times when you’re left with little choice and there are even some goths that turn out to be professional and good at their jobs but trust me, we see those Betty Page bangs coming a mile away.

#43

Don’t trust a rich social worker!

#44

A banker with debt. Most places will do a credit check and not hire someone with poor credit as they think they’re more likely to be tempted to steal funds.. however, I’ve worked with a handful that are absolutely terrible with their own money and really should not be giving financial advice to others.

#45

Don’t trust or at least be careful of personal injury attorneys who excessively advertise. I personally know two PI attorneys who blast their ads everywhere but are less than competent.

#46

Been working with a lot of acting, singing, and dance teachers in the last 3 years and this is a hard one I’ve learned that I don’t think most theatre students recognize.

**Don’t trust a performing arts teacher who cares more about how your performance makes *you* feel than how it makes your *audience* feel.**

This one is tough because you should feel good about your performance and how your teacher teaches you, but at the end of the day you have to actually be learning how to connect with an audience. But teaching that is hard and measuring it is ambiguous, but making a student feel good and powerful? That’s relatively easy, and if they can keep selling *that* the student can keep coming indefinitely, blissfully ignorant of their lack of progress. And that’s kinda optimal for making this “teacher” the most money.

#47

The more bands they’ve been in, the more likely they’re the problem

Since this took off some I’ll explain:

Most musicians have been in many projects, but with professionals…

If their resume is all short stints or single tours, 🚩.

#48

Don’t trust a lawyer who has esquire in their signature block.

#49

Don’t trust an accountant who prefers google sheets to excel.

#50

I have brown hair that I color frequently.

I hate when I go to blonde hairdressers, because they always want me to lighten my hair. I now consistently go to brunette hair dressers.

#51

Don’t trust a mechanic with a brand new car.

#52

Don’t trust a litigator who promises you literally anything. Every answer should be “it depends.”.

#53

Don’t trust a nurse who has “never made a medication error”. They are either lying or they haven’t routinely administered medications.

#54

My late uncle was a freight conductor for 50 years. He said never trust a railroad engineer that doesn’t drink coffee.

#55

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

#56

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

#57

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

#58

A nurse with a perfect manicure.

#59

Never trust an IT Security Analyst who doesn’t have prior Systems or Network Administrator experience.

#60

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.

#61

I do not trust a software engineer that was not bullied in high school. Yes I can tell. .

#62

Don’t trust a Door Dasher to know how long it takes to make orders.

I’m so sick of hearing “it’s just one sandwich” when we’re making hundreds. I don’t know or care that DD sent you to pick up a meal as soon as it was ordered. Orders go into a queue. We make them in that order. We don’t work for you.

#63

Don’t trust an accountant who’s terrible with their own money.

#64

A geologist without a rock collection.

#65

Don’t trust a teacher with a clear desktop.

#66

I was a swim instructor. In my personal experience, divers are not good instructors. I don’t mean that they can’t teach, I mean that they don’t teach things correctly when they’re training people for swim team. I knew some great divers, but most of them could only get you the basics of swimming and not skills necessary for swim team.

#67

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

#68

Don’t trust a game reviewer with an active insta.

Usually means they are an influencer not a reviewer and may not give objective reviews in the best case and demand active tribute in the worst.

#69

Don’t trust someone in tech that can’t administer their own machine.

I understand there are different specialties but a complete lack of understanding of the thing they work in front of for 8 hours a day tells me that they have a fatal lack of intuition and curiosity that I feel the field requires.

#70

Don’t buy wine with a large enough marketing budget to advertise on billboards or TV.

#71

If a paramedic shows up with their uniform ironed, pants cuffed, and a whole trauma kit on their belt, they are brand new and are still waiting to get their medic cert in the mail. If they’re leaving out the window smoking a cigarette, then toss an empty can of white monster back into the truck as they’re getting out, and look like they just rolled out of bed, you’re getting the guy with 20 years of experience that can figure out what’s wrong with the patient approximately 6 seconds after entering your home.

#72

Don’t trust rock the Dwayne Johnson’s hair products when he has no hair.

#73

Don’t trust a security personnel who won’t stop talking.

#74

Don’t trust some “dog trainer” guy who only works with Malinois and thinks flashy heeling makes him a good trainer.

Show me what you can do with a beagle, a bloodhound, or a Saluki, and then we can talk.

#75

I say this as someone you shouldn’t have trusted early in my career: 
Don’t trust a software team member who isn’t willing to pay for his own product.

I used to work at a consumer software company and everyone loved the free swag but wouldn’t pay for the product ourselves. Our product suffered because of it.

#76

Priests. A person that has never been married, giving lectures and advice on how to make a marriage work

Being married to God does not count, father!

#77

Dont trust a plumber who bites his nails.

#78

I know someone who got a job as a “career advisor” at the local university. Up until then, the only jobs she had ever had were a part-time retail gig at the mall for and some college internships.

#79

Don’t trust a manager who has never done every other position in FOH. I’ve met so many managers who had never hosted and it shows.

#80

Don’t trust a voice teacher who only has academic experience .

#81

Don’t trust a contractor who’s never swung a hammer.

#82

Writing advice YouTube channels featuring authors who have self published one book and/or never had a screenplay produced.

Nothing wrong with self publishing per se, but so many of the self described “writing gurus” create a fake publishing company complete with a website and logo and additional fake authors and fake books to give themselves credit.

They then proceed to give either very basic advice, or actively bad advice, then pitch their special, extremely expensive one-on-one coaching sessions.

#83

Don’t trust a mechanical engineer who ignores his technicians. 

I tell all my junior engineers the same thing. 

“The guy working on the line building the thing you designed will absolutely end up knowing more about it than you do”.

#84

Don’t trust an overweight doctor, or one who smokes.

#85

Don’t trust a CIO that doesn’t have a computer in their office.

#86

Audio engineer – there’s a lot of people that make YouTube videos about mixing and have strong opinions. If you don’t like how their stuff sounds, disregard their advice.

#87

Not my industry, but don’t trust a restaurant in a port city that says they don’t have a rat problem.

If they’re denying its existence it means they aren’t dealing with it, and it means they absolutely do have a rat problem.

#88

Don’t trust a restaurant boss who ever only worked in fast food.

#89

Don’t trust a teacher who doesn’t read books.

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