I don't have a problem with non-technical HR and managerial people, nor sales, marketing, production staff and so on.
I remain dumbfounded that their HR didn't understand that work I did on other platforms, contributes a great deal to my ability to code for Mac OS X.
Consider that OS X drivers are all written in C++. I've done quite a lot of C++ work on Windows and embedded platforms, and a little on Linux. Yet their HR wanted me to delete all that from my resume.
I didn't just turn down the jobs. Each time I explained to the recruiters - who generally are non-technical too - that all that other experience contributes to my ability to write OS X drivers. Yet the recruiters were unwilling to pass on the message to the HR.
I've only known this to happen at just one company.
Actually I am quite good at explaining difficult concepts to the uninitiated, as a direct result of my experiences with many of my teachers.
I have a BA in Physics, with some graduate school. I had some courses that I regarded as quite easy, some were quite difficult. Quite often this was not the result of the material I studied, but the ability of the instructor to explain it.
Consider that physics is commonly taught by working out mathematical derivations. That leads people who either don't know math, or don't like it, to regard physics as completely unapproachable.
But physics can be taught in a purely conceptual way, with no math at all. For example, I once explained elementary particle physics to a Burgerville cashier by comparing it to the game of pool. "Suppose you cover the break" - the initial positions of the balls, in a triangle - "with a sheet of plywood. Your job now is to shoot the cue ball underneath the wood, then determine the shape of the break from the tracks of the balls after they scatter out from underneath the sheet of wood."
She was quite pleased as she grasped it instantly.