kind of goes along with teh spouse thread (wish I could say I learned to accommodate the spouse and get along better, but we have kids and tight schedules sometimes so it seems like we're generally at odds!!).
But something that occurred to me the other day - when I was young, I never read instructions for anything. Results were often either poor or incomplete due to that, or assembled item in the case of assembling something with missing parts and function.
It was always the old joke that buttons and switches on machines were great, and signaled a great man toy, but instructions on how to use them - not so great.
I've come to realize that I am now the type of person who will read the manual that comes with everything. Whereas I "didn't have the time" to read instructions as a kid, I don't have the time to not read them now (generally not looking to use something 6 times before finding out the right way).
Some of this is by profession (standards make freelancing a no-no), and some is learned from doing minor and moderate work on my own cars (plus, two of those have been volkswagens, and sometimes there is no reasonable way to fix something, so guessing is a bad idea - no more volkswagens).
I just never thought I'd be the kind of person who read the manuals and followed instructions. My dad still won't. A friend of mine is a commercial pilot - he's also become a manual reader, now heckling anyone who says "what do you think the approach speed is for X".
"what does the manual say?"
But recall as a kid that my buddy and I would often joke when running across someone who was really uptight or having a public meltdown about something minor (food at a restaurant), "man, that guy is uptight. I'll bet he puts the seat down and reads assembly manuals, too".
But something that occurred to me the other day - when I was young, I never read instructions for anything. Results were often either poor or incomplete due to that, or assembled item in the case of assembling something with missing parts and function.
It was always the old joke that buttons and switches on machines were great, and signaled a great man toy, but instructions on how to use them - not so great.
I've come to realize that I am now the type of person who will read the manual that comes with everything. Whereas I "didn't have the time" to read instructions as a kid, I don't have the time to not read them now (generally not looking to use something 6 times before finding out the right way).
Some of this is by profession (standards make freelancing a no-no), and some is learned from doing minor and moderate work on my own cars (plus, two of those have been volkswagens, and sometimes there is no reasonable way to fix something, so guessing is a bad idea - no more volkswagens).
I just never thought I'd be the kind of person who read the manuals and followed instructions. My dad still won't. A friend of mine is a commercial pilot - he's also become a manual reader, now heckling anyone who says "what do you think the approach speed is for X".
"what does the manual say?"
But recall as a kid that my buddy and I would often joke when running across someone who was really uptight or having a public meltdown about something minor (food at a restaurant), "man, that guy is uptight. I'll bet he puts the seat down and reads assembly manuals, too".