Reading instructions would be another one that gets skipped due to stress or whatever the excuse is.
Or taking the time to properly read and reply to an email. I’ve learnt the hard way to never have more than one question per email, it’s only the first or the last question that gets answered.
At least in a business context, the vast majority of emails that I see sent out are mostly useless fluff. Many of them don’t need to be sent, and the ones that do are rarely concise or structured to summarize what they are saying up top, then later go into detail for people who might need more detail.
Time is a finite resource consumed by this, and there’s no penalty for using someone else’s. Businesses don’t, say, try to assess the business cost imposed by an employee’s sent emails when reviewing that employee’s performance.
I think that users attempt to compensate by committing less time to reading them. Doing ever-more-perfunctory skims in an attempt to limit how much of their time gets consumed by email that isn’t worthwhile.
I think you’ve hit the bull’s eye with that assessment. I try to keep my fluff, such as “Have a nice weekend!”, to the end of mine.
Using a fucking PC properly.
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That’s the fucking spirit! Have a fucking nice day too!
Making constructive, non-adhominem critique, and accepting such critique. Maybe calm debate/discussion in general.
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I can teach you about homo things, too ; )
I might as well go first: Basic troubleshooting and reasoning.
I mean, we’re not talking debugging assembly language here. But at least you should be able to reply correctly to the question “is it dead or faulty” when it comes to a computer. And when a your car has a weird noise, at least try to locate it for an obvious cause such as something rolling around under your seat.
This grinds my gears super hard. I’ve had a few new hires come through and they can’t do anything unless someone tells them to do something or if its written out step by step. Absolutely no critical thinking, curiosity or even basic understanding of why we’re doing what we’re doing, the job might as well be severance lol. I have no idea whats going on, they interviewed well, had relevant experience and can do the basics but as soon as we have to troubleshoot or use our brains they just go dear in the headlights. Its something thats difficult to train.
Maybe they prefer the work to be mysterious (and important)
Maybe they got in trouble too many times for not doing it exactly as instructed, even if the instruction is obviously bullshit in some ways?
“I don’t know what the error said, I clicked ok and it went away. Now fix it”.
Bingo.
I used to work with internet on trains, and the system was relatively simple by today’s standards. Not so much back then, but:
- One carriage had UMTS/LTE and CDMA modems and a router that load balanced between the uplinks. Usually in the restaurant carriage, because there would only be one per train. It also had a short range wireless link in each end for other carriages to connect.
- Each carriage that could potentially be in the same train had wireless clients in each end for connecting “upstream” towards the router.
- All carriages had a wifi radio
And sometimes we’d get tickets such as this sent our way: “Internet doesn’t work”
- No info about which carriage
- No info about when
- No info about where
- No info about which train
I mean, that’s really a software design issue. Like, the system should be set up to have a system log of those.
Most visual novel video game systems provide a history to review messages, if one accidentally skipped through something important.
Many traditional roguelikes have a message log to review for the same reason.
Many systems have a “show a modal alert dialog” API call, but don’t send it to a log, which frankly is a little bit bonkers; instead, they have separate alert and logging systems. I guess maybe you could make a privacy argument for that, not spreading state all over even the local system, but I’d think that it wouldn’t be that hard to make it more-obvious to the user how to clear the log.
This is usually coupled with the expectation that I’m going to use some special knowledge to do it rather than just pasting the contents of the error message into a web search and following the simple instructions contained in the first link.
I had that stuck to my desk at work for years. And I haven’t even opened the link yet to see if it’s the one I think it is.
Yep, it was 😁
Basic troubleshooting and reasoning.
That drives me nuts sometimes. Like even professionals sometimes seem unable to do basic troubleshooting. I work in live music, I am not a tech/engineer but have done a lot of tech work on and around stages.
Simple stuff like - one speaker is not giving a signal, two techs are unable to identify the fault for over 20 min. I observe for a bit, they check the console, they check the speaker, they check the power supply.
And I, half joking, ask - have you switched sides already? Both look at me like they don’t understand my question, I walk over to the signal line for the PA, unplug them both, plug the left side into the right signal and vice versa on the other side - the problem moves from one speaker to the other, so it has to be a faulty cable. I was so baffled by that.
WHY IS THAT NOT THE FIRST THING YOU DO??? It takes seconds!
Or a wireless in-ear system has weird noises in the signal, I suggest to switch the frequency, the old tech grunts at me that he has already done that, I check and he moved the frequency like 10mhz. I suggest to move to a totally different frequency range and he gets rude so I go somewhere else. Half an hour later it turns out I was right. Why do you fuck around with firmware and shit before you do something simpler and quicker?
I used to work as a refrigeration technician and when I first started I was working with an old Russian dude who had no filter. We’d walk into a store and he’d ask the owner “ok so what’s the problem?” and if they ever said “the machine isn’t working.” he’d immediately reply with “no shit man, I wouldn’t be here if it was working…” Lol
Is nuance a skill?
Like, the world isn’t black and white, left and right, right and wrong, etc, but too many people want to simplify complex issues down into binary choices and leave out any trace of nuance.
We’re living in a particularly toxic time, and splitting is a reversion
I agree, and I’d say the backing skill is emotional maturity or emotional management
We live in a hyperbolic age. People’s attention has been commodified so almost all messaging is exaggerated to pull attention to one pole or another. Nuance and patient, thoughtful debate can’t live in that atmosphere.
Are you really claiming that ALL messages are exaggerated and that thoughtful debate can NEVER exist???
😜
Clutches
pearlshyperboles
Not to mention we’re in a period of morality panic. We’ve been brainwashed to think there are only good and bad, either with us on all thoughts or against. We’ve been sucked into a hard lined good vs. evil plot, except everyone is wrong.
Not sure if it’s an actual skill, but it certainly is a trait that fits this question. It’s gotten so bad that I tend to tag people with “Nuanced” to people who understand this, so that I know they’re actually reasonable if I seem then in a discussion over a controversial topic.
I wish I could do this with the web version. I’d like to tag people “Made sense once - don’t block”
Its like we live in a floating point world, and too many people are only capable of dealing with integers lol.
I’m stealing this.
Somewhat related is the belief that things are simple rather than complex. I’d argue that thinking something is simple - or believing you have a solid understanding of it - should be a red flag that you probably don’t know as much as you think. I mean, when have you ever heard a true expert give a short and simple answer to anything?
Maybe related: The ability to understand complete statements and considering the context, instead of latching onto one phrase and ignoring the rest.
Critical thinking: We would be in a better world if more people were capable of it.
Keeping your OCD to yourself.
Reading comprehension. Not a day goes by where i don’t see someone respond to a comment that they clearly did not understand completely.
I think a lot of it is just laziness. I find that my habit of writing nuanced comments in sections to highlight various arguments/views tends to attract angry responses to only the first half, as if they only skimmed the first part and ascribing me a standpoint based on that.
Proof reading what they post.
Looking at you OP :P
Correcting autocorrect can get exhausting sometimes. It seems to get worse over time instead of improving.
Yeh, I’ll concede that I’m shitty at typing on my phone. Fixed.
Aren’t we all mate.
Listening (to one another).
Being aware of what’s around you. Whether driving and not looking before pulling out, blocking the middle of the supermarket aisle, stopping in the doorway, standing in the middle of the footpath playing with your phone; so many people are completely oblivious. The world doesn’t revolve around you, have some ordinary consideration and manners.
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“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”
I know it’s tempting to dismiss these people as all being assholes. But in my experience, once they realize they’re in your way, they’ll usually apologize and move. Drives me crazy, but some people really are that oblivious.
I was going to say things. Situational awareness is very much lacking, especially in certain parts of the world.
Swimming, it’ll save your life
Yeah. I’m amazed at how many people do not know how to swim.
Knowing the right tool for the job, specifically when it comes to repairing the things they own. I get that familiarizing yourself with your car’s engine bay isn’t the sexiest thing to do if it doesn’t interest you, but most systems are incredibly intuitive once you know how to use a couple of basic tools. Competency in hand tools is something I think everyone should have TBH
Critical thinking. Religion and our education system beat curiosity out of people and they end up being unable to process information on their own.
Also driving. People can’t stay in their own lanes, stop three car lengths from an intersection because they don’t understand that the ‘see the tires in front of you’ made sense in low sedans with sloped hoods and not their massive SUVs with flat hood, and don’t bother signaling when changing lanes slowly.
Critical thinking. Religion and our education system beat curiosity out of people
And now AI is here to run cleanup on any critical thinking those two haven’t already destroyed.
and don’t bother signaling when changing lanes slowly
I always love playing the road trip game of “Are they changing lanes slowly without signaling, or are they fucking with their phone and just drifting?” 😠
One thing many forget about critical thinking is to also be critical of your own thoughts as well. Too many people think it’s only about attacking other people’s opinion.
Oof yes and don’t get me started on roundabouts.
Binary search, there are so many instances where problems in life can be solved by eliminating half of a given set repeatedly.
Blender broken? There are only so many things that can go wrong, analyze the situation and try to find something that cuts your problem in half.
- Is the light on? It’s not electricity and that’s a huge chunk of what makes a blender work.
- Light not on? Well now you’ve eliminated (temporarily) mechanical systems and electrical remains. Further splitting that part of the blender means either house power or internal blender power, check the outlet with another machine
This approach involves further splitting the problem into 2 as evenly as possible each time. It doesn’t make sense to whip out the multimeter if the on light isn’t shining, you don’t need to check on your house’s breakers if the light is on, etc.
This system works for troubleshooting almost anything, all you have to do is find chokepoints and identify sections of your target. Toilet not flushing, faucet not on, car not starting, neck pain, allergies, it’s almost harder to think of something it doesn’t apply to.
Yeah, I kind of think that that should go into core curriculum in school, because it’s such a mechanical process, yet people just need to figure it out on their own.
