Out of Pod Experience

so a fellow first-year uni student asked me today if you put dryer sheets in the tumble dryer or the washing machine.



So is this the new norm of society a lack of the ability to analyse the situation no matter how trivial? or are people just not doing as much chores as they should be when they are young

Wow, a society that forgets what life was like BEFORE google and doesn't know how to solve problems without google.... yikes! Better hope Google stays in business.... forever! heh.

It's a common sense approach to the problem, but not the most practical one. He knows nothing about how these machines work, so he does the sensible thing and doesn't assume to know anything about how they work. He would propably act like you assume he should, if he had to solve the issue himself. But since he has people who know better near him. he feels it's better to varify everything by them. It's normal to ask a person. It's mainly internet geeks who google everything before asking others.

As for people not doing chores when they are young. I mostly only did vacuuming and mowed the lawn until I moved away from my parents. Everything else I learned when I lived on my own. The details are not complicated things to learn, but you don't know that until you've done them for the first time. Until then you've usually got a foreign machine staring down on you, you propably haven't got a manual to it and you just have to figure out somehow what all the settings and markings/icons on those machines mean.

I sometimes fear for humanity :/

I tried google and got this ehow guide: How to Put Dryer Sheets in a Washer I thought this was a simple, non-confusing topic. How wrong I was.

I still can't work a VCR, does that count?

Seriously though washing machines aren't exactly rocket science, although I'm a firm believer in the advice I gave my mother when she retired somewhere hot where it doesn't rain all the time, if you can't work a piece of technology, find a neighbour or friend with a 10 year old or teenager, because you can pretty much guarantee that they can.

Sounds like the person asking has never done any sort of household chores in his/her life. Possible parental upbringing issues, molly-coddlying their offsprings to to the point of dysfunction.
Another possibility is unfamiliarity with a public laundrette setup, which really is a no brainer ... so, I doubt this was the primary reason.

That said, part to blame is the person themself. An independent minded fellow will almost always find ways to sort TRIVIAL things without much of a whisper. They usually learn basic life skills by themselves, without much help/encouragement from parents or friends.

Nowadays, imo, the amount of stupid is increasing though ... or maybe I'm getting too old already

Wouldn't the dryer sheet box. Be a clue? After all IT'S a dryer sheet! Not a washer sheet.

Back in first or second grade, we had these workbooks in school called "Think and Do." You were supposed to read the instructions, then fill in the workbook pages. "Circle all of the round things." "Draw a line from each thing to the thing that goes with it."

Then during reading circle, there was always at least one kid who'd messed up his pages. Circled all of the things that were food items, instead of all the round things. Mrs. Burris would say, "Greg, remember, 'Think and Do.' We want to think first, then do. If we do first, then think, we'll make mistakes"

Anyway, seems like there's a lot of Do and Think instead of Think and Do around these days. Like, at work nobody can bother to read all the way through to the end of an email. Too many words. Too many nitpicky details. They skim, apply some lazy and wrong assumption, and go directly to Do. Then you spend another few days fixing what should have been a quick and easy task. Think and Do-- words to live by.

(But note: Think and Do doesn't work in the area of love, romance and procreation. Think and Do will get you nowhere there. It's all Do and Think, Do and Think, in that order.)

Heh, I am currently at college the now doing a HNC in Technically support, we have this guy, he is about 20 years old and how he even got near this course is beyond me. He has no initiative to solve problems, no brains to assess the situation and figure a way to work it out.

He literally, soon as he hits a problem of any sort. Hand goes up, constantly asking stupid and ******** questions, sometimes even interrupting the tutor during talks about off topic stuff.

Some of these people, if only I could get away with half the **** I would do to them, anal **** without lube being the least of his worries.