Becoming a better person through ineptitude

[Xander]

Ineptitude of other people, that is.

This is more of a rant than anything else. I hope it provokes discussion, and don't worry, I'm not [banned troll] in disguise.

In the few years I've been living with other people, I've seen myself become a much, much better person. I never was massively into craft, design and technology at school (taking Food Tech) when it came to my GCSEs. As the son of a pretty bloody good electrician and practical craftsman type guy, I'd previously never had the need to even change a fuse, knowing a sufficiently whiny shout of "Daaaaaaaad" would magically get whatever facile fad I'd fucked up fixed. That alliteration was completely unintended, by the way.

I know living out at university (and indeed beyond) is meant to prepare you for the big bad world of mortgages, bills, setting up internet, shouting at useless individuals in call centres and everything, but I believe I would have lived in my cocoon of practical ignorance forever were it not that my housemates have been (and currently are) more frustratingly inept than me. I'm not techy, but I'd like to think I was logical, reasonable and when presented with a problem do an admirable job. These last few years, though, have led to be being able to strip and wire plugs (yes, I know you do it in science at school, but I'd forgotten, being more concerned with achieving in all of my arty farty subjects, my Law degree then my arty farty MA), unclog drains and generally sort pipework under the sink, change typres on cars (their cars), repairing bookshelves and set up flatpacks at an admirable rate, plumbing out and installing washing machines, and the latest this today of stripping useless sealant around the bath and resealing it myself. I know none of these tasks are particularly heraclean, but it frustrates me that I've become the practical one, whilst at the same time knowing it's probably put me in good stead for when I finally buy that little place of my own.

Two of my housemates just used to wait for me to do whatever task, and my current housemate is well meaning, but essentially just as useless. He once asked me, his mother and his sister if he could take paracetamol with a glass of Robinsons Orange and Barley Water, because it said on the packet 'take with water'. He was worried it would damage him, or the paracetamol would be rendered ineffective. This is a 24 year old who has lived out of his parental home for 6 years, and in that time has successfully completed a Law Degree and LLM at Durham, and is now a qualified barrister! Ten minutes ago, he returned from the shops where I'd instructed him to buy a bottle of meths to clean the bath before I can apply the sealant. I wrote down "Methylated Spirit (Meths)" on the list. He came back with a bottle of white spirit. I know it's not the end of the world, and it probably doesn't make a difference if I wipe it down with something parrafin based as opposed to ethanol based (if it does, please tell me before I do!) but it's just one of a million frustrating things that I could have done relatively easily myself.

So, I guess I'm hoping some of you could sympathise or tell stories of your own to make me feel better, and reassure me I don't live with the most useless people in the world. Alternatively, you could just tell me to fuck off for being a whinging cunt.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Same tale to tell here. Ended up as the practical one simply because I'm the one willng to get my hands dirty. It isn't to seem smug about it either, because if I hadn't stepped in during certain problems, we would've all stood in the kitchen with our hands in our pockets muttering until the end of the world.

I felt particularly ill-equipped when I first started living on my own, you soon discover all manner of things you aren't able to tackle, but I was Jim'll Fix It in comparison to some of the people on my floor in halls who were embarrassingly short of basic life skills and seemed to become mentally paralysed whenever something needed doing.

I don't mind people who at least have a go, but someone like my brother gets flat-packs and just waits until me or my Dad come around to assemble them. A good attribute is the willingness to give anything a go.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I was the same until I started working at a fish and chip shop. I was 18 at the time and didn't even know how to use a tin opener (we had an electric one at home), and lacked in common sense almost completely. After a year, due to various circumstances, I ended up running the shop, and learnt so much in a very short time, including how to deal with stroppy, unpaid suppliers, how to put out fires effectively, what to do if you accidentally flood a shop with water, and how to deal with angry customers who have suffered food poisoning (well, okay, this happened just the once and I'm still not convinced to this day it was our fault), along with the more usual things as mentioned above.

I still hate calling taxi's when drunk though. I really don't know why, when sober it's not a problem, but it seems all of my friends feel the same way, and there's been quite a few arguments about who should do it until I give in and phone them. Which is all a bit odd really.

[Xander]

Not that anyone massively cares, but the sealing is done! Huzzah. That just took up ALL of my Saturday. The irony is, I really really want a shower now. Damnit. And my hands stink of white spirit needed to get the sealant off. Fab.

[Jemble Fred]

To be fair, you do seem especially proficient in all that shit you've listed, beyond anyone I know.  I mean, I'm generally pretty self-reliant and practical, but... bath sealant? Wiring plugs? Freak!

The point being, well done and all that but it's not the others that are 'useless', it's just that you seem to have the knack for doing boring practical shit.

[Xander]

I wish I did have that knack. I'd like to think I have a knack for following basic instructions on packaging, but that's about it. As for not useless, the barrister housemate once asked me how to cook a carrot. Then he called me while I was on a date to ask how much stock to put in a casserole (in a recipe he'd got off the internet). He then called me back to question me about cornflour. To be fair, I'd like to think I can cook pretty skilfully, but I also think I have an iota of common sense. I shouldn't really rag on this guy, because I'm sure he has some low-level autism issues. Also, did you not read the paracetamol bit?

I would have let him do the bath, give him some 'life experience' that I've been learning by the bucketful, but instead of just reading instructions and getting on with it, he'd have had me standing over him, asking me the same questions it answers on the bloody tube.

[Jemble Fred]

Sorry I think I got the wrong end of the stick – the specific guy you describe does sound a bit 'useless', I thought you were groping towards saying that anyone who can't wire a plug or fix a cistern would fit the description.

I did know how to wire a plug once, but I wouldn't dare give it a go now. I'm handy enough with a screwdriver, and tend to have a go at any practical problem life throws up – but in the main, anything that goes wrong results in a call to the landlord and somebody with proper practical knowledge, and overalls and everything, does the job. I'm not my dad. But then who is? Except him. There are a multitude of us, overgrown kids who somehow missed the DIY courses that previous generations seem to have gone on.

But I think the problem goes beyond 'ineptitude', it's both bigger and less damning than that.

[Kapuscinski]

It never ceases to astound me how many people I know who leave the hob turned on after cooking their meal. It also never ceases to astound me how many of their friends come in drunk and lean against the cooker for support, buring their hand on the overused hob.

Many of my former housemates were unable to comprehend that bills need to be paid on time and that it is polite to take it in turns to pay bills rather than have one person be a bill monkey.

Still, I'm useless at things such as making sure bits of food don't stick to the saucepan so it's harder to wash up.

[SOTS]

Thank god for the semi excuse of being a woman. I need the big, strong men to help me out with things.

"SOTS, setting feminism back at least twenty years!"

[sick as a pike]

Well I've spent this weekend, like many recent ones, painting, tiling, filling, dismantling, remantling etc.  In the past I've rewired my flat, installed phones, built a garage, unblocked sinks and toilets etc. In the land of the spack-handed wastrel, the vaguely practical bloke is King.
Hang on- school science lessons these days tell you how to wire a plug?  Maybe it is a generational thing then; when I was at school I think we'd have been expected to know that independently. 
The flush of superiority that brought faded when I realised  the corollary- that most of you therefore have many more years to live than me.

[Ambient Sheep]

Hang on- school science lessons these days tell you how to wire a plug?  Maybe it is a generational thing then; when I was at school I think we'd have been expected to know that independently.

Yeah, I'm useless at DIY, but even I can wire a plug; was quite shocked (no pun intended) to find that some of you can't.

Then again, I suppose the non-oldies amongst us have an excuse, as for the last 10 years or so all equipment has legally had to be sold with a plug already fitted; whereas when I and sick as a pike were lads almost nothing came with a plug and putting one on was a routine part of life.

MissInformed has just told me of a brilliant aide-memoire to wiring a plug that I've never heard before:

    BRown goes Bottom Right and BLue goes Bottom Left.

Isn't that terrific?  Wish I'd had that one handy as a kid, would have saved a bit of rote-learning.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Me too, when was being able to wire a plug the watermark of a DIY freak? It's just a basic skill, very basic in fact.

[rudi]

I'm Captain Impractical, but it's amazing what you can do yourself when poverty meets mortgage.

[Sam]

I was taught how to wire a plug in GCSE physics, I think. I'm fucked if I can remember how now, though.

I am incredibily inept at basic DIY and have no common sense at all when it comes to practical stuff. I can change a lightbulb. That's about it.

[rudi]

I can change a lightbulb.

For what?


Sorry - it's late and the baseball's on.........

[Xander]

I was taught how to wire a plug in GCSE physics, I think. I'm fucked if I can remember how now, though.

We were taught in year 9 science, year 9 CDT and in a tutorial once too. And people still can't. Pah.

Then again, I suppose the non-oldies amongst us have an excuse, as for the last 10 years or so all equipment has legally had to be sold with a plug already fitted; whereas when I and sick as a pike were lads almost nothing came with a plug and putting one on was a routine part of life.

And this is why I've had to learn how to wire one. The majority of plugs these days seem to be vaccuum formed with no screw, meaning you can't take them off. This leads to a real faff on when you need to thread the plug through a hole smaller than the plug for it to be able to get to a socket. It's doubly annoying because all it means is you have a cut off plug hanging around in your drawers for no reason. You can salvage them for fuses I suppose. I took the inept housemate foe his first trip to the skip the other day. He was wide eyed in wonder. Still managed to put plastic in the cardboard only bit, though.

[duckorange]

I went from completely spack-handed idiot to building my own house within a very short space of time. It's incredible what a thieiving workshy cunt of a builder running off with all your money will do for your practical knowledge.

The guy over the road is doing much the same, and has somehow managed to mount a wash basin on the wall OUTSIDE his bathroom, and is plugging his leaking roof with blu-tack.

Happy ending: Thumb nails which fall off as a result of getting hit by large hammers DO grow back.

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

MissInformed has just told me of a brilliant aide-memoire to wiring a plug that I've never heard before:

    BRown goes Bottom Right and BLue goes Bottom Left.

Isn't that terrific?  Wish I'd had that one handy as a kid, would have saved a bit of rote-learning.

I thought that due to EU harmonisation, that brown (live) is now red and blue (neutral) is black on new electrical products.  Sorry if that destroys the memory aid!

I can see why people would try and avoid anything to do with electricity, such as rewiring plugs, sockets, etc, if you get it wrong the consequences can be grave.  I managed to rewire the light fittings in my house easily enough, not really that far removed from rewiring a plug.  I'm not really that practical though, it took me five hours to make two bits of flat pack furniture on Friday, and the last couple of hours I was being assisted.

Truly practical people astonish me, I don't know how they do it.  My Granddad installed my Aunt's kitchen on his own without any help (he was a foreman at Sellafield, not a kitchen fitter) and it still works as it should.  I could never do anything like that.

[ziggy starbucks]

All I know about wiring and electricity is that you should never cross the beams

NEVER cross the beams

[sick as a pike]

I find this aide memoire very useful when it comes to wiring plugs:

The Brown is the live- attach to the bit with the fuse,
If Neutral you seek, those are the Blues,
And as for the wire that is neither of those?
Cut it off! What it's for, nobody knows.

[Ambient Sheep]

I thought that due to EU harmonisation, that brown (live) is now red and blue (neutral) is black on new electrical products.  Sorry if that destroys the memory aid!

Wuuuhh??  That's the way it used to be before sometime in the late-60s/early-70s, I remember some stuff having the red/black/green code when I was a kid (and house wiring still does).  They changed it to brown/blue/green&yellow precisely because of EU harmonisation, and also 'cos it stopped colour-blind people electrocuting themselves and people around them by confusing red (live) and green (earth) when wiring plugs.  Surely they're not changing it back?!

Nope, if anything the opposite: since April 2006 house-wiring now has to be brown/blue/green&yellow too...see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_AC_power_plugs_and_sockets and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_wiring_%28UK%29.

[duckorange]

Brown is live. It's the colour you go if you plug yourself in.

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

Oh right, well hopefully my house will still be standing when I get home!

[falafel]

I wired my first plug the other day - but it didn't have any colours - it was an old record deck with a US-style plug and it was all black. And there was no earth. So I just put the cables wherever (not earth, obviously). But it works OK, so hopefully I did it right...  I can't imagine there's anything in particular you should do in that situation? Is there?

[Ambient Sheep]

I wired my first plug the other day - but it didn't have any colours - it was an old record deck with a US-style plug and it was all black. And there was no earth. So I just put the cables wherever (not earth, obviously). But it works OK, so hopefully I did it right...  I can't imagine there's anything in particular you should do in that situation? Is there?

Merely keep one hand in your pocket while you use it, and preferably only touch it with the back of your other hand while using it, if possible.  :-)

Seriously, it depends on how old it is.  If it's double-insulated, then it'll be fine and you did the right thing.  If it's not obviously marked as such, then it might be worth checking round the back or underneath to see if there's a separate earth/ground connection provided, usually some sort of screw terminal.  If there is, then it's NOT double-insulated, and could well get dangerous if a fault occurs, so I'd suggest that if you must use it, you follow my advice above.

[Ambient Sheep]

Meanwhile, one of those wandering-through-Wikipedia sessions led me to a couple of vaguely interesting things. 

Firstly, this astonishing example of wrongness:


(larger version here)

Spotted it yet?  It just makes my head hurt to look at it.  Apparently the BBC used to use it for "technical supplies", and some of the London Underground uses it for low-voltage circuits.


Secondly, according to this history of MK Electric, the lightswitch was invented in 1955.  Can that be true?!  Did people really not have wall-mounted lightswitches before 1955?!