I only read the instructions as a measure of last resort. I think it is that I want to understand things and honestly as often as not the instructions were written by some little gentleman in China offers very little other than a sort of muddled general idea of instructions.
I am a massively mechanically inclined sort of person. I have made a rather decent living most of my life making, building, designing, or repairing machines of all sorts and sizes. A lot of the machines these days are honestly made and designed very poorly. It is as if they want them to last only a short time before just totally falling apart.
I think that the problem is that the people at the design level these days have ZERO hands-on experience with things in line with what they are designing. Used to be that in order to get an engineering degree you had to have two years of hands-on experience in the field. Let me tell you these kids come out thinking they know it all and it is a disaster. It is like having a person with a degree in music that can't sing or play any instrument. They can't even hum!!!
This has led to American products now not being competitive with foreign-made products. Even many of the products these days that are "American made" are only assembled here from parts made elsewhere. Nobody wants to be workers anymore. we all try to send our kids to college. the problem is that they often come out after 4 or 5 years and are not prepared to actually do much of anything.
I have a niece that has a master's degree in English but with no teaching certificate, she has had a hard time getting a job above what she might have had straight out of high school. The problem is that she has no experience working. The jobs that she is actually qualified for are filled by high school graduates with 5 years of experience. She is overqualified for the jobs she is capable of doing and underqualified for the ones that her level of education would be indicative of. She is now working part-time at a Sonic. She didn't put her level of education on the application.
I have no education. I started working when I was 16. I took a GED and quit school at 17. I regretted that for a long time. It wasn't that I needed more education, I just was forced by circumstance to grow up fast and move on from childish things. I did everything that I could to make up for that through reading and self-educating myself as best I could. I have 30,000 books in my house and subscribe to 12 magazines that cover a wide range of subjects. School and I just didn't do well. Once I went to work full time I didn't respond well to the way a lot of teachers treat students. I was making more money than they were and all that I did was work, sleep and go to school. I often worked 36 hours from when I got out of classes on Friday and returned on Monday and then worked a full schedule 8 hours a day Mondy through Friday. During the summer I worked 72 to 84 hours a week. Farm work is that way. Then after harvest, there is the drying and shipping to be done. EVERYTHING is in a hurry. We worked 12 on and 12 off 7 days a week most of the time. Even though at that time I only made about twice minimum wage the overtime added up and seemed to compound. LOL you also don't have much time to spend your earnings either.
I bought a set of books about machine work and that gave me a vocabulary that allowed me to sound knowledgeable. I started off as a journeyman machinist. I have done that same thing several times. on other trades. I am a FAST learner and only have to be shown things one time.
There are two kinds of people. I am the kind that does well with everything except people. I have little to NO patience with pushy people that make up for ignorance by being pushy and obnoxious. I like working alone and for myself. I liked my customers...or I never worked for them again. My special customers were my little old ladies. I had dozens of them and took care of them like they were family. I only charged them for what I did that was related to my regular work and the rest I did for free. During the day when I had a gap in my work, there was always someone that had coffee and cookies and wanted a visit. In a way and to a certain extent THAT was my true work and the rest was how I made a living that allowed me to do what I could for those that had needs, little money, and no kids to help them.
