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A Pot of Tea - and a Stamp!

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  • Callie22
    Callie22 Posts: 3,444
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    jk0 wrote: »
    This thread is fun. It's not just millennials who are useless.


    Aaaah, I think 'useless' is maybe a harsh term. It's different strokes for different folks, some skills have become obsolete but I'm sure there are skills that younger people have that older people don't, as well as the opposite being true. There's also a bit of a resurgence in the appeal of learning what might be slightly old-fashioned skills along with the added benefit of some really modern ways to lean them - Youtube, for example, is brilliant for learning how to do things (we fixed the siphon in our loo recently by watching an instructional Youtube video, it saved us a fortune :))
  • Cocketts
    Cocketts Posts: 130
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    GreyQueen wrote: »
    :) In my secondary school in the late seventies we were taught how to wire a plug (and made to draw a diagram of the inside of one including colouring in the cables). But I'd already been taught to do this by my mother. We were also taught how to write cheques, something I still do most weeks for a pal who runs a small business.

    Some very basic skills are being lost and the consquences are blocked sinks and mess and expense.

    For example, whenever I do youth hostelling, I encounter sinks which are blocked because folks cannot grasp that the first step to dishwashing is scraping any uneaten bits off the plate and into the bin. So many people, often mature and seemingly intelligent people, haven't managed to grasp this simple concept. I once watched the three mid-teen offspring of a family in a YHA kitchen make an unbeliveable fist of doing some washing up. The sum total of their task was to wash five mugs, five small plates with crumbs on them and five knives with butter/ jam smears. Three of them and they couldn't even do this without incredible difficulty.

    I'm normally good at blank expressions but must of looked a bit surprised at a level of ineptitude akin to a six year old's, because one of them sheepishly told me that they had a dishwasher at home.

    No sh*t Sherlock was my unspoken reaction, but I was thinking I hope to hell you never have to wash up anything really messy if this little task is beyond you! :eek:


    Oh GQ, that ALSO reminds me... a couple of weeks ago I was house/dog sitting for my sister, leaving DD and her young man to hold the fort here.
    When I got home they sheepishly admitted that they had had a 'dishwasher problem' - thinking they'd broken it.
    I asked what the problem was. Well, they said, we went to unload it at the end of the cycle and there was still water in the bottom. So we used cups to try to scoop some water out and then tried using the small syringe that came with the cat medicine.
    They phoned DD's dad who suggested calling out the engineer.
    In a huff, they slammed the dishwasher door shut - and it merrily continued it's cycle right until the end:rotfl:
    Everything will be alright in the end - and if it's not alright, it's not the end ........
  • jk0
    jk0 Posts: 3,479
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    You guys might enjoy a thread I created on Landlordzone, about the mad things tenants call me out to repair:

    https://forums.landlordzone.co.uk/forum/take-a-break-for-the-less-serious/73407-pilot-error?71692-Pilot-Error=
  • Nargleblast
    Nargleblast Posts: 10,762
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    jk0 wrote: »
    Ooh, I've got another one regarding my African friend who is 46...

    I was showing him how I warm the mugs with boiling water before putting the teabag in them.

    He said: 'I do not need to wash the cups again. I have already washed them!' :)

    Remind me never to go round his for tea and sticky buns.
    One life - your life - live it!
  • Bathory
    Bathory Posts: 206
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    Not sure if this applies to all hoovers (ours is about 12 years old) but I know people who will throw a hoover away and get a new one as it is thought to no longer work. What we do is unscrew the base, take the roller out and cut out all the trapped hair with scissors, refit and its good to go again.
  • GreyQueen
    GreyQueen Posts: 13,008
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    Bathory wrote: »
    Not sure if this applies to all hoovers (ours is about 12 years old) but I know people who will throw a hoover away and get a new one as it is thought to no longer work. What we do is unscrew the base, take the roller out and cut out all the trapped hair with scissors, refit and its good to go again.
    :) One of my rellies has a nice little side gig for a number of years now, picking up 'defunct' appliances for free or for pence at bootsales


    Number one cause of 'defunctness'? Blown fuse in the plug. Number two cause in our hard-water area for anything which held water like a coffee maker is buildup of limescale. Both very easily fixed.:rotfl:


    I've also done the thread-around-the-roller thing for friends and hunt-the-foriegn-object-in-the-washer-filter for others. A pal who thought she was looking at a whole new washer was surprised to find that a kirby hair grip in the wrong place was all that was wrong with her B0sch.


    I'm amused at the inefficiency of checking the time on a mobile as opposed to a half-second glance at a wristwatch. And what a fabulous way to get someone to pull out their phone if you're a mugger, hey?


    It's downright tragic if anyone over 8, assuming they are not learning-disabled, is so berefit of basic skills that they cannot tell the time from a clockface. These items ain't going away, people.


    I mean, can you imagine churches, town hall clocks and even Big Ben switched over to digital display......... :rotfl:
    Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
    John Ruskin
    Veni, vidi, eradici
    (I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
  • No but I can envisage power cuts and shortages of batteries with which to run digital devices! Craziness is rife!
  • GreyQueen
    GreyQueen Posts: 13,008
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    No but I can envisage power cuts and shortages of batteries with which to run digital devices! Craziness is rife!
    :eek: And very few people outside of preptastic circles/ science, have ever heard of the Carrington Event and know that it's only a matter of time until we have another one.


    Gawd help those who cannot read a paper road altas or an OS map, tell the time from an analogue clock face (preferably one not powered by a battery - my next watch will be one of those which are powered by your movement).


    Those of us who grew well into adulthood before the digital age are going to have a heckuva advantage over the current generation.
    Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
    John Ruskin
    Veni, vidi, eradici
    (I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
  • short_bird
    short_bird Posts: 3,648
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    edited 8 July 2018 at 11:22AM
    Maybe the issue with clock faces on public buildings is that some are only right twice a day as they need fixing - and there isn't the knowledge at the right price for cash strapped organisations. Oh: that's a point. All alarms in my house run on batteries... adds it to the list.

    And cheers, GQ for the Carrington Event. Hoo boy.:eek:
    Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.
  • Callie22
    Callie22 Posts: 3,444
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    jk0 wrote: »
    You guys might enjoy a thread I created on Landlordzone, about the mad things tenants call me out to repair:

    https://forums.landlordzone.co.uk/forum/take-a-break-for-the-less-serious/73407-pilot-error?71692-Pilot-Error=


    As with my earlier post, I do think making fun of people who can't do things is a little unfair. I find it particularly so when landlords list the 'stupid' things that their tenants have done - I completely appreciate that some tenants aren't the brightest buttons but let's be honest, most people's first real learning experience in terms of DIY and home maintenance tends to come when they buy their first home. Tenants are generally in a situation where they can't really risk doing anything they aren't really sure about on pain of being accused of 'damaging' a property and losing their deposit. Not all landlords are the same either - whilst some are happy for tenants to just get on with stuff others really aren't. It's a little unfair, I think, to make fun of tenants who do 'daft' things, when in a lot of cases, they're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't.
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