- "If you are buying something that you will use often and for a long time, never go cheap. You'll end up replacing it sooner or paying more in maintenance costs than if you had spent more on good quality in the beginning. Plus, you'll enjoy the nicer product throughout its lifetime, rather than cringing every time you use something that is falling apart."
- College is a lot more work than high school and your job will be a lot more work than college was.
- Start looking for a new job BEFORE you quit your old job.
- It's not enough to buy a gun and stick it in a drawer like a lucky talisman. You need to learn to use the gun.
- When you move, sell, throw away, and give away as much as possible or you'll just end up moving boxes from one closet, where they have been sitting for five years, to another closet, where they'll be sitting for the next five years.
- Nobody owes you a living.
- You are not a victim.
- If you just assume that every conspiracy theory is wrong without even examining it, you will be right 99.99% of the time.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Advice Column
John Hawkins of Right Wing News posts the "50 Things Every 18-Year-Old Should Know," including:
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3 comments:
College is a lot more work than high school: Yes indeed.
Your job will be a lot more work than college was. For those who majored in engineering, most likely not. My final semester, a 5 credit lab took 30 hours a week . Add twelve more credits. Work is a breeze by comparison.
Some of them ARE spot-on, but others? Heh.
20) Here are 3 keys to keeping a reasonably clean house: don't leave any dishes in the sink overnight; every time you have a full load of clothes, wash 'em, and take out the trash every time the can is full. You do those things, wipe up your messes, and vacuum when the floor gets filthy, and you'll keep things reasonably neat.
Spoken like a true anal retentive.
21) If you use a computer even semi-regularly, it's worth your time to take a typing class.
No it's not. It's a waste of time. If you use a computer even vaguely enough to justify learning to type, you'll learn to type properly -- PERIOD in the course of DOING it.
Programmers, for example, don't usually touch-type -- the sort of typing done by a programmer is far too start-stop to make anything except a sophisto hunt-and-peck worth learning.
I didn't learn to touch-type until I started to blog regularly. THEN it paid off, and I just did it as time passed -- Further, one modern problem with touch-typing is the absolute plethora of keyboard variants out there. It's insane how many different places they can put the "\" key, the "~" key, the shape of the backspace and return/enter keys -- all these tend to f*** with touch-typing.
27) If you ever get arrested, don't say anything until you talk to a lawyer.
Corollary: Cops are like vampires. If you don't invite them in, it's a lot more trouble for them to make problems for you.
This follows from the fact that no matter how honest and forthright you actually are, there are enough laws on the books that you can probably be arrested for something that is in your house. Not convicted, perhaps, but arrested, yes...
If the cop can't see the inside of your house, it's harder for them to find a reason to arrest. This is why one should be against seat-belt ticketing laws. "Well, I believed he wasn't wearing his seatbelt, judge, but, once I'd stopped him, I noticed (insert ridiculously obscure legal violation here), and then I had cause to search the vehicle and found (insert yet another obscure violation here)."
33) Don't ever say anything that may offend someone who is going to be serving you food. You never know what they may stick in it when you're not looking.
Sometimes, they may do it because someone else pissed them off who looked kinda like you.
37) If you don't feel like you're being treated fairly by a company, don't hesitate to ask for a manager. Oftentimes, a manager has gotten to where he is in a company because he is good at pleasing customers like you in the first place.
And if you still don't, ASK FOR HIS/HER BOSS. It's amazing how soluble "It's just policy" problems become when you start bothering people who don't need to worry about offending the guy who made the policy, because THEY made the policy.
(Corollary: Always consider how reasonable your wishes are, and don't raise a fuss over small stuff unless you're really paying for someone else to take care of the small stuff and that's part of the problem-- cf: bitching about a wet newspaper due to YOUR sprinkler system is just bogus).
;-)
>>Cops are like vampires. If you don't invite them in, it's a lot more trouble for them to make problems for you.>>
Ditto the IRS. If you're ever called in for an audit, the audit will specify the reason for the audit. _Anything_ you say that is much more than yes or no may allow the auditor to probe into some other area. Do not explain what stuff or why stuff. You would probably be better off hiring a person who handles audits for a living, but if not - do _not_ take all your back up material. Better to just "not know" and have schedule another meeting to refer to material you don't happen to have handy. Also consider taking (if required) all back up material jumbled up in a big box. This probably depends on whether the auditor's wife was nice that morning, but some will get ticked because your stuff is a mess, and some will just send you out the door because they don't want to go through the box. There is no requirement for your back up stuff to be neat and orderly - just that you have it. Let the auditor sit and wait while you find what s/he wants. He's getting paid to sit there - you aren't.
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