Brown M&Ms, or Why No One Reads the Manual • Hacker News Board

Re: Brown M&Ms, or Why No One Reads the Manual

#151

Post by perl4ever » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

citiguy wrote: post #108

brightball wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you run into one of those where you don't have a choice, the best phrasing I've found to explain why I left was "hostile work environment." I had one of those for about a year and leaving after just over a year was a question I got used to answering.

Most people won't give a bad personal reference anymore because they are too afraid of being sued. We just say yes, the person worked here from this time to that time.

>because they are too afraid of being sued

This is a cliche but it can't possibly be true. I mean, it is extremely expensive to file a lawsuit, you probably lose, and nobody will ever hire you again, because it is public record.

Re: Brown M&Ms, or Why No One Reads the Manual

#152

Post by perl4ever » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:24 AM UTC

koala_man wrote: post #118

bullen wrote: post #57

I haven't read manuals ever, but last month I bought bluetooth headphones so to pair them I first tried without reading, and failed. I opened the manual to find it was many pages of legal text and just one phrase of instructions: "hold button for 5 seconds until light is blue" and that failed too. I mailed support and the instructions then came back as "hold for 20 seconds, until light first becomes white, then blue"…

This has also been my experience writing documentation. You write "hold button for 5 seconds until light is blue", and someone will hold the button for 3 seconds until it turns white and ask why it's not working.

You don't know the difference between white and blue for sure until you've seen both. I actually recently had more or less this problem trying to set up my cable modem (maybe it was something like is it blinking, pulsing, or flickering, but anyway).

I try to set an example by providing copious context but I don't feel like others imitate me. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who has a theory of mind.

Re: Brown M&Ms, or Why No One Reads the Manual

#153

Post by koala_man » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:01 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #152

koala_man wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has also been my experience writing documentation. You write "hold button for 5 seconds until light is blue", and someone will hold the button for 3 seconds until it turns white and ask why it's not working.

You don't know the difference between white and blue for sure until you've seen both. I actually recently had more or less this problem trying to set up my cable modem (maybe it was something like is it blinking, pulsing, or flickering, but anyway). I try to set an example by providing copious context but I don't feel like others imitate me. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who has a theory of mind.

>You don't know the difference between white and blue for sure until you've seen both

I would fully expect a blue status LED to be an unambiguous 0000FF blue. If it was a soft baby blue, I would probably not have recognized it.