Houses and the devices in them have a tendency toward quirkiness. It usually happens slowly and I adapt to the quirks so that I hardly notice them until I have to explain them to someone else. Then I start feeling silly for putting up with such an obviously defective gadget.
I’m thinking about quirks because we just replaced all the doorknobs for exterior doors. The front doorknob wouldn’t unlock with a key, you could only unlock it from inside. This meant we had to use the bolt to lock the house when we left. But the bolt wouldn’t slide into place if the door was shut tight. Instead you had to shut the door loosely. The back door would bounce back open unless it was shut gently but firmly. The garage doorknob simply came off in my hand one day which prompted us to change all three.
While we were in a house fixing mood, Howard also replace the laundry room light switch. It didn’t turn off. Flip up = on. Flip down = on. There was one spot halfway between up and down that was off, but you had to carefully balance the switch into that position to get it to stay. The off spot was increasingly difficult to find and had begun requiring sideways motions. Very strange for a switch. Howard replaced it and it works normally. Now I just have adjust my habits of thought that tell me trying to turn off the light isn’t worth the trouble.
We still need to fix the switch in the girls’ bedroom which doesn’t have an ‘on’ position.
Our dishwasher is less quirky than it used to be. For a long time we had to make sure to hit the ‘cancel’ button in between dish loads. The water wasn’t completely draining out and if we didn’t empty it we’d end up washing the next batch in left over dirty rinse water. Frequent additions of vinegar to dish loads seems to have broken up the deposits that caused that problem. Our glasses are clean again.
The clothes washer still makes clothes smell funny unless I run one batch in three on hot water. Also it over flowed once, so I’m afraid to use it on the largest load size.
The kid computer sometimes doesn’t realize that it has a CD drive. This panics it so much that it won’t boot properly and has to be restarted.
My computer can not be on unsupervised because the cooling fan is dying. We’re going to get it fixed, but we keep getting distracted.
There is a lump underneath the wall to wall carpet in the family room. I’m pretty sure it is a loose piece of padding that failed to get pulled up when the carpet was replaced.
The keyboard tray on the kid’s computer desk often gets jammed underneath the desk. I have to hit it at exactly the right angle to jar it completely off track and then I can manhandle it back into position.
The fronts fell off of three of our kitchen drawers rendering them unusable and ugly. We used duct tape on one of them so that it could still be used for our silverware. I still have the drawer fronts, but we need to build new drawer boxes for them to attach to.
The water line in our fridge sometimes freezes up so that no water will come out. It seems to have to do with too much ice in the bin becuase emptying the bin will cause the line to unfreeze about an hour later. When the line unfreezes it spits some water out onto the floor.
All of the labels on our fusebox are only mildly accurate depictions of what throwing that fuse will actually turn off.
Funny how we’ll live with a minor annoyance for years without thinking about it. Some of those things would be easy to fix, we just never seem to get around to doing it.
Oddly enough, this reminds me of my job.
Our codebase is fairly fragile, largely due to its complexity. I work on an internal system, and like other internal systems, it doesn’t get quite the “make-sure-the-customers-can’t-break-it” attention that our external website gets.
I’m reminded of it because our tools and services work for the most part… but a lot of them require hitting them in just the right way, or finding that nice little balance on the toggle switch. We could fix them without too much difficulty if we really wanted, but we’re preoccupied with other things, usually.
Oddly enough, this reminds me of my job.
Our codebase is fairly fragile, largely due to its complexity. I work on an internal system, and like other internal systems, it doesn’t get quite the “make-sure-the-customers-can’t-break-it” attention that our external website gets.
I’m reminded of it because our tools and services work for the most part… but a lot of them require hitting them in just the right way, or finding that nice little balance on the toggle switch. We could fix them without too much difficulty if we really wanted, but we’re preoccupied with other things, usually.
Psych class lessons
One of the things I learned in one of my psychology classes is that people get what influences happiness wrong. They think if they break their leg or become paraplegic they won’t be happy, and if they have the best car or win the lottery they will be. However, this isn’t true. It’s the little things. The door that squeaks every day, or the dog that’s always thrilled to see you. These things lift you up or take you down every day. The big things lift you up or take you down, but after a while, you return to your normal medium. The little things pull you away from your medium every day, making you a little unhappy every single day.
Psych class lessons
One of the things I learned in one of my psychology classes is that people get what influences happiness wrong. They think if they break their leg or become paraplegic they won’t be happy, and if they have the best car or win the lottery they will be. However, this isn’t true. It’s the little things. The door that squeaks every day, or the dog that’s always thrilled to see you. These things lift you up or take you down every day. The big things lift you up or take you down, but after a while, you return to your normal medium. The little things pull you away from your medium every day, making you a little unhappy every single day.
Re: Psych class lessons
If these things were actively bugging me or affecting my mood, I’d fix them. Instead I just toggle the quirks to get the result I want without even thinking about it.
Re: Psych class lessons
If these things were actively bugging me or affecting my mood, I’d fix them. Instead I just toggle the quirks to get the result I want without even thinking about it.
We got our fuse panel replaced with a breaker panel last fall. We haven’t even started labeling the switches yet. 🙂 The one time I’ve had to use the breakers, the popped breaker showed itself plainly. One of these days….
We got our fuse panel replaced with a breaker panel last fall. We haven’t even started labeling the switches yet. 🙂 The one time I’ve had to use the breakers, the popped breaker showed itself plainly. One of these days….
What Sandra calls a “fusebox” is, in fact, a breaker box. We’re just old enough to remember what those things USED to be called.
It’s easy to tell when something’s been tripped. It’s a real pain to find the right breaker so that you can (for instance) safely replace the light-switch in the laundry room.
–Howard
What Sandra calls a “fusebox” is, in fact, a breaker box. We’re just old enough to remember what those things USED to be called.
It’s easy to tell when something’s been tripped. It’s a real pain to find the right breaker so that you can (for instance) safely replace the light-switch in the laundry room.
–Howard
As one of the users of said internal system, I have to say that learning the little quirks would have been much easier if there had been someone to warn me about them rather than just the documentation which explains how things are /supposed/ to work. Just one of the disadvantages of being across the pond, and one I am quite haapy to live with.
On the other hand, complex systems are expected to have quirks, and dangerous complex systems are expected to have quirks that bite. 😉
As one of the users of said internal system, I have to say that learning the little quirks would have been much easier if there had been someone to warn me about them rather than just the documentation which explains how things are /supposed/ to work. Just one of the disadvantages of being across the pond, and one I am quite haapy to live with.
On the other hand, complex systems are expected to have quirks, and dangerous complex systems are expected to have quirks that bite. 😉
As far as I recall, we are required by law to have accurately labeled breaker boxes so emergency services (or anyone dealing with a problem) can turn the right switches on and off. (Although this doesn’t really make much of a difference.)
Also, sometimes the switches don’t actually drop when the breaker trips, especially with older boxes. This can make finding the right switch to turn back on when there are three marked “plugs, lounge and dining room” and one of the three circuits is full of PCs…
As far as I recall, we are required by law to have accurately labeled breaker boxes so emergency services (or anyone dealing with a problem) can turn the right switches on and off. (Although this doesn’t really make much of a difference.)
Also, sometimes the switches don’t actually drop when the breaker trips, especially with older boxes. This can make finding the right switch to turn back on when there are three marked “plugs, lounge and dining room” and one of the three circuits is full of PCs…
You could always just throw the main breaker and cut everything off for the little amount of time that will take.
“Fusebox” – “Breaker box” do you know, until someone mentioned it, I didn’t realise Sandra was using the old name. I guess I belong to the crossover generation too…
You could always just throw the main breaker and cut everything off for the little amount of time that will take.
“Fusebox” – “Breaker box” do you know, until someone mentioned it, I didn’t realise Sandra was using the old name. I guess I belong to the crossover generation too…
I think it’s just the time it will take to fix things like that vs all the things that have to be done.
As to the breakers, ours are labeled… but the connections are really funky. The bathroom and my sewing room are on the same one… which is not odd until you realize that they are at opposite ends of the house. The other annoying thing is that there is no main breaker… so turning everything off requires flipping them all. (I don’t think this is legal. The men who wired the house probably bribed the inspector.) My method is to make sure that all things like computers that might be damaged by a power outage are off and start at the top unil the lights I want go out.
I think it’s just the time it will take to fix things like that vs all the things that have to be done.
As to the breakers, ours are labeled… but the connections are really funky. The bathroom and my sewing room are on the same one… which is not odd until you realize that they are at opposite ends of the house. The other annoying thing is that there is no main breaker… so turning everything off requires flipping them all. (I don’t think this is legal. The men who wired the house probably bribed the inspector.) My method is to make sure that all things like computers that might be damaged by a power outage are off and start at the top unil the lights I want go out.
Make it show itself!
You could move the microwave, AC, and a couple computers into that room temporarily! Add a curling iron and a hair dryer if that’s not enough load.
Switches don’t get to be spartacus.
Make it show itself!
You could move the microwave, AC, and a couple computers into that room temporarily! Add a curling iron and a hair dryer if that’s not enough load.
Switches don’t get to be spartacus.