this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Maybe I'll find it later but this reminds me of the reddit thread from last year where a GenZ kid made a post asking people how his desk phone worked, what all the buttons did, and so on.
No one told the poster how it worked at the time they were hired. They didn't want to admit to coworkers that they had no idea how it worked.
I think this extends way beyond just work though. People just don't know how anything works. They buy phones and have no idea how they work, cars, computers, everything is a black box to most people.
This isn't entirely their fault; the makers of these products have deliberately made them harder and harder to tinker with and learn from over the years.
But even the people who are supposed to know how things work don't know how they work - my experience hiring people is that basically anyone who grew up with home wifi, cell phones, online gaming instead of LAN parties, etc. doesn't know anything about how networks or computers actually function, no matter what degrees or certifications they claim to have.
I've asked people applying for network engineer positions to explain how the Internet works, and they thought I was being philosophical. Like, woah, man, how does the Internet work? The conceptual map just isn't there, even if I try to gently lead them through it.
how does the internet work tho?
It's a series of tubes
Magic blue smoke
I'm always terrified I'm going to accidentally hang up on a caller when I attempt to transfer them. Chalk it up to "was never trained on it, just used intuition and hope"
I stopped asking how anything worked at my first job and just googled the model to find a manual. The best I could get from other people was the one function they used.
On the other hand it's a skill that's come in useful in general, because 9/10 problems with stuff can be fixed by just reading the manual, and now I'm a custodian/handyman nearly all of the problems I'm faced with can be solved by reading a manual or watching a YouTube how-to.
This is why I say at minimum, learning how to solder and what basic electronic components are and do is an important skill in the times we live in. I've fixed so many things I would've otherwise thrown out and bought another, if I didn't know the basic stuff. They should really teach it to the younger folk in school.
Any suggested learning materials? That does sound very handy.
Sure, for books I recommend the "for Dummies" series of books on anything electronic. Some hobbyist electronic stores have all sorts of books and magazines you can get too (idk the name of any stores outside my country though, you'll have to look what stores in your country have that kind of thing. Those hobbyist magazines and books are what I learned from.
Online there's all sorts of stuff, a quick google search for me found a lot of good stuff on soldering and electronic components . Those "for Dummies" books are really good for the theory and math behind all of it. Also your local electronic shop might even have "learn to solder" kits you can practice on, they usually explain what all the components do and why you're making the thing. You can even find really cute custom ones on etsy if you want.
If you want to get started solderless, give arduino a go, they're really cheap and there's all sorts of projects that are fun, and/or useful, and you can even get your kids involved in many of their learning projects. Definitely pick up a kit (or a clone kit from AliExpress), it's lots of fun, and you learn some programming too.
This is a REALLY good recommendation. If you're interested in learning more about electronic bits, do this.
Thanks for the comprehensive answer. Time to hit the high seas and download a bunch of books for dummies lol.
YouTube is full of great hobbyist channels too, I can't really give a good recommendation on tutorial channels though. I'm sure you'll find something good if I you look around. I believe there's lots of arduino channels, plus arduino itself posts video tutorials.
I literally found the instruction manual for the pile of phones at a store I worked at and figured out how to make it do things that were useful.
One of which, was changing the fucking time after Day-Savings-Time because the phones were fancy enough to have it hard coded into them, but not fancy enough to be updated after the date of Daylight Savings changed. So for YEARS the phones would spend like four months with the wrong time until the time changed happened again.