There’s often a skill that seem interesting, but I can’t see doing anything for me in my day-to-day life. What have you learned that was a lot more effort than the payoff was worth?
Hold my MCSE in NT4 and Novell
Gained the year Win2k dropped
Butterfly shuffle
I honestly can’t think of any, even though I have many examples that objectively seem to not have been worth the effort.
Easiest example is flight school. I went to a tech college for its professional piloting program. Got my private pilot cert and multi engine rating, and completed IFR in the simulator. But when it came time to sign up for IFR in a real plane, I couldn’t get approved for enough student loans to cover the cost, so I dropped out, switched to business school, got a tech job, and dropped out of business school too.
By all accounts, the debt I racked up (like $75k) and the pilot license I haven’t exercised in 14 years are all a huge waste. And my flight instructor was such an impatient ass that I feel mildly scarred from the times he yelled at me.
But, I will never get over the massive feeling of accomplishment I got from earning my private pilot certification. And even more so, earning my multi-engine rating. Even if I failed a part of each of those checkrides and had to retake those portions, I passed them. Even if I never fly again, I am so fucking proud of myself for earning those.
I guess since I never actually graduated from any of the many colleges I’ve dropped out from (three or four depending on how you count), pilot license is my closest analog.
Also have a CDL and skill with docking 53 foot trailers, and tons of forklift experience. Those haven’t been used in a very long time and I may never use them again, but still feel like important parts of me.
Making tofu from scratch. Also sourdough.
I love cooking in all forms, and there are a lot of things I happily do from scratch. I love baking bread, making my own oat milk, mixing up my own seitan from vital wheat gluten, and a whole bunch of other things.
But making tofu was something I tried a bunch of times and have ultimately given up on. It is extremely time consuming, very difficult to get right, and makes a worse product than what I can buy at the store. It isn’t even cheaper to do, as the cost of the soybeans and the cost of the premade tofu are about the same. I may make it on occasion if I plan on serving it on its own as a dish with soy sauce, but that is about it.
With sourdough, I found it easy to get into, but my husband and I both prefer our baked goods to be not sour, and we both have pretty sensitive tastebuds in that regard. It is easier for me to just use instant yeast whenever I need it and make something we both prefer to eat.
One day sourdough is not sour, and still easier than using commercial yeast. When I’m making sandwich bread I do it in a condensed timeline and the starter just works like a more robust version of yeast. You don’t have to make “the sourdough” as my kids call it (they ask for it because they like it but I do understand y’all’s preference.)
I use my starter to make bread, cinnamon rolls, donuts, once a puff pastry that was so annoying to make but maybe the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I just don’t buy yeast anymore.
Same with making ketchup! Just buy the cheap ketchup, it’s still better and less time consuming! I also agree with the sourdough. I prefer soft white breads over sourdough.
Taught myself how to snake spit. But now it sometimes happens on its own so I really wish I hadn’t trained my mouth so well.
Gleeking?
Haven’t heard that word since middle school.
Let me think -
Mostly software training at work for systems they immediately abandoned.
My interior design skills languish for lack of money.
Most of the other stuff I can do gets some use I think.
Functions and derivatives, from late high school to college. They were extremely tedious, and I had to learn tens of formulas I don’t use very often.
As an old time computer nerd I have uncountable examples of deprecated knowledge. There is no use in knowing how to use the reserved upper memory in autoexec.bat and config.sys, nor how to use Napster or Kazaa.
But all these skills do shape your brain and way of thinking.
Assembly language taught me to be precise and think before typing. Flash taught me that nothing lasts forever, as big as it might seem.
Eventually, all this adds up and creates a profile that is very demanded in my career.
That said, my mom taught me to thread a needle without looking. And I can’t sew, so that’s that.
I had to learn himem.sys and loadhigh when I was about 10 years old and the family PC HDD crashed. I had a copy of DOS and a manual the size of a phone book. The only way out was to write my own boot disk.
But yes, these days it’s a bit of a useless skill.
Yeah and to think we had to learn and find out stuff reading a book. A book!!
Wait, how do you thread a needle without looking?
It’s pretty cool to see once mastered because it takes less than a second and not many catch what happened.
You take the thread and wrap it around the needle and pull tight. Grab the thread with two fingers and pinch it. Slide the needle out and shove the needle’s eye into the pinched thread. When the thread goes through, grab it and pull it all the way.
The skill comes into play aiming the eye correctly and doing it fast.
It’s probably easier to understand watching a tutorial video.
I was intrigued and found a video. I think this is what you’re describing.
Yes that is exactly it! I’ve just learnt it’s called the fold method. You can feel the thread and the eye in the fingers it’s impressive to see it done fast in one shot, my mom worked knitting and sewing and probably didn’t even need to think about it.
Thanks. I know this method but I’ve never tried doing it without looking. Sounds like I’m doing it too slowly, something for me to practice.
Driving. Never used it.
English sheep counting, a base-20 number system. Often called Yan Tan Tethera. Lincolnshire is the best version.
Must. Resist. Rabbit-hole…
Every time I try to get into sheep counting I end up falling asleep…
Ventriloquism. I dont use it at all anymore. Learned it because i thought it would be fun and one could make some jokes with it but nah
I got a bunch of software certs for when I was first job hunting and now they either no longer exist or have been so changed that the certs don’t matter.
Novell cert gang!
Netware 3.X checking in!
certs are scam.
but they pad your resume and make test companies a lot of money.
Depends on the cert and the environment you are already in.
For example, I’m an IT Consultant, we kind of rely on ‘professional certs’ to get work at client projects, especially if a project is covering specific niches and we have consultants that have certifications within those niches.
Also, many of the more mainline certs can definitely be worth getting (especially in the early career stages), as a quick example some of the CompTIA certs like Networking+ (a colleague got his job with us solely with that cert btw)
Network engineer here, lacking experience that net+ lets me know a person has a base understanding of networking, enough to know if they even like it. I can work with that.
That’s probably the worst part of it. In some places they’re required or very helpful to have, even though they’re still complete bs and a scam. Cisco is the perfect example. Their certs are useless and constantly changing, they’re really expensive, and they don’t really teach you about the general subject (networking). They just shill their products and their proprietary, non compatible way of doing stuff, and you pay thousands for that. Yet jobs still want those certs, even if they don’t work with Cisco.
Getting a private pilot certificate. Was fun, but after going to every airport within range, not sure it was worth it.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to do in my life and this is tentatively on my bucket list. Problem is it’s crazy expensive and I don’t have use for it afterwards!
How did the process of getting the cert go for you?
You could steal planes
If I had to do it again, I’d start with the end goal and work backwards. It was a long time ago, I was single with no extra expenses, had a decent job, and thought it might be fun to learn. If I had wanted to become a professional pilot, the calculation would have been very different.
Getting the cert mainly involved putting in the hours. Having a good instructor helps a lot. Also, not making any stupid mistakes. I almost stalled the plane hard on my first solo touch and go. The hardest part was getting used to the ATC lingo and not stuttering too much. I got an aircraft band radio with a headphone and joined all the weirdos who liked to sit at the end of airport runways.
At least you didn’t go all the way through Instrument rating and Commercial license, only to realize ADHD was a thing and also not treatable while maintaining a medical.
I was already working in tech so the backup plan is chugging along fine; but goddamn the student loans…
I can relate! Left a longer comment elsewhere on this post but yeah I forgot and recently re-remembered how devastating to aviation prospects it is to be on ADHD meds. At least I got cut off midway through IFR tho so my loans weren’t even worse for no financial payoff
What are the rules around flying a small plane with ADHD? I’m unclear if one needs to be off meds for an extended period to get a private license
I believe for even a third-class medical a pilot needs to be off ADHD medication for over 4 years, with additional screening/testing involved if they have been prescribed. My knowledge is limited since I have never been prescribed such meds and only realized I have some level of ADHD due to my son getting a diagnosis. He only took the meds for a year or two in elementary school before he opted to stop due to side effects and his brain overcoming that developmental hurdle.
It sounds terrible, but my advice would be that unless your ADHD is severe enough to demand medication you should never ever tell an Aviation Medical Examiner or standard doctor about ADHD suspicions if flying is something you want to do. I could technically still go fly if I found the time, and have never felt I was distracted given the degree that flying a plane engages all parts of your brain.
There is a dark side to this way of thinking though, as any sort of deviation from the norm with mental health or cognitive performance is often pushed under the rug instead of being treated due to fear of losing livelihood. A tragic example was Germanwings Flight 9525.
The cost of leaded gas alone is financially painful.
I’m a trained electrician. Despite taking and passing a reputable school for it, I can’t get licensed to do it in my state because you have to have 2 years apprenticeship. You get an apprenticeship you have to go through a school supported by the union. The only school supported is the one they own.
Despite being fully capable of wiring a building to code, installing a solar array or electric car chargers I can’t do shit with the information and it way a year and $2k fucking wasted.
That’s not useless, that’s a corrupt state.
Not your fault at all.
If I’d taken the time to call around and figure this out beforehand or picked a school that arranged the apprenticeships, wouldn’t be out the time and money.
I’m not upset about it, I know more now and there’s plenty of dubious electricians that will inspect my work and sign off on it if I need to do anything. Plus I’m in mental health now which is my real passion.
Any chance you could get licensed in another state using what you know (without an apprenticeship) then seek licensing in your own state via some kind of reciprocity agreement with your home state?
Unfortunately my state doesn’t recognize it unless you have work history in that state. If I had the ability to move to another state to work for a year I wouldn’t come back to this hell hole.
Anyway to get credit via past knowledge? Like, test out of apprenticeship if you can? You may be able to prove experience via hours worked on timecards.
are you anti union or just anti this one school?
Unions are fantastic. The problem here is that after spending 2k and a year learning, I was told that the only way I could get the apprenticeship hours needed to get licensed is to spend another 2k and another year going to a different school for the exact same class using the exact same books because no one in my area will take you on unless you use this school.
I cannot test out, I cannot transfer credit, I cannot skip it. Because this is the standard in place and going against it violates their agreements with the union, I cannot work in my city. I’m all for unions, but any organization can be corrupted and this is exactly what it is.
Reading is hard.
They clearly already went to school for it before moving to that state.
Seems like he is anti monopoly.
Probably morse code. It was required for my ham radio license back in the day to read it at 10 WPM. I put quite a few hours into learning it through the koch method.
At the end of the day I’m just not very interested in getting a lot of contacts. I just like building and tinkering with radios.
My limited experience listening to ham radio operators with my scanner (listening to voice, not Morse code) is that when hams do get in contact with each other, they mostly talk about ham radios. Which, I mean, I guess is understandable, since it’s a common interest to all of them, but a lot of it is people who like building and tinkering with radios talking about building and tinkering with radios.
That’s often the topic on your local repeater or 80m ring.
Morse tends to be a bit more brief like “I’m in grid ab12cd and read you 599”, with a lot more abbreviations. Usually for competitions or just crossing off every square on your maidenhead-map.
I have a full UK licence, and I’m thinking of learning it. It’s one of those things, it sounds interesting for QRP etc. However I’m the same, I rarely speak to anyone anyway!
