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?
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?
Is organic chemistry a skill? I took that class twice and still feel like it barely left an imprint on me. Other than having a fight or flight reaction to benzene rings.
Otherwise, electrical wiring at a very basic level. I’m never going to be confident enough that I’m not going to burn the place down to do it on my own, and what I did learn I don’t really have a use for. Basic electrical safety knowledge is really all you need to get through day to day life.
I did the intro and year course for Chem majors. I decided to focus on the analytical stuff but left the field entirely to do software development. I don’t know what I’d study if I had to start over.
I guess it’s good that electrical wiring scares people because a lot of amateurs do a shit job, but it’s not that hard. Use grommets to protect the sheath from metal corners. Join wires in a junction box instead of just electrical taped rat tails stuffed into the wall. Use the current rating of the breaker to tell you what gauge of wire to use (it’s different solid vs stranded). Use solid conductor on anything that is never going to move (generally behind a wall). Use stranded for anything that is going to flex. Always have the breaker off when you’re working on it.
That’s pretty much it. Electrical is probably easier than plumbing. I’ve done plumbing, too, but I hate it. But when you have a 100 year old house and no money, you do what you must. Now I can swap out a toilet in an hour easy. Last year I had to learn to replace the rotted flooring at the same time as the toilet — that sucked. And I fucked it up, but not badly enough to tear it out and redo it.
Anyway, give me electrical any day.