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?
I can’t learn skills I don’t like to learn. As time wasted having fun is time well spent, I never learned a skill not worth the effort of learning it.
I got my Realtor’s license without realizing just how much it cost to break into the business. I did it for a year, and then dropped it.
That’s the only one I can think of. Typically, I don’t learn on spec, I learn as I go, “on the job”. So, what I’m learning is directly applicable to what I need to do.
For instance, I recently refurbished an old, cheap desk. I learned to apply laminate with contact cement. It’s not hard, but it was my first time doing it. A few weeks later I’m at a counter at a business and they have laminate that is separating from the base, and I knew exactly why. They told me that someone had been hired just a few weeks earlier to repair the same problem, and it happened again. I knew how to fix it right, but I didn’t need a job so I just commiserated with them.
What’s expensive about breaking into the realtor business? Advertising for a customer base?
The crowbar.
I got half of my A+ certification before deciding fuck this and going into a different career. I can code very simply, I have very basic networking skills, and I use none of it. I’m amazed at people who can do it but I am not cut out for IT anything I don’t think. Too much work.
I’m a big believer that computation should be a skill we learn in school. I think a lot of normal people would benefit from being able to make some simple scripts in python for personal use or even just for fun. I hope you don’t always think that the coding skills are useless <3. That said I agree the networking stuff you can throw out the window! I know enough to know that I will never fully understand how network topology works. Every time I get to the /24 or whatever that’s called my eyes start rolling.
Not just computation, but algorithmics. People should learn how to break down any complex task in a suite of simple, logical, deterministic steps and conditions.
At least it would help me stop getting requirement written in “human logic” that are literally impossible to implement…
As a network guy at work, it took me a long time to grok it, but now it amazes me how poorly these concepts are usually taught. They’re actually fairly straightforward in concept. Oh well, it means I have a secure job, and most people don’t really need to know.
Too much work
Shit, brother, I got into IT largely because I’m too lazy to do mindless shit over and over the hard way. It was a strong motivator to learn regex and coding in general. I automate that shit and then I fuck off with the time saved.
Or at least I used to. I was too good at it so now they want me to keep other developers from fucking off all day, and that’s a lot of work.
I ruined my diaphragm learning how to burp my ABCs
It was only sort of worth it
Wait, that’s a thing?
Maybe ruined is a bit hyperbolic , the diaphragm is actually tough and iirc skeletalbut it strains the muscles so i gave myself acid reflux and burp when i talk sometimes
Worth it? Only when im not having acid reflux
It got better over time though, the secret was simply to stop being a weird dork child who learned to force burp for a parlor trick
Man, I got so lucky, I managed to learn how to burp my ABCs and I can still do it approaching 40 without I’ll effect. Also it turns out it is useful as a skill for managing a trans oesophageal ultrasound, a horrible procedure where you swallow something a bit smaller than a kiwi fruit connected to a tube and then have to just choke on it for 20-30 minutes. You can deal with the sensation because it is not dissimilar to the inhale of the burp but extended for the whole time.
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.
All the useless mathematical technics from studying physics at university. Now working in software engineering, I barely use more than highschool math, sometimes.
Instead of spending weeks writing down equations I wish I had learned more about science history, breakthrough experiments, other sciences etc.
Those maths are only useful for a tiny percentage of the students that will eventually become theoritical physics researchers.
It’s the curse of studying science in France, it’s unnecessarily math heavy.EE here and the math was hard. Barely touch any of it now, but I miss it and I wish it was more practical. Maybe it was in training me to be very precise and methodical.
But in solid state physics, having the math to follow and understand maxwells equations, e=mc^2, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Priceless.
Priceless for your current job or your own enjoyment?
My own enjoyment. But EE degree has certainly paid for itself.
I used to work for a software consulting firm and one of our clients was NASA. Nothing exciting, just replacing an expensive proprietary system written in a commercial language with an open source one used for analyzing data from the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) and the then to be launched Interstellar Boundary Explorer (I BEX).
The maths were so far beyond my two time community college drop out, barely graduated high school, self taught background I couldn’t even explain them. Fortunately we used paired programming and had enough mathemagitians on staff I never had to deal with the maths alone. My contribution was mostly UI and data visualization.
Often this kind of math is so specialized you can only learn it on a job with a senior. Adapting the math to discreet computing is also a challenge, but usually there some library doing it for you, like the Fast Fourier Transform.
For sure, even with several people on the team with advanced math degrees and even one former astronomer we still had to rely heavily on the NASA team for most of the math we built in to the program. Though we tried to include as little as possible because the client felt that anyone working in the software for publication would need to verify all of the calculations manually anyway so we gave them a python script tool to let them cook.
Another project we had was control software for a flow cytometer which did have to bake in a lot of math around particle physics but the physics math was done before I rotated onto the project so I only got a synopsis.
I think that the mathematical concepts that I learned were mostly generally useful.
But what was useless was the emphasis on doing work by hand. My particular pet peeve is all the time I spent in calculus classes being taught techniques to do symbolic integration by hand.
I was doing a math project once, working with the husband of one of my calculus professors. He himself was a mathematics professor. I dropped by his office. He had to work something out that involved a symbolic integration and fired up Mathematica. I said “You can probably do all this by hand”. He laughed and said something like, “Nobody who has to do actual work with this is going to waste time doing this by hand”. He was right.
Today, I use
maximato do symbolic integration. It’s in my Linux distro and on my Android phone.
I really can’t think of any that weren’t worth the effort. Some took more effort than others, but even if they don’t make me any money, I don’t regret learning then.
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.
Are you me?
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)
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.
I have to disagree with you on the Cisco stuff. It absolutely teaches you foundation networking.
I remember looking into getting Azure and GCP certs some years ago and went through a few prep courses. It turns out getting the initial certs for cloud services like them is basically to be a salesman for them. It’s like they’re training IT people inside companies to be embedded salespeople for them. Insidious, and kinda genius.
Oh yeah they do. I got my Google GAIL a while back and my son just finished up some AWS one, they are both just variations of ‘Which of our products would you use for x?’.
C|EH was more fun to study for than test for.
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.
Novell cert gang!
Netware 3.X checking in!
Removed by mod
Learning the Dvorak keyboard layout.
It seemed worth it at the time when I was playing a lot of monkeytype and I still love typing with it. But I made the full switch and forgot how to touch type with qwerty. So now I have to switch layout every time I use hotkeys and switch back to type. Switching is fast but an extra step.
I decided to switch because I think it’s a superior layout but honestly it’s not even that worth it. You will not gain speed, just more comfortable and satisfying.
Oh hey I did this a decade ago as well!
During that time, I was obsessed with typing faster thinking that would get me paid more at my job.
A major point: you can’t help people on their computer without mentally switching
Helping coworkers was annoying. Helping my mom set up her computer was annoying.
Descriptive Geometry.
Basically obsolete by the time of mastering the techniques due to CAD software.
Here’s lesson notes from somebody.
https://www.archweb.com/en/gallery/descriptive-geometry-lessons/
The field starts out simple with orthographic projections, but later you work on problems like : you have a top view of a 3D tube angled in space and another tube crossing it at an arbitrary angle, and then another view.
Find this smallest distance between the two tubes in space.
Neither are down the tube axis, so you start the process if finding the axes and producing a head on view to develop the crossing tube to then find a point to point minimum measure between the two cylinders.
By the time I’d gone through all this, in CAD you just click the two tubes and ask for the distance (min or max)
People pleasing, spent nearly four decades getting so good at it thinking if only I could be just that little bit “more good” that I’d get what I want and need from people and relationships only to realize I’ve been plenty good this whole time, it’s a fools errand and I only attract people who will move the goal posts every time because it’s what I expect and have trained for
That’s sad. I’m sorry.
Even if you don’t end up using it, the process of learning something often shapes us into who we are. So it’s tough to say something isn’t worth the effort.
For example, I learned to read sheet music when I was younger and taking piano lessons. It took a while and I don’t really use that skill today since I mostly play by ear or tab (fretted instruments). However, I appreciate understanding what the notes mean and think it made me more musical overall.
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?
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.
You could steal planes
The cost of leaded gas alone is financially painful.
When I taught flight school, we flew planes that ran on automotive gasoline. (see also: Rotax 912). Even then paying for fuel ate us alive.
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.
Cursive I guess.
