Manual Manual

No, not a typo.

I need a manual to help me understand my manuals.

It seems everything I buy lately comes with a manual. And it takes a manual to decipher the manual.

Some examples:

A car. This is a big one, of course, and takes 3 manuals. Our car is a year old and I still can’t figure out how to adjust the side mirrors. I think they have their own manual.

An old bed. Maybe some duct tape will do?

A bed. Our 20+ year-old bed needs replacing. All I wanted was the same brand, same size, just new. Yeah, right. The manual for this is actually a folder of materials, starting with instructions for the day before the bed arrives (in 6 weeks!), the day of the bed’s arrival, and, of course, the care, feeding, and controls for the bed. (I did order a bed and not a baby, right?)

• Zoom. Here’s a sentence from the Zoom manual:

You manage what you’re sharing in its own window or portion of a window, while Zoom uses the floating window as with Speaker view’s full-screen mode, as shown in Figure 31 in Speaker View and Figure 57, below.          (from p. 146 of 280)

• A Turntable. A friend told me she just bought a turntable so she could play old records. You guessed it. It came with a manual. No longer just “lift needle and place at edge of record.”

• A phone. Never mind. Not enough space.

Anything you’d like to add?

 

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