Sunday's Digression Digest

For anyone who has read or written an appliance manual, read Lenore Skenazy's diatribe against product information which assumes consumers are imbeciles at best.  Unlike the Crayon industry discussed by Ms Skenazy, our industry has proof that consumers are not nearly the equal to the appliance responsibilities they have taken on.  Just imagine how much better all our lives would be if Appliance-Ed were up there with Driver's-Ed, and Sex as a right of passage.....sigh.
A few quotes from a randomly chosen rangehood manual:
     -"Do not touch the bulbs immediately after use.  The bulbs will remain hot for several minutes."
     -"Before servicing or cleaning the unit, switch power off at service panel and lock service panel."
     -"NEVER PICK UP A FLAMING PAN, you may be burned."

As our customer's ability to read or just focus on a single thought for 15 seconds declines, we have, in inverse proportion, perversely responded by creating all encompassing User Manual monstrosities.  How long until our manuals provide instruction normally covered by the autonomic nervous system ("upon tightening the screw, exhale fully").  Can we not assume a certain level of common knowledge of our customers with the understanding that those who, regrettably, get cut from the team were simply lucky to have played this long.  Let's dedicate ourselves to keeping manuals to 6 pages or less.

Lenore Skenazy recently gained a level of infamy and our admiration for allowing her 9 year old to travel New York's subways alone.  This reminds me of the 4 mile bicycle treks on my Raleigh Chipper I took as a 1st grader each weekend to my grandparents.  The route was an old sharply curved Indian path that had been widened to allow 2 cars to pass, but not 2 cars + 1 bicyclist.  The Sports Man's Club was a rough blue collar bar in the neighborhood which produced an endless variety of long remembered wrecks.  Every tree, or rock or telephone pole on those 4 miles had a story, or several.  The human blood puddle which formed with each rain storm at the base of the tree notable for the motorcycle disc brake jammed several inches into it.  Mooney's Hill where a sudden downward angle and veer to the right gave several motorcyclist momentary weightlessness and perpetual death or paralysis.  The family on a curve that installed several cubic-yard blocks of concrete to protect house and lawn from the regular roll overs.  Seems to me that a 9 year old on the subway is no great shakes.

UPDATE June 23:  Reader Comment
Way back in 1989 I was a rep for the Miele line of vacuum cleaners. As a motivated sales rep, I while reading the user manual as product training, I came across a passage that said something like: "Do not pick up gasoline or flammable liquids".

In a discussion with some of the top people at Miele, the subject of the user manuals came up. The context of the discussion was that the manuals were printed English language translations of the German language manuals, and sometimes there were comical results. I raised the issue of the passage about sucking up gasoline.

Surprisingly, not only were they aware of the passage, they had a story about why the passage was included. Seems there was a high end yacht several miles off the east coast. The yacht had a gas leak, and the 'customer' apparently used the Miele Vac as a wet vac to suck up the gas. The resulting explosion sunk the yacht - and now every Miele Vacuum user manual warns against sucking up gas.

20 years later, here is the actual current manual verbiage: "Do not use to pick up flammable or combustible liquids, such as gasoline, or use in areas where they may be present. The vacuum cleaner could explode."