Damn
I was hoping for 80586. . .
IKEA's finally acknowledged what plenty of us have learned the hard way: it's stuff can be so wretchedly frustrating to assemble that outsourcing the job is sometimes the kindest and fastest option. The born-in-Sweden, taxed-who-knows-where homewares company has therefore acquired an outfit called TaskRabbit that offers a …
Thank Gates! For a moment I feared they were trying to decompile the code my former employer sold them back in the nineties.
Or better, we gave them computers and software, while our company got a load of office furniture. Nor Svenksva Kroner changed hands so presumably no taxes to pay.
I have neighbours who have come from let's call it "warm and humid place". They will not do anything which involves assembly, maintenance, etc out of principle. The head of the family has achieved the stated goal established by the "Son In Law Development Plan". He has become a manager (actually low level PHB) somewhere. So the Mother In Law can now cart him around the village every summer glowing with pride: "See, my son in law is a manager, he does not do manual labour".
To illustrate my point, as a result of not doing anything at all which can potentially involve the dirty manual labour thingie they ended up with seized brakes on his wife's bike. So he sees me in the standard Slavic position under the car with just my feet sticking out and asks: "Are you technical?". I really regret that my CCTV does not record voice as it was asked with an intonation which was somewhere in-between "Are you just sick, or it is a congenital condition". I had a look, told him all it needs is a couple of drops of WD40 and someone to move them a bit after that an GAVE him the WD40. The moment the wife returned picking up the kids from school I was given the WD40 back - though shall not violate the "Son In Law Development Plan", because Mama will be told and she will be very unhappy.
We have imported several millions of these on H1B or their UK work permit equivalents. They will pay for this service because if they do not Mama will be unhappy. Son "has become". Son cannot do manual labour - it is inappropriate.
It will take 50-100 years for this mentality to sort itself out. It WAS the same in Europe (especially Eastern Europe) ~ 70-80 years ago. It ended with the generation before our parents - they also approached it in the same manner. Starting from the generation after them, they could not longer afford the luxury of treating "being technical" as a congenital disorder.
Well much as I mentally hold non technical people as some kind of lower class who should be paid minimum wage for "supervising" the clever technical people who do the work , that dosent seem to be the way the world works.
At least your neighbours have a plan and a work ethic.
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"Is this because of 'Millennials' who may have seen exotic countries, lived at home with mom and dad for 20-odd years, and never had to do anything on their own or even <gasp> with their hands?"
actually I see this as "job opportunity" for teenagers. Excessively high minimum wages and illegal immigration have basically left teens with very few good opportunities for earning money, RESULTING in things like "living with mom and dad for 20 years"...
If I were a teenager, I'd do it. I used to do things like walking a lawnmower around the neighborhood looking for people in serious need of gardening help, then "do it for 5 bucks" - a one-time hit.
pirate icon because, after all, I _AM_ a privateer!
1) not reading manuals is a Y chromosome trait...
2) the stuff is pretty self-explaining
That said: could be useful for some. On the other hand: probably against the labour or tax laws etc in several countries. At least how it will work on practice. Those who assemble the stuff will not pay taxes on the little money they get, and not contribute to health and social insurance. And expect the public to pay for them later on.... but that's a general problem.
"A manual is a set of instructions to follow in a logical order, just follow the steps one by one. Nobody's asking to perform a quadruple bypass off a manual, so just get on with the basic stuff. If you can't do *that*, then there's something wrong with you" - that's what I used to tell myself until I became friend with a guy who has a degree in biosomething who could not put together a cabinet despite the clearly explained instructions. What would have taken me 10 minutes ended up taking 45 instead because he wanted to help. Then he cooked can't remember what, the food was delicious and it suddenly dawned on me: he assembled ingredients. No matter how easy the recipe is, I follow the steps one by one, but it just doesn't taste nice, or the way it's intended to taste, and the mess is the same as if I had cooked for everybody in India and China. Same with fixing punctures in my bike - some kids could do it in a few minutes, I'm 41 and ended up having to buy solid tyres ( which are a great invention ). I cycle everywhere, but GPS on phones changed my life because I'm useless at reading maps - I was in Barcelona with a non particularly bright ex and we went for a long walk. At some point he stopped before I could realise he brought us back to the hotel, through the maze of many tiny streets, without a map. All very basic things which I realised are my Achille's heels, while it comes natural to other people.
So, in my experience at least, the Y chromosome can be very selective in what it decides to allow you to be able to do. I will never criticise anybody ever again for their hopelessness with something I find piss easy. Turns out I'm often equally useless with some stuff that others can do effortlessly
PS - I am not saying you were criticising anybody in your comment! :-)
I always "read over" the manual, but when assembling furniture, you really do have to follow the procedure, to avoid the 'where does THIS panel go" problem, when you put the screws into the wrong one, etc. etc. and embarassingly have to remove them and put them into the RIGHT one...
[I got used to following procedures in the military. sometimes it makes more sense to do that]
I think the service already exists here in Portugal. This is also one of the places where educated people (often) take pride in not doing anything practical.
For me it is a choice. I do not mess about with my car as I make more money running my business, but assembling IKEA furniture is a welcome bit of meditation.
I am a fan; You normally can't buy the materials for the same price, if you follow the instructions you end up with what the picture shows, the holes are where they are supposed to be, the bits fit together, and there is very rarely anything missing. People who complain have not tried the alternatives.
"Hello? Yeah is that John Davis, yeah bought this Swedish thing and I can't get it up! It's tall and stiff and won't stay up long enough for me to screw hard. Can you help me? Hello?"
An hour later, open the door...
"Hello there, I'm PC Smith. We've had a report that disturbing and obscene calls can been made from this address to a local old-job worker."
If you ask me everyone should assemble their own furniture by law It would teach practical skills that they may or may not have got elsewhere.
Same for other areas , like cooking , reading writing
We like to make sure everyone is literate , I would add knowing which way to turn a screwdriver to that list , and how to boil an egg , and a few other life skillz
Otherwise where will it end?
"what do you do?"
"I'm a professional ass wiper for people who feel they arnt qualified or confident enough to do their own"
Actually I think I just described Desktop Support .
Kit Cars are certainly legal in the UK; Caterham sell them for £17k, (http://uk.caterhamcars.com/cars/self-assembly) which given that they go like greased shit off a lightening shovel is somewhat of a bargain compared to that over-priced Italian nonsense.
I regularly see them (well, sunny Bank Holiday weekends, anyway) blathering along the B roads around where I live, and judging by the flies in the teeth of the drivers, they are rather good fun.
I've done this very thing before for neighbours, friends and even a couple of colleagues. It's not just about following instructions is it, it's dexterity, strength and above all confidence.
Bear in mind not everyone has the family resource to tap into with these things. Plus it always makes a nice change form 'setting up the broadband' kind of calls
Never had an issue with Ikea stuff myself, put up quite a lot of it over several houses for myself and elderly relatives over the years.
I had an issue with an Argos wardrobe/dresser I was helping a friend assemble, turns out the instructions were actually wrong, I guess serves us right for buying British :P
https://youtu.be/1EBfxjSFAxQ?t=55
And the reason you want to pay a lot for flatpak you have to pay to get somebody else to assemble?
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Hey, can I have a Sig that says:
"Can't we have headlines that actually tells us what the articles are about, or a serious viewing mode, where each author is responsible for supplying a serious title, or get fired?" everytime I post, so I don't have to repeat myself?