Regular expressions
I really wish I’d spent a day learning regex 2 decades ago or so.
End up finding more complicated ways around everything because I never learned it properly.
If I pay attention to a written piece of information (name, phone number, address, short instructions, that kind of stuff) I will remember it for months and years. Comes in handy when working with complex policies and legislation!
This is balanced by the fact that I have trouble retaining auditory information. If you tell me your name, I’ve forgotten it before you’ve even finished talking. (But if I catch it on your badge out of the corner of my eye, I’ll remember it for years.) The only exception are dog names - those I have no trouble remembering.
Ability to calm down and read instructions or manuals. I don’t understand people’s insistence on figuring EVERYTHING out.
Don’t get me wrong I love solving problems, but sometimes the solution to the problem is just finding the answer- literally right there. RTFM.
Good at google. Which should be easy for everyone to learn, but a lot of people don’t.
I am good at that too, and think it may come from being able to understand some computer syntax. It’s being able to form natural language queries. Asking things in a way a machine can understand.
I’ve been told I’m very good at reading people.
My moderate skill at hacky sack has surely prevented many things that I’ve dropped from becoming damaged.
I can carry 3 full pint glasses in one hand and 2 in the other. If they’re empty, I can carry 4 in one hand and 3 in the other. It comes in handy more than I would expect
I can cook and I’m good at it, I know how to grow veggies, I know how to fix things, both mechanical and electrical/electronical. But the best skill I have is that I know how to spend time when wifi/power is down.
Remarkably limber & agile & can contort myself into small tight tricky spaces, and balance on unstable surfaces, and climb anything.
What kind of everyday tasks does that help with?
Neat handed, so good at caulking and cake decorating. Not afraid to figure things out or make mistakes that helps with a lot of stuff and is less helpful with some other stuff.
Spreadsheets:
I have an extremely high tolerance to mundane, repetitive tasks because of my vivid imagination. I can just keep doing the same mindless bullshit all day while I’m somewhere else in my head.
Poker face.
No matter what I am thinking internally, it does not show externally. Essential skill for customer service.
I do not have a good poker face, I think more customers need to get laughed at.
It would be good for some of them.
Oh, some of them need laughed or yelled at, for certain.
I, however, need continued employment.
I wouldn’t call it a skill but I’m really mechanically decent (3D puzzles and Rube Goldberg aptitude, that kind of thing), and my visual memory is really good, so I have the uncanny ability to tear apart household appliances, do something else for hours or days, then return and slap it all back together about as quickly with no leftover mystery screws. I just look at the shit all strewn about, and can somehow recall the very last thing I was holding and work backwords
How many parts are we talking about? Something like a washing machine has only few ways to go back together, even if you take it all the way apart, which is a massive bonus with these highly engineered things like home appliances. Things that need to go back together in the same relative orientation etc. like engines are a different story.
Not who you responded to, but I did this to an engine after tearing it apart 3 years before.
It’s a weird skill, just being mechanically inclined and a bit ADHD to know how shit just works and goes together.
Amazing skill to have!
I think the half of the dash and the entire center console on a G37 was about the trickiest thing. Center console lid has a little gear-driven mechanism and you need to flip the entire console upside down to fix, but I needed to stop everything and go to the dealership for a little plastic cog.
But we’re in the middle of moving into a new place and our dishwasher was leaking so I pulled the entire ‘tub’ yesterday and inside front panel off to see if fitment was an issue, mostly wasting time while a couch was scheduled to be delivered, so I stopped the dishwasher project to assemble the couch (power reclining thing), then had to put the entire thing back together afterword (one of those Maytag ‘chopper’ models with a built in food disposal thing). But to pull the tub I had to remove the heater blower and chop chop thing and the control board and the water jets and all that… And then I realized a new dishwasher is like 500 bucks lol
Hahaha oh boy are you living the life! Where would you rather be!
It’s kind of fun like 3D jigsaw puzzles but I’d honestly rather not be fixing things so much. We got this new place, inspection turned out fine, but turns out previous owner didn’t find a single stud and used 1" screws on everything in the drywall. Had to redo all the closet shelves, hang closet doors, you name it lol
A strong sense of spatial awareness, accurately eyeballing measurements, and reverse engineering things in my head without physically taking them apart.
It comes in really handy as a welder, machinist, and a 3D print hobbyist.
dyslexic?