I could say job-related things or my hobbies, but Ima go with Google-fu. Maybe just search engine fu.
I know way too many 'first page people' when it comes to results. No fuckin' way. Learn how to dig. Do not take no for an answer from a search engine without trying a range of strategies to find what you're looking for.
OK, I'm lying. This is part of my job. I teach academic research, and I hear these people with two sources tell me there aren't enough sources for them to do a research paper on a given topic or that all these peer-reviewed journal articles say the same thing.
But it does extend into non-academic life. I was out of town, my older brother needed a U-Haul, drove 40 minutes to a place he knew, but there was a U-Haul less than 10 minutes away that he couldn't find.
Highly developed sense of smell (sometimes a liability)
Ability to identify voice actors with high accuracy
I once identified the source of a minute gas leak in my basement, which had evaded the calibrated detection equipment of the utility company, so I guess I can’t say it’s completely useless.
Automating functional tests for products and their subassemblies while on the manufacturing line.
We do write tests for our software too though. The projects are written in golang, unittests sprinkled in with go’s builtin test framework. Integration tests use our in house product simulations that were originally designed for firmware validation.
By feel I can identify 20 lb, 24 lb, 28 lb, 65 lb cover, 110 lb cover, and 12 pt matte paper. I’m increasingly impressed by people’s business cards as a result, as it is often much, much heavier than 12 pt matte.
Using comparison I can distinguish 80 lb semi-gloss cover, 100 lb semi-gloss cover, 8 pt gloss, 10 pt gloss, and 12 pt gloss. (But then again, most people could, given multiple choices rather than a free-response question.)
In case you’re legitimately asking: No, it’s just cheaper and fancier versions of normal printer paper and cardstock (cover and cardstock are essentially the same thing). You just feel its texture, maybe shake it a little, figure out its weight.
But I don’t spend 40 hours doing the same thing. I do a bunch of different regular bullshit that you can’t really be “good” at, like sending emails and chatting with people on Teams.
Add comment