__________ is/are overrated.

[formulanone]

Mechanical pencils are overrated.

Kind of a necessary evil for air travel though.

Huh?  Regular old #2 pencils aren't allowed on airplanes?  I was unaware.  Heck, the TSA even specifically allows pencil sharpeners.

They're allowed, but then you have to bring a pencil sharpener. And something to hold the messy pencil shavings. I have brought tiny pencil sharpeners aboard before, but that's just one more hassle. An enclosed sharpener doesn't take up much space, but they loosen very easily and the potential mess is not worth the trouble.

Secondly, if I can just fly with one thing instead of 2-3 things that will take up more room or get lost, that's typically the route I'll take. So I just check the lead levels every few months which is just part of my packing/organizing rituals.

[kphoger]

Ah.  Gotcha.

I just seem to always break the lead in mechanical pencils.

[thspfc]

Mechanical pencils are overrated.

Yes! They don't write as well, don't erase as well, and break all the time.

[Scott5114]

Ah.  Gotcha.

I just seem to always break the lead in mechanical pencils.

What lead thickness do you use? 0.5 mm pencils are, of course, far more likely to break than 0.7 mm. (0.9 mm exists too, but those and their lead are not usually stocked in ordinary office-supply sections of stores.) You can also avoid breaking the lead by reducing the amount of lead exposed past the tip (if you hold down the button you can push the lead back in to adjust the amount of exposed lead).

I personally would rather deal with mechanical pencil lead breaking 5 times as often as a wooden pencil does. The amount of time to fix a broken lead on a mechanical pencil is mere seconds rather than the minute or so it would take to get the pencil sharpener out, sharpen the pencil, possibly re-sharpen the pencil if it came out malformed, and put the pencil sharpener away again. I place a heavy premium on not interrupting my work because if an interruption goes on for too long, I may well never get back to whatever it was I was doing with the pencil to begin with.

Caveat here is I basically only use pencils for artwork (and even for that I've been using the computer more and more). I use pens for ordinary writing.

[Max Rockatansky]

Safety culture.

[Scott5114]

Safety culture.

You might need to be a bit more explicit there as to what is overrated about it. By all accounts, safety culture would have saved Chornobyl.

[kphoger]

Ah.  Gotcha.

I just seem to always break the lead in mechanical pencils.

What lead thickness do you use? 0.5 mm pencils are, of course, far more likely to break than 0.7 mm. (0.9 mm exists too, but those and their lead are not usually stocked in ordinary office-supply sections of stores.) You can also avoid breaking the lead by reducing the amount of lead exposed past the tip (if you hold down the button you can push the lead back in to adjust the amount of exposed lead).

I personally would rather deal with mechanical pencil lead breaking 5 times as often as a wooden pencil does. The amount of time to fix a broken lead on a mechanical pencil is mere seconds rather than the minute or so it would take to get the pencil sharpener out, sharpen the pencil, possibly re-sharpen the pencil if it came out malformed, and put the pencil sharpener away again. I place a heavy premium on not interrupting my work because if an interruption goes on for too long, I may well never get back to whatever it was I was doing with the pencil to begin with.

Caveat here is I basically only use pencils for artwork (and even for that I've been using the computer more and more). I use pens for ordinary writing.

Beats me.  Whatever mechanical pencil happens to be lying around when I can't find a real pencil.

Caveat here is that I fully expected this one to be controversial.

[Scott5114]

I was about to object to the phrase "real pencil", since that implies the existence of a "fake pencil", but then I realized that's more or less what a tablet stylus is...

[Max Rockatansky]

Safety culture.

You might need to be a bit more explicit there as to what is overrated about it. By all accounts, safety culture would have saved Chernobyl.

Namely anything that goes beyond what OSH or an applicable state level entity would require.  I've found doing "safety culture"  tasks things such as "safety meetings"  and "safety stand ups"  to be superfluous at best or having an unintended negative effect at worst. 

For context, I've been a physical security and apparently a safety manager since 2005.  I have yet to see any actual evidence that safety can be "fun"  like so many people in the field claim it to be.  I've often found that trying to solve safety issues with excessive amounts of shotgun style training, meetings and safety awareness group talks actually tends have opposite effect in that more people suddenly have accidents (or rather report minor things they never would have before).  I tend to believe the best approach is following what OSH guidelines proscribe via the following:

-  Required trackable administration training.  It doesn't need to be fun, it needs to be tracked and kept on record. 
-  There is zero need for a safety committee, nobody ever wants to be part of them and they often get assigned as punishment for being a poor/unsafe employee.  Poor/unsafe employees never make for good safety advocates.
-  If someone received safety training and they fuck up, the hold them accountable administratively.  If a department fucks up safety wise, hold them accountable.  Don't hold everyone accountable because one person or a department fucked up by subjecting them to shotgun safety training.
-  Emphasize to department heads that accidents cost money when people seek Workman's Comp or property is damaged.  I don't know why it so taboo in the safety field to talk about monetary costs. 
-  Safety audits should be conducted by people who are actual safety experts and not members or some mandated safety culture committee.   

Things like Chernobyl are a different beast.  The Soviet Union viewed people as disposable assets and often cut corners at their expense.  So to rephrase, American style workplace Safety Culture is overrated.

[Scott5114]

Gotcha. I agree that the sorts of explicit look-at-me-being-so-safe baubles you mention rarely have the intended effect, and just irritate the front-line employees. Rather than safety culture being a thing, it should just be ingrained in company culture. Rather than having "safety policies" safety needs to just be a part of the SOPs.

For example, when Japanese train inspectors look over a train before departure, they are required to physically point with their finger at each part of the train/platform/track as they inspect it. It helps with safety because to point at something you have to actually look at it to make sure you're pointing at the right thing. That way there's no glossing over things in the checklist ("yeah, tracks were clear last time I looked at them, onto the next thing..."). The practice has never caught on in the US because it's not enforced by policy the way it is in Japan, and the Americans are too worried about looking silly to do it without it being required by their employer.

[thenetwork]

The WWE...

Seems like they have to be airing something in primetime every night of the week on at least one cable or terrestrial network.  And of course, it's all staged!

[kurumi]

I was about to object to the phrase "real pencil", since that implies the existence of a "fake pencil", but then I realized that's more or less what a tablet stylus is...

We just say "acoustic pencil" these days... /s

[kkt]

Snow is overrated.

A lot of people say they love living somewhere with four distinct seasons.  I think that's overrated.

I mean, I love the feeling of rebirth and renewal when spring starts, particularly since COVID started.  If it's spring the entire year, you don't get that feeling.

I hate people assuming that there can't be four seasons if one of them doesn't feature snow.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, winter is the season when there's a reasonable amount of rain.

[Max Rockatansky]

Snow is overrated.

A lot of people say they love living somewhere with four distinct seasons.  I think that's overrated.

I mean, I love the feeling of rebirth and renewal when spring starts, particularly since COVID started.  If it's spring the entire year, you don't get that feeling.

I hate people assuming that there can't be four seasons if one of them doesn't feature snow.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, winter is the season when there's a reasonable amount of rain.

Or the worst fog in the country in the Central Valley every winter.  I do like a quiet early morning run in the fog though, about as serene as it gets locally. 

[Rothman]

Snow is overrated.

A lot of people say they love living somewhere with four distinct seasons.  I think that's overrated.

I mean, I love the feeling of rebirth and renewal when spring starts, particularly since COVID started.  If it's spring the entire year, you don't get that feeling.

I hate people assuming that there can't be four seasons if one of them doesn't feature snow.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, winter is the season when there's a reasonable amount of rain.

Or the worst fog in the country in the Central Valley every winter.  I do like a quiet early morning run in the fog though, about as serene as it gets locally.

And then you get hit.

[Max Rockatansky]

Snow is overrated.

A lot of people say they love living somewhere with four distinct seasons.  I think that's overrated.

I mean, I love the feeling of rebirth and renewal when spring starts, particularly since COVID started.  If it's spring the entire year, you don't get that feeling.

I hate people assuming that there can't be four seasons if one of them doesn't feature snow.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, winter is the season when there's a reasonable amount of rain.

Or the worst fog in the country in the Central Valley every winter.  I do like a quiet early morning run in the fog though, about as serene as it gets locally.

And then you get hit.

Most people aren't up at 4:30 AM to do the hitting. 

[Rothman]

Snow is overrated.

A lot of people say they love living somewhere with four distinct seasons.  I think that's overrated.

I mean, I love the feeling of rebirth and renewal when spring starts, particularly since COVID started.  If it's spring the entire year, you don't get that feeling.

I hate people assuming that there can't be four seasons if one of them doesn't feature snow.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, winter is the season when there's a reasonable amount of rain.

Or the worst fog in the country in the Central Valley every winter.  I do like a quiet early morning run in the fog though, about as serene as it gets locally.

And then you get hit.

Most people aren't up at 4:30 AM to do the hitting.

All it takes is one.

[Max Rockatansky]

Snow is overrated.

A lot of people say they love living somewhere with four distinct seasons.  I think that's overrated.

I mean, I love the feeling of rebirth and renewal when spring starts, particularly since COVID started.  If it's spring the entire year, you don't get that feeling.

I hate people assuming that there can't be four seasons if one of them doesn't feature snow.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, winter is the season when there's a reasonable amount of rain.

Or the worst fog in the country in the Central Valley every winter.  I do like a quiet early morning run in the fog though, about as serene as it gets locally.

And then you get hit.

Most people aren't up at 4:30 AM to do the hitting.

All it takes is one.

Irony being two times I was hit by drivers was on bright sunny days between 2-3 PM.

[SSOWorld]

Remember in Florida, you know it's fall when the license plate colors start to change.

[formulanone]

Remember in Florida, you know it's fall when the license plate colors start to change.

Or a Canadian coin in your change. (Though I'd imagine this doesn't happen as much anymore.)

[kkt]

I'm showing my age, but I remember when a few Canadian coins would be accepted happily by retailers as far south as Seattle.  Banks and ultimately the Federal Reserve would accept a small number of them at par.  That easygoing arrangement ended about the late 1980s or early 1990s and now it's strictly US coins.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm showing my age, but I remember when a few Canadian coins would be accepted happily by retailers as far south as Seattle.  Banks and ultimately the Federal Reserve would accept a small number of them at par.  That easygoing arrangement ended about the late 1980s or early 1990s and now it's strictly US coins.

Same in Michigan, I recall getting rid of my Canadian coins at 7/11 and Burger King during the 80s.

[thenetwork]

I'm showing my age, but I remember when a few Canadian coins would be accepted happily by retailers as far south as Seattle.  Banks and ultimately the Federal Reserve would accept a small number of them at par.  That easygoing arrangement ended about the late 1980s or early 1990s and now it's strictly US coins.

Same in Michigan, I recall getting rid of my Canadian coins at 7/11 and Burger King during the 80s.

It seemed like Canadian coins of .25 or less in most stores and occasionally in vending machines have always  been accepted "South of the border" since their penny, nickel, dime and quarter coins are almost carbon copy equivalents of our coins.  I still see a few Canadian coins from time to time, those less often as I now live in Colorado.

It seems that more Canadian retailers will accept US paper currency (with various exchange rates) than the other way around.  When I lived around northern Ohio (Cleveland and Toledo), I never remember seeing a business that would openly accept Canadian Loonies or higher.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm showing my age, but I remember when a few Canadian coins would be accepted happily by retailers as far south as Seattle.  Banks and ultimately the Federal Reserve would accept a small number of them at par.  That easygoing arrangement ended about the late 1980s or early 1990s and now it's strictly US coins.

Same in Michigan, I recall getting rid of my Canadian coins at 7/11 and Burger King during the 80s.

It seemed like Canadian coins of .25 or less in most stores and occasionally in vending machines have always  been accepted "South of the border" since their penny, nickel, dime and quarter coins are almost carbon copy equivalents of our coins.  I still see a few Canadian coins from time to time, those less often as I now live in Colorado.

It seems that more Canadian retailers will accept US paper currency (with various exchange rates) than the other way around.  When I lived around northern Ohio (Cleveland and Toledo), I never remember seeing a business that would openly accept Canadian Loonies or higher.

Interestingly enough, all the mainstream retailers I managed security for like Target and Sears in the Phoenix area accepted Pesos.  It was always a trip trying to help the floor managers on how to calculate the most recent exchange rate when it came up.

[1995hoo]

Most American vending machines don't take Canadian quarters. The Canadian quarter is slightly smaller and slightly lighter than its American counterpart and the machines can apparently tell the difference. Canadian vending machines, of course, will often happily accept American coins.

The Coinstar machines at the supermarket will usually accept Canadian pennies but not other Canadian coins.

I recall in 1989 the McDonald's in Calais, Maine, had double-wide cash register drawers so they could accept both countries' currency. You received change in whichever currency you used to pay. (For all the younger forum members, take note that in 1989 McDonald's, and most other fast food places, did not accept credit cards, and debit cards as a form of payment–as opposed to purely for ATM access–didn't generally exist.)