25 Basic Life Skills That Are In Short Supply
By definition, most people should have many basic skills. But when someone is too basic themselves, they may never master these skills. In...
Published 3 years ago in Facepalm
In fact, there are plenty of "basic" skills that most people lack. Here is our roundup of the most important basic skills; how many have you mastered?
1
Basic awareness of when to call emergency servicesI recently saw a guy having a seizure on the ground on a busy street. There were 100+ people standing around watching him. I shouted 'has anyone called an ambulance?' and everyone looked at me blankly. People were recording with their phones but hadn't thought to call an ambulance for the guy. This is in the UK so it's free to call an ambulance and the man's hospital treatment would have been free. The whole thing freaked me out.
3
Writing. The first peer-reviewed assignment I had in college was a major wake-up call. I could not believe that so many of my classmates could barely spell, punctuate, and use proper grammar--let alone approach making an actual argument in their essays.It got worse when I entered the professional world. Doubly so when I started teaching.
17
Being gentle with your things. Any time we get help from siblings and their spouses I'm astounded by how roughly they treat all of their things/how rough of a job they're ok with accepting.Also when assembling furniture. My best mate put together a set of shelves using a drill as a driver on the short and easy to insert Allen keyed screws. Stripped half of the heads and forced a few in at slightly off-angles and also stripped their threads a bit. Like what are you doing bro? Could have just used an Allen key by hand and put it together in the same amount of time without damaging anything.
18
Being able and willing to figure stuff out. A lot of basic skills aren't that complicated. And in this day, if it is complicated, the internet almost certainly has dozens, hundreds, or more, tutorials. Quitting because "I don't know how" should not be the answer. I wish more were taught to figure things out or seek the help/answers to get it done.
19
I kid you not, I lived with a guy once who had a butler his whole life. Things I taught him:The funky knife with a hole in it is not useless, it's a potato peelerYou open cans with a can openerNothing needs to be microwaved for 10 minutesFor the record, I really liked this guy and he was incredibly fun and kind.
21
I had a friend who grew up with maids. He was 18 and gay and his family kicked him out. So he got this tiny little run-down studio apartment in Los Feliz. He was super proud of it, and invited me to see it. He was using candles to light it when I got there (maybe to save money? Maybe to hide the blemishes?) and had left an ashtray on the floor, which I accidentally kicked and got (cold) ashes all over his carpet.He freaked the f*ck out. “What do I do? How am I going to clean that?!” “With a vacuum?” I replied, confused as to why this was a mystery. He didn’t have one, so he went to ask the building manager if there was one he could borrow; which there was. He pulls this standard upright vacuum into the middle of the room and then stares at it. After a few seconds of wondering what he was doing, I asked “do you not know how to use a vacuum?”“No, you have to understand, we always had maids, I never even made a bed before last week.”So I plug it in, turn it on, and take it a couple of times back and forth across part of the carpet.Then like a child with the Fisher-Price popper vacuum, he went to work. He was over the moon excited. 25 years later it’s a favorite memory of that person.
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