After several years without a coffee grinder, I decided to spend some Christmas money and take a chance on another one, my third — the previous two were pieces of crap and broke after a few months. This one might well turn out to be just as bad, but I’m getting a kick out of the user manual. First of all, it’s a flip book, which is delightfully retro, with French on the other side. Then on page 10, I found these insanely awesome troubleshooting tips:
| PROBLEM | POSSIBLE CAUSE | SOLUTION |
| UNIT DOES NOT GRIND |
· Grinding chamber lid is open · Grinding chamber is not in position · Start Button has not been pressed · Unit is unplugged · There’s a power outage · If after trying all of the above the unit still does not grind, the motor has over- heated, thermal fuse is broken |
· CLOSE GRINDING CHAMBER LID · PLACE CHAMBER IN PROPER POSITION · PRESS AND HOLD START BUTTON · PLUG UNIT IN · WAIT FOR POWER TO BE RESTORED · CALL AUTHORIZED SUNBEAM SERVICE CENTER |
|
THE COFFEE GROUNDS PRODUCED ARE NOT PROPERLY GROUND |
· Grind setting or cups setting is incorrect · Insufficient amount of whole beans used · Chamber lid opened during operation · Unit is not clean
· Foreign object is |
· SET GRIND SETTING or CUPS SETTING CORRECTLY · ADD BEANS TO GRINDING CHAMBER · CLOSE GRINDING CHAMBER LID · UNPLUG UNIT, CLEAN AS PER INSTRUCTIONS AND PLUG IT IN AGAIN · UNPLUG UNIT AND CAREFULLY DISLODGE FOREIGN OBJECT |
|
UNIT STOPS GRINDING |
· Grinding chamber lid has been opened · Unit has been unplugged · There’s a power outage |
· CLOSE GRINDING CHAMBER LID · PLUG UNIT IN · WAIT FOR POWER TO BE RESTORED |
Ha! Like that old doctor joke – it hurts when I do this – then don’t do that.
The last two are classics.
Who need books when there are such wonders to be found in the manuals of our appliances?
Ah, but you must never underestimate the cluelessness of the gadget impaired. My husband can remember all the names of his Chinese students, The most obscure references to Greek or Latin legends, or the plot of a video we may have seen 20 years ago. However, the simple matter of checking to see if something mechanical which goes on the fritz is unplugged, burnt out, or is just suffering ‘wrong button pushed’ syndrome , will send him into a complete tizzy.
It’s not just the simplicity of these suggestions, of course, but the ingenuous way in which they’re presented that makes them funny — as if someone would notice that the power had gone out, but would need the this checklist to tell him to wait for it to be restored. (Me, I’ll fire up a generator. You don’t simply sit around and wait when you’re a coffee addict!)
Finally! Victoria repeats two things about me: (1) I have no common sense, and (2) I don’t believe anything unless I read it.
It’s the manual I’ve been waiting for my whole life. (And all these years I thought it was “Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel”! Damn hymnal.)
Ha! The truth is, this coffee grinder (from Mr. Coffee, a brand name that never fails to amuse me) actually is a little trickier to use than the average model, but I found the manual’s instructions of little use in figuring it out. I guess I’m more a learn-by-doing-if-at-all kind of guy.
On the one hand, there’s the “techno-peasant” syndrome, wherein all machines are magic, and the ignorant have no intuition regarding them. But then, there’s also the omnipresent stress and anxiety of our day… and anxiety does tend to shut down the higher functions! (And then, there’s that business of lawsuits….)
I am almost one of those techno-peasants myself!
You’re hardly alone… I’m off to Costa Rica in a few hours… with a stop off at Mom’s to help her with her computer!
The problem here is that without a decent understanding of the machines we rely on, we get stuck any time something goes wrong, with no idea of how to deal with even minor problems. Not knowing, e.g., when it is or isn’t appropriate to power-cycle a computer, just leads to more and more problems over time. Let alone issues like resisting phishing and trojan attacks from spammers….
Simple – these are machine readable instructions, written in Natural Language for a robot that can fix the broken coffee grinders!
Now you need to go find such a robot, Dave.
I like this analysis.
back when i drank coffee i had a hand powered coffee grinder. it lasted for many years. it was a nice small chore to grind the beans while the water boiled.
Well, more power to you! Uh, so to speak.