Shoutout to the old timer at Ace Hardware who saved my plumbing job

Was trying to fix a leaky kitchen sink faucet last Saturday. Spent 45 minutes wrestling with a compression nut. Guy walks over, maybe 70 years old, and says "you need a basin wrench, son." I didn't even know what that was. He showed me which one to buy, $18. Had the job done in 10 minutes. Has anyone else had a random stranger just solve your whole problem like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

miles_jackson92mo ago

Heard some old timer say "experience is just a word for having tried all the wrong ways first" and that sounds about right. That guy probably saved you from a flooded kitchen floor haha.

amy3022mo ago

Actually that quote kind of bugs me a little (sorry, I know it's supposed to be funny). Experience isn't just about messing up over and over. It's more about learning what works so you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. Like yeah, trying wrong ways is part of it, but good experience also comes from watching someone else do it right or getting handed down tips that actually save you time. The old timer probably had a few tricks up his sleeve from years of not flooding kitchens, you know? It's not all about failures, there's a lot of trial and error that ends in success too. I'd say experience is more like a shortcut library your brain builds over time.

kellyj2313d ago

Gotta say I have to side with the old timer on this one. In my line of work especially you learn real quick that knowing what not to do is just as valuable as knowing what to do. Watching someone else do it right is great and all but you never really get that deeper understanding until you've made a mess of it yourself once or twice. Amy makes a good point about shortcut libraries but some of those shortcuts only exist because someone flooded something first and found a way around it lol. The best advice I ever got came from a guy who admitted he'd screwed up the same job three different ways before figuring it out.