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This analyst has a newfound appreciation of the handover process. As the proud owner of a newly built condominium, I am overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork to digest! (See photo) Every appliance and system came with a manual of sorts, right down to the kitchen faucet. If my experience is indicative of the owner/operator experience when taking control of a new facility, they need all the help they can get.
With all the startup activity (unpacking) to do, who has time to read all that anyway? I’m not a total beginner. While the ownership part is new to me, operating a household is not. Similar to a plant operator starting up a new DCS, I have familiarity with the basic equipment, but these are more modern than I’m accustomed to using. To get hot water, doesn’t one just turn on the faucet? Not if the tank less hot water is not turned on and how does one do that? That experience made me a hero the following day when the neighbors came knocking on my door complaining they could not get hot water.
Switching to the role of maintenance technician, the only manual I’ve consulted thus far is for the dishwasher because it was not working properly. I was told it was quiet, but this was the quietest dishwasher I’d ever encountered and the detergent tablets were not dissolving. According to the manual, the cause of residual detergent is old tablets, but the problem persisted with new ones too. Common sense told me that either the machine was not getting water or the water was not hot enough. A temperature measurement of water at the kitchen sink indicated the recommended 120°F. Crawling on my hands and knees to get under the sink, I could see the connection and feedline, but poor hand strength prevented me from turning the handle. My solution: wait for the SME (plumber ). My suspicion was correct and the problem was fixed with one turn of the handle. Lesson learned, dishes clean.
The next dilemma will be what to do about all those product registration cards. As one who values privacy over access in my personal life, do I even bother to complete these? I want to be protected, but realistically, how many out of the box failures will there be? Do I complete them online and wait to be spammed to death or snail mail the cards with only pertinent information such as model, serial number, name and address. Think I’ll unpack a few more boxes before making that decision.
With all the startup activity (unpacking) to do, who has time to read all that anyway? I’m not a total beginner. While the ownership part is new to me, operating a household is not. Similar to a plant operator starting up a new DCS, I have familiarity with the basic equipment, but these are more modern than I’m accustomed to using. To get hot water, doesn’t one just turn on the faucet? Not if the tank less hot water is not turned on and how does one do that? That experience made me a hero the following day when the neighbors came knocking on my door complaining they could not get hot water.
Switching to the role of maintenance technician, the only manual I’ve consulted thus far is for the dishwasher because it was not working properly. I was told it was quiet, but this was the quietest dishwasher I’d ever encountered and the detergent tablets were not dissolving. According to the manual, the cause of residual detergent is old tablets, but the problem persisted with new ones too. Common sense told me that either the machine was not getting water or the water was not hot enough. A temperature measurement of water at the kitchen sink indicated the recommended 120°F. Crawling on my hands and knees to get under the sink, I could see the connection and feedline, but poor hand strength prevented me from turning the handle. My solution: wait for the SME (plumber ). My suspicion was correct and the problem was fixed with one turn of the handle. Lesson learned, dishes clean.
The next dilemma will be what to do about all those product registration cards. As one who values privacy over access in my personal life, do I even bother to complete these? I want to be protected, but realistically, how many out of the box failures will there be? Do I complete them online and wait to be spammed to death or snail mail the cards with only pertinent information such as model, serial number, name and address. Think I’ll unpack a few more boxes before making that decision.