Instructions please – nothing is the same anymore

I wondered in an earlier blog about whether Instructions are important or not. They are.

I was recently in the UK and as usual when there I rented a car. This part of the process is very simple. I apply on line, get the confirmation, get an email when I arrive telling me which car I have and where its parked. Ignore that email and go find the actual car that they want me to have –  a Mercedes Model B . Usually from arriving at the garage I am on the road in under 5 mins. This is great customer service.

However, in this instance, getting the car to move became a whole different problem. Nothing is the same anymore.

I have been driving for over 20 years. I have managed to break a couple of cars, received the occasional parking and speeding ticket (including from different police forces around the world) but before this I have never had a problem working out how to get a car to go. They are all pretty similar. Or so I thought. It looked like a regular car but something was missing, Something that I had never ever thought about until it wasn’t there. The gear stick had entirely disappeared.

And this left me with a problem. As for the car itself I could start it, adjust the mirrors, switch on the radio but I could not make it move.

You can see from the picture that it looks like a car but rest assured inside it is anything but. The Millenium Falcon would probably be easier to pilot.

The gear lever is attached to right side of the steering wheel. Move it upwards for reverse and downwards for drive and an indicator on the dashboard tells you whether you’re about to go backwards, forwards or nowhere. Now I am sure the designers of the Mercedes Model B  had spent a long time thinking about this new arrangement but with no instructions even someone with a long history of car driving can get it wrong. If, like me, you are used to the indicator arm being on the right side of the wheel it gets very embarrassing (and frankly scary) when you go to indicate and end up with the car in neutral. At 70 miles per hour on the motorway this is an experience that you don’t want and, judging by the faces around me, none of my fellow travelers wanted either. This was about as relaxing as having your hair on fire.

I previously wrote about instructions being useful and perhaps you should try reading them, or asking for help. Getting coffee should be a lot easier than driving a car. Cars come with a 500 page manual (that absolutely no one ever reads) and nobody to ask for help. And of course being old and experienced I know exactly what to do already. Although of course that’s the point. I used to know what to do without needing a manual or a helper.

So I have come to a conclusion that finally I am getting to the point where nothing is the same anymore and very soon I will have no idea how to make anything work. Age and experience is actually going to make things worse.

So its a good job that in a relatively short period of time I won’t have to worry about driving a car anymore. But that’s for the next blog.