The Bushwhacked Academy of Not Getting Your Worms Dixed is today offering a much-needed service – how to write and use an instruction manual.
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The urgent need for this service became clear again this week while assembling an otherwise beaut and effective high pressure washer. It was purchased partly because it is sold by an Australian tool company, so even if there was some assembly required, the instructions would be in Australian English.
This was not – we hoped – going to be another example of those word-mangling instructions assembled by someone who’d had a one-hour course in modern English.
Here’s a real one for a drill: “After using a period of time, should lubricate with stalk a bore, a several drops of engine oil then in the stalk set. It for bids to wear gloves, do not bare the body not knot tie while operating eddy.”
Of course, the average Australian male, ignores these entertaining documents and thinks: How hard can it be? He then uses 14 tools to assemble the thingo, forces a few plastic lugs, breaks a couple, swears non-stop and then retires for a beer and a lecture involving the words “I told you so”.
The trouble with the pressure washer was that its instructions were too Ockerish in their brevity and their bizarre assumption that you knew stuff already.
Here’s an example: “3. Attach the rotor arm to the deck and patio cleaner and secure by inserting the U-clip.” But it didn’t explain that the U-clip could go in two ways, one of which was wrong and possibly damaging. Guess which I tried first?
One hour and 39 interesting short, sharp Anglo-Saxon terms later, the U-clip went in. To give you an idea of how intense the situation had become, Mrs Whacked actually brought me a beer.
She knows me too well. Especially after we sold a house we lived in about 20 years ago and when the removalists shifted the book case, behind it were two or three new bits from a bicycle. Hint: never assemble a kid’s bike on Christmas Eve, and if you do, bury left over bits in the garden.
So, here’s our idea of how to structure and use instruction manuals for blokes.
Step 1: cut to the chase. Admit or imagine you have already stuffed things up and go back and read the instructions.
Step 2: Step 1 should be accompanied by a cool frothy.
Step 3: Unpack all the little bits and doohickies and place them neatly. Look at the pictures. Do they match? All good.
Step 4: go to the shed and get one small Phillips Head screwdriver, a pair of pliers, a hammer, a torch for finding bits you drop on the floor, a drill, sandpaper, a magnet for finding the things the torch failed to reveal, a shifter spanner, a tube of Liquid Nails, a stubby holder, a can of WD40. You’re almost good to go, but you must be prepared to go back to the shed at least twice for something you forgot.
Step 5: read the instructions out loud, touching the bits being referred to as you speak. It is all about logic in the end.
Step 6: if they are good Aussie instructions, they will be brief and to the point but not so brief they become obscure. Never use words of more than two syllables. If there’s a right way and a wrong way of doing something, say so. Chances are it’ll be ignored anyway, but at least you’re not legally liable.
Step 7: Place limits on the project. After say, one hour or three stubbies – whichever comes first – chuck a wobbly and stump off.
Step 8: (This is THE most important step) Accept your wife’s offer to give it a go.
WAYNE GREGSON
