oftenaloof wrote:
In everything I do in life I tend to learn something very quickly. Especially when it comes to anything technical, I am able to see or hear it done once and I can do it well ongoing. Or sit me down in front of a system of any kind and I can become an expert in a few minutes.
Is this an AS trait? I've never understood it and people that I work with or employers tend to be confused as to how I can learn things so quickly. It all comes natural.
Thoughts?
I'm very lucky, in that I am this way also. Everything I have learned (that I wanted to learn at least), came somewhat easily and fast. I learned electronics and TV repair by reading a few basic books on the subject when I was 10-12 years old, and then when I was 13, I got a job after school at a TV repair shop, where I got hands-on training. By 18, I was successfully self-employed with a license and all. I've always been fascinated with all kinds of electromechanical and things like carpentry and construction, and now at age 45, I have decent skills in doing everything from plumbing, electrical (including commercial and high-voltage 3-phase panels, etc), concrete & masonry construction, automotive mechanical, and recently I've started to learn finish carpentry and cabinetmaking. God willing I live long enough to get to it, I'll build a house for my wife and me from the ground-up, and 100% by myself. I was fascinated by hearing stories in the late 1990s about cars running on used cooking oil, so I read up on it, and I built one (a 1996 Toyota 4x4 truck), with junk I found on eBay and a Toyota Diesel engine I bought in Germany and had shipped to the USA, and I've driven it about 200,000 miles trouble-free, and still drive it today. That was a learning project, and it took me about 3 months to do it, and I had to learn welding and a few other not-previously-known skills along the way. No help asked, and none needed, besides internet forums and books.
As far as speed of learning, I probably pride myself more in quality than speed, and therefore I'm in no hurry to consider myself ready to do something until I'm convinced that I have really learned it. In other words, I won't just read a manual and go do a job that I've never done before, unless it's something I'm deliberately going to do as a "learning project". With this mindset, I have very few problems with work incorrectly done.
Charles
26 Aug 2012, 11:14 pm
