Lateral Thinking

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You know when you come upon a problem that everyone else seems to be stumbling around about; and you find out they're just looking at it from the wrong angle, and that it's really a simple problem if you see it the right way?

What I mean is lateral thinking: An unconventional approach, an out-of-the-box way of problem solving.

What's making me think of this:

Today I rode home with one of the secretaries. She stopped to help a friend with a malfunctioning typewriter. The lady said that the ribbon cartridge must not be installed properly, because when the last one had run out and she'd replaced it, the new one didn't work.

The secretary spent quite some time trying to install the new cartridge; but when I looked at the typewriter, I saw that the new ribbon had been placed properly; only it wasn't being advanced as the text was typed on it. I checked the little plastic piece on the typewriter which advances the ribbon, and found that it wasn't rotating when the typewriter keys were struck.

The old cartridge hadn't run out at all; the typewriter had malfunctioned, causing it to look as though the ribbon had run out and throwing the secretary and her friend (both very nice NTs) right off the trail of the real solution.

The typewriter is being taken into a repair shop for a new part.

Sometimes... it really takes an Aspie's weird brain; and let's hear it for lateral thinking!

Anything like that ever happen to you? I mean, thinking of a solution where others couldn't, because your thinking just isn't like everyone else's?

Not really. This is one of the AS traits that I've heard about a lot, but just don't seem to have. Wish I did, though

When I was 11, I figured out why our Hoover vacume stop working. It was because when it gets too hot, it will stop running and it won't work again until it's cool down. I remembered the same thing happening in my third grade calssroom when I was nine with our pencil sharpener. When it get too hot, it stop sharpening your pencils and wouldn't work again until it was cool again. It didn't take long for it too heat up so it shut down a few minutes later after a few students were sharpening their pencils.


When I was 19 I got a used NES that was still in it's box and it came with everything except for the manuels of course and when I was given more NES games, I out them in the system and it caysed it to act up because it wouldn't play the games and then it wouldn't play my mSuper Mario Bros. Duck Hunt game. I had to keep on reinserting it to get it to work and soemtimes there be little lines going down the screen. I remember on the Nintendo INsider forums about inserting dirty games in your NES and the pin connecter might need cleaning. I opened my NES and cleaned the pin connecter and it worked fine again and I cleaned my NES games too and they worked very well. Everytime I buy NES games I always look at the connecters to make sure they're clean. If they're not, I clean it first before I put it in my system.

I think there are some NTs who are pretty good at this as well. And there are some people would rather pay money to have a problem fixed than fix it themselves--they would just rather not know about the details. You should go into typewriter repair, Callista.

Hehe... I didn't mean that Aspies are the only ones who are good at lateral thinking, just that it seems to be more common among us than among NTs

And I really don't know much about typewriters--repairing them for a living means I'd have to learn a lot about stuff that really isn't too terribly interesting to me. I'd rather be an engineer... though I suppose if I had to choose between repairman (repairwoman?) and janitor (which is what I am now)--well, give me the typewriters any day.

There was a time once when I was 11, but it's nothing too special. We were heading to The Warehouse (kinda like Wal-mart), but once again the parking lot was full (it's WAAY too small). I was the one who suggested that we park the car in the parking lot of Te Papa, a museum just across the street. Had to pay a few bucks but that parking lot is HUGE!! ! It's saved us a lot of time ever since.

My lateral thinking sometimes gets in the way though. Me and my sister wanted to unplug a plug in an AV socket wedged between the wall and a file cabinet. I suggested she try and wedge it out using a spoon... ...but it was a metal spoon so she got shocked.

many humans are just trained animals, their brain can remember a lot more than other animals,so that makes them a step up from a trained animal,they can be trained to do more things.

The office monkeys weren't trained to look for that problem or ever witnessed another office monkey perform such a task.

The human animal can be trained to kill on comand and just about anything somebody wants one to do.

A small percentage of the human animals can think and figure out how to do something without being trained to do it.

The point of jury selection is so lawyers can find these creatures that can think for themselves and make sure they don't get on a jury.

No inteligent creature would go to a football game in january outside in green bay WI when it's 10 degree's below zero or go slide down a hill on 2 pieces of fiberglass when it's 10 degree's below zero. That's just a drop in the bucket of the things mindless morons can be convinced to do.

All the time.

Unconventional solutions to problems is kind of my forte.

I first noticed it wasnt something everyone could do when my father and uncle were repairing a motorcycle and were trying to replace a spring.. the problem was there wasnt enough room to hold the spring closed so it would fit and still be able to position it properly before allowing it to expand.

So I suggested they compress the spring, tie a wire around it to hold it that way, position it then cut the wire.

They both looked at me dumbfounded, looked at each other and went to get the wire.. I found out later they felt like a couple of idiots.

They had been fighting with it for hours and I walked up, took one look and saw a better way.

Its the way Ive always been.. luckily Ive been able to get a job utilizing that talent and Ive gotten rather famous around our company for being able to fix just about anything with "paperclips and rubber bands"

For others who do this sort of thing a few tips:
The steel wire inside a bread tie has incredibly high tensile strength (doesnt stretch).
The heavy guage wire used for coat hangers is very stiff and works great for replacing broken plastic posts (heat the wire, let it melt into the plastic and cool then snip off the excess).
Always have paperclips handy (1001 uses and counting).
Electical tape lasts longer than a rubber band and is nearly as stretchy.

That's a good one Fraya

I did it when I was driving a truck.

Stopped at the Salt Lake City terminal and a truck is in the shop, the driver is hot because he is supposed to pickup a load in the morning that will get him home and he says, check this out and turns on his turn signal and every light on the truck is flashing. All the turn signals on both sides, the cab marker lights on the roof and every light on the trailer. The 2 guys working in the shop got the dash totally torn apart,they had a parts room full of switches and had tried changing every switch in the dash and told him he would have to take it to the truck dealership in the morning. He was supposed to get his load going home in the morning and the company was going to have to give it to somebody else.

I went to the bathroom and took a leak,walked out and asked the driver if he had changed any light bulbs the mechanics had a look to kill on their faces and when the driver said,yes he put a tail light bulb in I thought they would kill him It was a bad bulb and they had spent hours screwing with the truck I don't know who was more embarassed the driver or the mechanics I got fuel and got the helll out of there

My guess was he might have stuffed a single filament bulb into a double filament socket, but the bulb filaments where touching each other send power back through the whole lighting system. I bet the bulb was saved and put in the next guys truck who gave the shop guys a hard time

Back in 1999-2001, I worked 3rd shift at a convienience store in Charlotte, NC.

The area that I worked in had a lot of homeless people who hung out and begged for cash that they would then use to spend on beer and wine.

I really have nothing against homeless people, having been in that position myself a few times, however, the issue is the fact that this particular group of people was really doing nothing but buying beer and wine with the cash that they were bumming from other people.

This caused problems due to the fact that they would get drunk and intimidate other customers, and thety would trash our bathrooms and shoplift food. In short, this particular group of homeless people were a nuisance, and everybody who worked at the store basically felt the same way about them. The problem was how to get them to go elsewhere.

We could simply attempt to run them off via the police officers who regularly hung out there but that would most likely cause some form of conflict and greater property damage by people who didn't particularly care if they went to jail or not. --All running them off would do is create another set of problems.

My solution to the issue was simple. These people were, after all was said and done customers. Sure, they got their money from other customers, running them off in the process. They would also shoplift food from us, however, we sold product they wanted. In order to get them to go away, simply don't sell what they buy. --It worked quite well.

I used to work in a big retail store and one day i came in to a big water leak that had just been fixed. The only problem was that plenty of water was still sitting on the floor. My manager did his duty and assigned several people to mop up the water. I casually asked him why he didn't use the big shop vac in the janitor's closet and he acted like i was some kind of genius lol. The entire time that the giant pool of water was sitting on the floor a mop and bucket method was the best they could think of.
I had a reputation for coming up with the best ideas and they were always the simplest.

I like doing that kind of problem solving - figuring out how something works and looking at what's actually happening to find out *why* it's not working, instead of assuming it's the most obvious problem.

It seems that the more emotionally-oriented a person is, the less able they are to think laterally. They get so overwhelmed by the fact that a problem even exists, they can't think it through logically to see beyond the obvious. I guess that fits with Cohen's male brain/female brain, systemizer/empathizer theory... and aspies (even females) generally tend to be male-brained systemizers. I work with some very emotionally-driven female NTs and their way of thinking drives me crazy... lol at the same time though, I'm sure I have more than enough quirks that get on their nerves too.

In my opinion, the real solution would have been to buy a computer. It sounds like an excuse to upgrade to me.

By the way, I've noticed most people here took lateral thinking to mean mechanical problem solving. I'm not very mechanically inclined at all, but I am creative in that I can come up with very different associations between things.

I am very much a creative thinker when it comes to getting things done. Part of it has always been my desire to do things my way and usually alone which I prefer as I am not a team player. I can also usually see how things work in my head after watching a bit or by knowing what they do. I went to school and got a degree in Biology but work as a contractor. Recently a machine I use to blow insulation into existing houses failed I wired in an electric leaf blower to the machine to finish a job. I moved a 10x12 metal shed with a full floor from one side of my yard to the other alone. Everywhere I have worked I was always the one who got the "how the hell are you going to do that" jobs and fixed the shop machinery even though I have never had any formal training in any type of repair. One of the places that I do regular work for has a maintenance crew who it seems can't figure out how to repair anything at all they just sweep and paint.

Urgh. I TOTALLY understand.

I call it "doing things the hard way" and after it's done, I am told or discover how simple it could and should have been.