What is a fundamental aspect of your job/work/profession that you still can't do?

[Agent Foxtrot]

I know this thread was done a couple of years ago, but I think we're due for another.

As for me, I'm a math major and I tutor everything from pre-algebra to differential equations. However, I still can't multiply or divide large numbers in my head. I need a pencil and paper or a calculator to do them. I don't admit this to any of my colleagues, either.

Whaddabout you?

[gigi]

I can't be comfortable taking phone calls. I don't get many but I vastly prefer e-mail and have to really psych myself up for the phone.

I also get scared about public speaking, even with a group of people I know.

Luckily I am a quasiaccountant-type and don't have to do either of these too often.

[Lsura]

I don't know how to catalog books. I can answer a reference question or teach an instruction session with no problem - but I've never had to catalog a book (or other library item), and I only had the briefest introduction to cataloging in library school - didn't take the full class because I didn't (and still don't) want to be a cataloger.

[fishbicycle]

I don't know how a radio transmitter works, or how to operate one. Actually, I've never even seen one up close. They keep them 'way out in the sticks with the antenna towers, not at the location of the studios. I know what it does, but not how.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

I've never worked with color photography.

Mapping needs B&W, no better.

[msmith537]

What is a fundamental aspect of your job/work/profession that you still can't do?

Enjoy it

[delphica]

I've never managed my own budgets. Most managers have oversight of their program's budgets (both here and at comparable places in my field), but when I first started my funding was tied up with a lot of crazy inheritance tax laws in three countries, so it was decided that the budget should be handled by a specialist.

This does give me some worry, because if I ever interview for a position somewhere else, it's going to seem very odd that a person in my job doesn't have any direct budget oversight.

[Asimovian]

I have next-to-zero file organization skills, often a prerequisite for paralegals. I could probably stare at a case file for months and not figure out how to make it go.

Fortunately for me, my job title has very little to do with my actual duties.

[SSG Schwartz]

Accurately put 40 holes in a piece of paper from a distance of 25m. Of course the hole punch I am using is an M-16A2 rifle, and the points I need to hit are scaled to be up to 300m away.

Sgt Schwartz

[Thudlow Boink]

As for me, I'm a math major and I tutor everything from pre-algebra to differential equations. However, I still can't multiply or divide large numbers in my head. I need a pencil and paper or a calculator to do them. I don't admit this to any of my colleagues, either.Are you supposed to be able to? I never knew this was an expected skill.

I teach everything from pre-algebra to differential equations, and I have never used a graphing calculator and don't know how to (although I'm sure I could catch on pretty quickly if the need arose).

[Captain_C]

I work security. I have trouble telling people to stop breaking rules that I think are bullshit to begin with. Seriously, it is a mall, do we really need to kick people out for 'loitering'?!

[Lionne]

I work in a bank.

I can't add to save my life.
I can't look at a row of zeroes without commas and know how much it is. (1000 vs 1000000)
I still have trouble determining which paper is the credit and which is the debit.
Out of sequence denominations throw me all off. (1, 10, 50, 20, etc.)
I have a weak memory for names. Numbers I am OK with, but putting a check to a face is a struggle.

I have no idea why I went into banking, and even less as to why I stay.

[Soapbox Monkey]

I know this thread was done a couple of years ago, but I think we're due for another.

As for me, I'm a math major and I tutor everything from pre-algebra to differential equations. However, I still can't multiply or divide large numbers in my head. I need a pencil and paper or a calculator to do them. I don't admit this to any of my colleagues, either.

Whaddabout you?

I've recently had professors who would often screw up even the simplist arithmetic. I thought it was typical of math professors to know the big concepts but have trouble executing the small functions. :p

[panache45]

Part of my job involves editing photos in Photoshop, and, among other things, every photo needs to be sharpened. I use the "unsharp mask," but have only a vague idea what the three numbers mean. I just keep changing them until it looks right. I have read all sorts of descriptions of these variables, but never retain what I've read.

[Baffle]

I work security. I have trouble telling people to stop breaking rules that I think are bullshit to begin with. Seriously, it is a mall, do we really need to kick people out for 'loitering'?!
I don't enforce parking rules for the same reason.

Well, that and I've been told I'm not allowed to call the parking authority because that might piss people off. :rolleyes:

[Terrorcotta]

When I freelance I have trouble making people pay me the money they owe. How stupid is that?

I have a client now that makes me feel I belong on Jerry Springer as a woman in a abusive realtionship - I know I need to get out and that they will never pay me all they owe but I hang in there ....hoping they will. I think I am on the road to recovery since I got a new full time job and can tell them to take a hike except I really need the money they aren't going to pay me. See the problem?

[Scribble]

When I freelance I have trouble making people pay me the money they owe. How stupid is that?

I have a client now that makes me feel I belong on Jerry Springer as a woman in a abusive realtionship - I know I need to get out and that they will never pay me all they owe but I hang in there ....hoping they will. I think I am on the road to recovery since I got a new full time job and can tell them to take a hike except I really need the money they aren't going to pay me. See the problem?

Can you sick a collection agency on them? I realize that, if you go the collections route, you probably won't end up with all these people owe you, but you'll at least get most of it.

How about threatening legal action? Are you in the position to do that?

I assume you've tried billing them several times and gotten nothing.

[vivalostwages]

I teach English in college and I instruct the young'uns in writing by instinct more than by terminology....because I tend to forget what a gerund is, or what "pluperfect" means (or if that term is even in use anymore), and so on.

[Sublight]

I still can't speak Japanese fluently.

[Chimera]

Play the Steppin' Fetchit Routine with bosses and supervisors who think they're hot shit and I should bow and scrape at their every utterance.

Keep my mouth shut when people are acting like complete assholes, even when they're much higher on the food chain than I am.

I'm in my mid-40's and I've never been able to "learn" those "skills".

[Alice The Goon]

I work in a doctor's office, and the only thing I just cannot do is to go out to the waiting room and announce that the doctor is running late and the patients waiting may want to reschedule if they can't wait longer. I have a huge phobia of public speaking, and I just can't do it. I've been asked to do it a couple of times and both times I've been able to convince one of the receptionists to do it. If my supervisor ever just flat out told me that I HAD to do it, I might just walk out rather than do it. I just can't do it.

[Terrorcotta]

Can you sick a collection agency on them? I realize that, if you go the collections route, you probably won't end up with all these people owe you, but you'll at least get most of it.

How about threatening legal action? Are you in the position to do that?

I assume you've tried billing them several times and gotten nothing.

Oh yeah. Been there, done that. They just stop showing up. I consider going to small claims court but the filing fees tend to eat into the balance due. I tend to cut them off before it gets too big a bill as well and try to get 50% deposits on very large projects. Then there are the rubber checks.....

I have, however, stopped falling for the oh-just-do-this-small-thing-and-we'll-pay-you-for-both trap.

[MaxTheVool]

I'm a programmer. The first place I worked (for 8+years), we did all our programming in C. Then I got a different job where we used C++, and I picked up most of the important parts of it on the fly, but since I never really sat down and learned it front to back, there are some parts of C++ that I have no idea how to use at all. Different types of casting? Template classes? Overloaded operators? I know they exist, but damned if I know how to use them...

Fortunately I have now gotten yet a different, much better, job, in which everything is in C again.