Tricks of the Trade

Rob at Puzzle Photos also links to a couple other interesting sites. Tricks of the Trade asks people to leave their Occupation and then a Trick of the Trade. Four examples:

Cook
When whipping egg whites, first wash the mixing bowl with white vinegar. You will turn a 5-minute task into a 30-second one, and your egg whites will stay fluffier longer.

IT
If you work in a big infrastructure with tons of routers, servers and the rest, you can usually tell how the whole operation is running right from your own desk, since your computer will have the proper tools for monitoring. But management doesn't always understand this -- if there's a problem, they may perceive you as just sitting around idly, even while you are saving the day.

So, at the first sign of trouble, abandon your perfectly functioning computer, go down to the computer room / engine room / nuclear reactor, and continue your work down there. Most of the time the issue will solve itself, but people will assume that, by moving, you were actively engaging the problem and have a second set of mystical tools at your disposal in the event of an emergency.

Recording Engineer
When mixing a record, a band member will often insist that a track could be improved if you make their instrument or vocals louder relative to everyone else. To please this person while not screwing up the sound, twiddle some knobs and then turn up the overall volume. Since the person making the demand will be focusing on their own part, and their own part will now be louder (along with everything else), they will usually think you've fulfilled their request.

Waiter
The only thing worse than having a table of eight people in your section demanding water is a table for eight demanding water with lemon slices in it, thinking their sophisticated just because they have a hunk of citrus in their glasses. So, the first person asks for water "with lemon," say "sparkling, spring, or tap" Now they either pony up for the bottled water or say "tap water" in front of all the friends they are trying to impress.

The IT one is priceless -- I could have used this from time to time. Like the author, I automated as much as possible so was sitting in front of my desk running the show. The Recording Engineer one is great too. Some studios with very large mixing boards will set up a dozen channels as the "Producers Final Mix" section. The producer is invited to sit down and add his final tweaks to the mix. The channels of course are not connected to anything...