278: Do the easy thing first! Two trouble-shooting tips from my NASA engineer father

This morning I had another lesson in “it’s not what you think.” My first big lesson in that regard was with a garbage disposal. It quit working. I assumed it had died, so I replaced it. The new one worked great – for about a week. Then it died. I called the company about it and they said they could send a repairman to fix it for free, but if it turned out not to be the disposal, I’d have to pay for the trip. Or, they could just send me a new one. I know how to replace garbage disposals, so I took the second option. The new one worked just fine – for about a week. I finally wised up that the problem was not the garbage disposal. It was the $1.50 switch on the wall. A few weeks ago my computer mouse was acting up. It was very frustrating, so I ran out to Best Buy to get a replacement. The replacement worked great, so I was happy. Until this morning when my new mouse started acting up. Ah. The disposal problem again. I had misdiagnosed the problem. It wasn’t the mouse, it was the mouse pad. So here are two lessons about trouble-shooting. 1. Challenge your assumptions. Note that you might not even know what you’re assuming. Sometimes it takes some mental effort to articulate them. You may need to sit down with a piece of paper and doodle a bit. You may also need to talk it over with somebody else. Ask if you’re missing something. 2. When, despite your best efforts, you’re not sure where the problem lies, do the easier thing first. As my NASA engineer dad told me, you’ll feel really stupid if you do the hard thing and then realize you could have done the easier thing.