Trust but verify, or sometimes just verify

[masraum]

This is a good saying. I am in a very technical field and work with some really smart people. If one person on my team says "I'm trying to do this thing that we all do regularly that's fairly simple, but for some reason, it's not working for me. I think there's a problem." Pretty much invariably, no matter who it is, the person that heard it will try it themselves, and 98% of the time they end up responding with something like "weird, that didn't work." We really should know that if one of us says that, chances are, there's a problem.

But sometimes, you aren't dealing with someone you know really well and someone that you know, knows their stuff.

When we bought this house, I got a fairly new, Zero Turn mower that looked like it was in really good shape and the guy left several filters for me on a shelf that looked like they were fairly new. The guy seemed bright and like he'd take care of things that needed taking care of.

I downloaded the manual which is pretty long and started reading. Much of that was how do you use it, what are the safety features, what's the regular maintenance, etc.... I got bored and stopped reading.

A few weeks ago, I checked some things like the little wheels on the front of the deck, and they weren't tight. I took them off and put them back and got them tight and they seemed better. Some time last week, I thought, I'm going to read more of that manual. I got to the good stuff, adjusting the deck, how to set those little wheels at the front of the deck, how to adjust the control arms, etc...

Holy cow, I am betting that the guy bought the thing from some store, fully assembled by some minimum wage store monkey and started using it. I then didn't thoroughly check stuff as soon as I got it (shame on me).

I get a good, smooth, flat cut now. The deck is adjusted front to back and side to side. I don't bang my knees on the bars when I hit a bump.

Oh, and I installed some Gator G5 blades. Wow! Those are REALLY good blades!

And you guys were right. Zero turn mowers are fantastic. They are like a cross between a tank and a sports car at least as far as my experience is concerned.

And, if grasshoppers and ants were considered "livestock" I'd be driving a different GT3RS for each day of the week.

[Bill Douglas]

I bought a table saw already made up by the factory in the unopened box.

I got home and fired it up and thought "Ha, it's got some kind of soft start to the saw blade." Me being me, I checked everything and it turns out the blade was completely lose and could have flown off at any time.

[LWJ]

Built by low bid...

[A930Rocket]

Trust, but verify. My favorite phrase, because I’ve been burned before by people who say they’ve either done it or did it right, and didn’t.

[unclebilly]

My executive coach from a previous life corrected me…

Trust AND Verify.

And I do this regularly.