I always see, at least in most blogs, tips on how to live life better, how to use more of your time, how to get a good job, how to impress someone, how to improve your sexual performance (like these work) etc. But I never saw tips regarding tips themselves! Quite unnecessary, one might say, but I beg to differ! You see, you gotta know your tips, where you’re getting them from and if they’re actually valid or not. Now, without further ado, the list:
- #1 – No tip is free.
One may think all tips are completely free (not necessarily in a financial way, morals and such do apply) since, well, they’re just tiny bits of advice. Wrong, they are not easily given or received, just like extensive bits of knowledge or mysterious advices. If a teacher sees you’re doing something in a wrong way, he’ll (I won’t use he/she, you know there are female teachers, shush) try to correct you, right? Right. And what does he expect in return? For you to do a due assignment correctly. “Oh but that’s quite normal, Mr. Poster! You ain’t be worrying now’cause that happens!” agreed, it does. But more often than not, if you don’t know what to do, you’ll be reprehended in some way, even if in just a look, which, usually, is all that it takes for a regular, frightened student to lose all confidence for the rest of the year. Situations can and will change, but no tip comes without an expectation from your actions. Take that in mind whenever you accept a tip.
- #2 – Most actions may not look like it, but are tips to life themselves.
When I had my old computer (R.I.P. adorable piece of junk), it wasn’t the best in terms of house-security, since it could explode and/or set a fire to my house easy as that (yeah). So, eventually, it started to not turn on as well. Yeah, I hit the power button and nothing happened. I wondered what the problem could be and, after a few minutes of consideration, realized it was the Power Supply Unit, it had too much dust in it and some wires weren’t, well, properly connected due to years of usage. Now, any clever person would just take that damaged thing off and trade it for a new one. You see, at the moment, I couldn’t. So I either had to find myself a piece of gum, a chopstick and some flints to get it working like it was new MacGyver-style, or I had to take some time off the computer.
Me.
Good joke there, indeed. So what I did? I calmly closed my hand into a fist and hammered the top of my computer case with all my might right after switching the computer on. Now, bear with me for a moment, but in my head, it was as easy as this: If things are badly connected, dusty, falling to pieces and so on, a shake on them while they’re receiving electricity will obviously make things better.
Funny enough, it worked. And I started doing that every damn time. And yes, it worked every time. Now, eventually I got a new, better computer and my old one went to my parents (hey, don’t give me that look! It still was good enough to browse the web and write work look I played Max Payne 2 perfectly on it with an on-board video of 56MB and that’s grand you hear me?). They changed the PSU and, eventually, that one also presented some problems. So what did I do? You guessed it, hammer-fist to the case, and it worked. To this day I don’t know if that’s an actual technique developed by computer users of old, but all I know is that it works like a charm!
- #3 – Never, ever, doubt the power of a tip.
Some wisdom quotes, like “All warfare is based on deception.” (from Sun Tzu, even if you never read “Art of War”, you probably played Modern Warfare), require all the intellectual might of the reader (and if the first time you ever saw this was on Modern Warfare, with all due respect, I don’t think it’s that big) so he can just say “Oh! I get it! That’s clever, really clever!” and ignore completely on how to use it, it was pretty much useless. Now, if you hear someone say “It’s usually good to role-play your character down to the last line!”, you’ll most likely absorb that bit of information and get more experience points than everyone on your RPG table. “But that’s quite usually on the manual, books and so on!” So? So, dear reader, that it was said casually, in a lighter tone, by someone. Not some piece of mythical advice you read somewhere or your Literature Teacher said (but do pay attention, these classes are always good and I, for one, loved’em) while you were sleeping in your chair.
- #4 – Don’t neglect a tip!
(I know I should give a more practical example, but you can adapt a gaming one to real life, I know you can! Plus, I can’t remind of any good ones, so don’t give me that look (again))
One day, while playing some good’n old Left 4 Dead 2, I was in a good mood, so I turned the microphone on. First thing I said was: “I like shotguns, so don’t stay in front of me-or anyone with such weapon-, unless crouched.” and repeated that a few more times every now and then. Why did I had to repeat myself? Because some people loved to get in front of me with weapons like axes or swords and chopping zombies one second before I squeezed the trigger. What happened? More often than not, their virtual backs were blown off to pieces. I can’t stress how much this happened in other sort of games, too.
And I can only hope it never happens when the zombie apocalypse happens so please, don’t neglect tips, as silly or strict as they may sound.
- # 5 – Always tip the waiter/worker!
(What? Remember that “tip” can also be “to give some spare change in favor of a service”.)
“But what if the service sucked!?”, yeah, in this case, no. But if it was within standards or better, do tip. On waiters: They work there. They serve your meal. It’s food, and anything can be dropped in there. Even things you don’t even notice. On the kind people who park your car without being licensed to do so (there are so many in here damn it): It’s your car. You have things in it, and things can go missing. Your car can be scratched, remember that. And tips, almost always, grant you a slightly better service, so don’t hold it all back.
And there you have, nice tips for tips!
(I own none of the pictures above)
Signing off for free,
Arthur Müller.
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