cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/67815568

Storytime: a patient came into my unit with a controlled medication (I don’t remember what maybe oxy? Ativan?). Per policy, I was waiting for the pharmacy tech to come up, verify my count, and take it down to their safe. It might take a minute, so I got my count done and left the medication in its destined serial-numbered bag, visible on camera on the counter in the med room.

When I count pills, I fold a clean sheet of printer paper into a tray, with the sides folded up into lips. The four corners make little diagonal ears. I sort the pills into piles of five with a clean spoon to make them easier to count, then use one of those diagonal ears to funnel them back into the bottle. I got somewhere in the 50–100 range.

The pharmacy tech comes up. She has a specialized tray (they usually look something like this) with a cylindrical, prescription-bottle-sized funnel that snaps down over one side, and some other carefully designed features to facilitate this exact task. The equipment itself was interesting but not the really cool bit.

She pours the bottle out onto this specialized tray, but she doesn’t need to group the pills. She literally just eyeballs the 50–100 random splatter of pills that falls out onto her flat tray and immediately calls out my exact, carefully tallied count (which I had not yet told her).

She then, in one fluid motion, tips the tray just enough to slide them all down into the funnel side, slaps the funnel closed over them, and tips whole tray up and down so the contents of the funnel fall down into the bottle. We complete the sign-off and seal the bottle in its security envelope.

I’m frequently reminded that nurses are kind of the Swiss Army knives of the healthcare system. I can do 90% of the ancillary staff’s jobs in a pinch, but it’s WILD to watch the fluidity with which each of those tasks is done by someone who does that one specific task all day long.

What’s a super-specialized skill or talent you’ve seen that completely impressed you?

I once saw a guy completely eyeball a turbopump design and only have it be something like .3% off the simulated performance numbers. some dudes legitimately just have the "knack".

I forever remain intensely jealous of those people.

I used to have a favourite sushi place where we would sit at the bar and chat with the chef. One day we happened to catch him when he was filleting some salmon and it was beautiful to watch him in action. I live in a pretty outdoorsy place and have fishermen friends. I've had salmon filleted in my kitchen before by these amateurs and it was nothing like watching this chef work.

I used to work with a Doctor who could after a 30s to two minutes conversation and maybe placing hands on a pulse or abdomen give an accurate diagnosis and management plan. Just decades of clinical experience and staying up to date with everything shining through. Seriously impressive to watch. Never doubted a diagnosis either unlike some other times I've seen that done.

I did a master thesis in CS. My supervisor was crazy good at what he did. I would spend days with a certain idea, and he'd just casually reproduce it, find several new things based on it, and point me to where to look next, all while we were casually talking. Yeah, in hindsight, not my best sub-field.

I learned how to pick up a ladder from am Amtrak flagger. It works really well.

Apparently you're not getting the 10k hours reference.

The 10k hour thing is a myth.

But what Gladwell wasn't wrong about was that your turbo pump guy wasn't born with some innate ability. He learned it, he practiced it.

Watching a skilled and experienced chef chop onions. I consider myself a relatively skilled amateur cook and with a good knife I can do a decent dice on an onion, but not fast. I have a friend who's been a professional chef his entire career, watching him dice onions is just mesmerizing. He gets a perfect dice on an onion in at most 1/10th of the time it takes me, and for most of the process, he's not even looking at it.

Pouring a perfect pint in a busy pub. My local water hole is owned by an Irishman, seeing him pouring perfect Guinnesses at the same time that he pours a pint of lager with the other hand and stopping the Guinness just in time and still managing to get an absolute amazing pour on both beers is an joy to watch.
Others in the staff are also good, but Neil's REALLY good:)

I'm always impressed when someone can look at you and type at the same time. I'm pretty close to getting there, but especially when coding, I will trip up typing most of the time.

I took a freelance job for a dude who independently wrote software for several banks and hired me only because he was legally required to have a separation of duties to meet the federal terms.

This was before there were AI options, and the guy's code was perfect. Like it was pleasant to read, like a years old well developed project that was perfectly fine tuned, except straight from his brain on the fly.

Never seen anything like it before or since.

My partner at work. He's been there like 30 years and the joke is whenever we are struggling to fix something and I look for a part or tool, he'll somehow have it working by the time I get back. Just gets bored waiting and starts poking stuff and its done. I would be frustrated but our old coworker said that's been the status quo for a decade +

I'd be interested in how that's done.

You're so fucked when he retires.

I've had patients compliment my soda pour at snack time and ask if I've bartended and like bruh chill I'm just tipping the cup to keep your fizz. Like I said I can 80-90% most anything but that's what makes watching the 100%-ers so fucking cool.

Fold up the ladder and put your arm through the middle opening so you're balancing one leg of the ladder on your shoulder. Use your hand to help keep balance and it frees up your other arm to carry other things.

Ah, thanks!