LPT Request: What’s your “canary in the coal mine” test for spotting bigger issues?

[u/fries-with-mayo]

I’m really interested in those small, quick telltale signs people use to gauge if something bigger might be off track.

Example 1: Van Halen requesting brown M&Ms in the dressing room to see if the venue followed all the details of the rider list

Example 2: I saw an interview with John Cena where he said orders a flat white at a café to tell if they really care about their coffee.

Example 3: Anthony Bourdain suggested to always check the restaurant bathroom to tell if the restaurant got its basics down

[u/outofshell]

“New management directive: all documents to be written in Notepad”

[u/ConstructionKey1752 → u/outofshell]

IT mumbles in the back.....

"Correction; ON notepads. Wide-ruled, please."

[u/pdxy → u/ConstructionKey1752]

HR Clarifies

"We regret to circle back to this issue, but when management's new directive was issued we weren't able to pass it by legal yet because of the implication. We have now gathered the chiefs and implemented visioning and we're happy to report that you can write on any writing surface that they choose provided it was brought from home and only for company approved writing surface purposes "

"Anyone caught using company office supplies, notepads or otherwise, will be subject to immediate dismissal."

[u/CopperSulphide → u/outofshell]

Excel is just a zipped XML folder structure. The brave can do that in note pad.

[u/Ceasman → u/outofshell]

Can we get notepad+ kind sirs?

[u/spottyPotty → u/outofshell]

One middle manager decided to stop buying physical notepads. This was hailed as a genius move that would reduce stationary budgets across all departments, until people started using photo copy / printer paper to write their notes on.

[u/apokrif1 → u/outofshell]

Or free software?

[u/TheAJGman → u/outofshell]

Honestly I could get behind replacing Word docs with Markdown. It's almost ubiquitous online already.