[somishere]

Reading the comments here made me think of a dishwashing analogy.

I grew up without a dishwasher (when we asked our parents why we didn't have one my dad responded, "what do you mean? We have six!" referring to us kids). As an adult we have one in the house but it is rarely used. Washing dishes is a menial task but I enjoy it. It's hard to articulate exactly why. Needless to say I'm quite an experienced dish washer, there's an art to it. My process is to collect any dishes that aren't already stacked, fill the sink with just enough water, wash everything well (cutlery in first, out second last, washed individually), then wipe down all the benches and sink. I leave the dishes to drip dry. They get put away later.

When we use the washing machine I still have to do most of the steps above. Except the washing which is 40-120mins of free time for me. But then I have an extra step of checking each dish or piece of cutlery while I'm putting it away. Most things get washed well, but about 10-15% of items have food baked onto them that I then need to soak or rewash (with a more abrasive scrubber than I'd usually use). Maybe this is down to my lack of experience stacking? The whole process takes longer, but it's (arguably) lower touch and (I hear) uses less water.

Which is better? In a commercial kitchen a dishwasher for sure, efficiency at all costs.

But do we need to remove all menial tasks from our workflows? I'm not so sure.

[harrisi]

I've gone back and forth with dishwashers my whole life, spending years with followed by years without, etc. and I finally am team dishwasher. There are a few tips I've learned, such as immediately rinsing a dish after using (I don't bother scrubbing), running the hot water for a minute before starting, using the pre-wash detergent and shine stuff appropriately. I also don't bother entirely filling it up to run it - which may seem wasteful, but I'd imagine filling it completely and having to rewash some percent of them ends up being more wasteful.

Also, just like getting a manual dishwashing routine figured out, dishwashers are all different and need to be learned like any tool. Understanding where pieces are, which cycles run when, which compartments open and close and even how they do it, are all important. It really is best to think of it as a tool.

Some useful videos:

https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04 https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU

[somishere]

Thanks for the thoughtful advice. Agree on it being tool, same as LLMs. I guess my point, beyond the practical, was that there are some aspects to the tool-less experience that are hard to replace.

I'm thinking patience and, I guess, the other meta skills and behaviours that aren't directly related to the washing itself.

That said, your pro-dishwasher explanation talks to some of these too.

[barrkel]

If you have 10-15% of items with food stuck on them after a wash, you need either a better dishwasher, better detergent (there is a noticeable range in quality) or both.

[somishere]

It's quite a high quality dishwasher .. multi-drawer job. But I will look into the detergent :)