The Thought That Shifted Adam Savage's Relationship With Jamie Forever

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I appreciate the effort you put into trying to understand a question rather than rushing towards an answer.

“I don’t have to win this argument right now” and “The world will solve this problem for me later.” — WOW. Adam, THANK YOU.

Some of the best advice I ever received was “Pick your battles.” Some fights aren’t worth winning.

The best thing about these videos is the very natural pauses you allow between sentences. It's refreshing to give each thought that minute to settle.

I will always be thankful for the dynamic that the two of you shared on MythBusters, not just because it made the show better, but for anyone who knew the relationship the two of you had behind the scenes, it was a very good example of professional respect and working with somebody in an environment that you might not have gotten along with on a personal level. In my life, I've had co-workers that I don't get along with on a personal level, but we've never had issues buckling down together professionally to do what's expected of us. Seeing a healthy business relationship for so many years produce so many things is a source of inspiration that I think a lot of people overlook when discussing MythBusters, and I wanted to let you know that even if it's not as visible, it's greatly appreciated.

My favorite type of manager says, "Here's the task, and this is how long you have to get it done. You have the authority to do what you need to meet these goals," and then disappears until I report that I'm finished.

I learned the lesson of "do I need to fix this problem now? Maybe it'll fix itself later" a long time ago. Plus it works really well when you're an adhd procrastinator like myself.

I love the unedited nature of this. Seeing you wrestle with the question in real time is so refreshing

“They are working through trauma” - you just made dozens of personal interactions with micro-managers make sense. Seriously. Thank you.

My mother had this problem selling ceramics. She had this one piece that just wasn't selling when other people weere selling the same piece at double the price. She added $15 to the price. Problem solved. Know your market. If you sell something too cheap people will assume it's crap.

My version of the life lesson from this video is: "As a manager sometimes you need to take a step back and let people make mistakes. As a manager my job isn't necessarily to prevent those mistakes, it's to make sure they don't burn the building down while learning their lesson"

"Do I have to solve this problem now or will the universe solve this problem for me?" YES, such a great lesson to learn!

The absolute worst manager is one that swings back and forth between micro and laissez faire because of the chaos it creates.

Adam, I agree about Micromanagers and the difficulty in getting things done. Yes, far more energy is expended. Thanks once again for taking my question.

I walked off the job after four years of putting up with a micromanager. I violated my own rule of having a new job before you quit the current one because I value my mental health too much to put up with someone who would come to staff with a problem, and even though it was something we all were going to have to deal with on a daily basis, and telling us how it would be done from now on. It was one incident that was the equivalent of putting the baby into a car seat, bundling them up and strapping them in nice and secure, and then putting the car seat, unsecured, on the roof of the car before driving away. I have no idea how people that insecure get a job managing others.

I’m an artist. I’ve worked for both types. I’ll take laissez faire anytime. The message I’ve gotten from micro managers is, “You’re not an artist/creator, you’re a WRIST in my employ.” This absolutely KILLS inspiration and creativity.

I learned to tell myself that I had no power over anything when getting delayed in traffic or taking public transportation, so I shouldn't bother putting energy into it. It was very liberating.

At my last "real job" that I only lasted 5-ish months at, my direct supervisor was the single worst micromanager I have ever met. I was writing up an internal informational document from our department that was literally just going to be hung in the break room. Nobody was ever going to see it outside of our employees, and nobody whatsoever was going to do anything except read the text (and if we're honest, almost nobody would even be doing that). I wrote it up, sent it to her for approval, and she calls me over to her desk and asks me to identify "what I think is wrong with this document". After what felt like 5 minutes of standing there and shooting apart my own work, I came up with nothing. Turns out that one of the blank lines I had used for spacing was an 11pt font blank line rather than a 12pt font blank line. What had likely happened was that I had enlarged the text to better fill out the space and (understandably) did not think to enlarge the size of the blank line because I didn't even realize it HAD a font size associated with it. She could have fixed it herself and not even brought it up, so the project would be finished. She could have reformatted the template to remove the need to even have that object there and head the issue off at the pass. But she didn't. She forced me to stand there and flounder for several minutes trying to find fault in my own work, wasting my time and her own time, before telling me to go back to my desk and fix it before resubmitting it for approval. That one, single experience impregnated me with utter, unflinching contempt for micromanagers of any stripe.

There's just something extra wonderful about listening to thoughtful, brilliant teaching with a disco ball in the background.