When I was a child I enjoyed reading manuals of new devices. I always discovered hidden options no one knew about and it made people perceive me as smarter.
One of the manuals I read that significantly reduced my problems was the Casio scientific calculator. I realized it can multiply matrices and solve a type of equations we had to solve by hand. Our teachers were teaching us how to use the calculator to calculate the hand written math, I was using it to solve the whole equation. Almost no one knew this, and the people I shared with were either not believing me or too lazy to understand the complex user experience of the calculator.
The software industry made manuals a thing of the past. I remember reading in Steve Jobs biography that he refused to have a manual for the original Apple 1. He associated having a manual with bad user experience. I think he was right.
Sadly the intuitive user experience we are used to in the software industry didn’t penetrate home appliances. I recently used Google translate to read the manual of my oven. It led to significantly better cooking results. Today I gave a crash course to a friend in oven options and how each affect the food. It was a good reminder to RTFM (Read the Fucking Manual).