Worst Instruction Manual Ever

I've found my nomination for the worst instruction-manual writing in the world. Seriously, this thing should win a medal. (Or a good thwap to the head, because there's no reason to encourage this crap.)

It's the instruction "manual" - actually just a 4-sheet fold-out thing that desperately needed to be sliced and stapled - for our new programmable thermostat. It's amazingly, irritatingly bad, especially since it seems to be well-written at first glance. No clues that it was translated from English to French to Swahili to Klingon and back to English before it was printed. But it took two adults, both with Master's degrees and good reading comprehension, over an hour to figure out how to program the bloody thermostat last night. And I'm still not certain that we got it right.

Here's the first and most frustrating example. I got the manual last night and found the sheet with the "Programming the Thermostat" section. Start with setting the time, which is less than 1/8 of a page. Easy peasy, I thought. Yeah, right. Step 1: Press "Menu" then "Time" button once. Hmmm. Menu, check. Time. Time, time, where's the time button? There is no time button. Six buttons, none marked "Time" anywhere. (Actually, the buttons aren't marked at all on the thermostat, just on the LCD screen and on the diagram in the manual.)

After some muttering, half an hour, and DH's involvement, we figured out the problem. To get to the point where one of the buttons functions as a "Time" button, you have to go through the insane mess on page 4, where you use the Menu button to choose one of 14 (yes, Fourteen) Menu Configurations. All with cryptic descriptions, and I still can't read the list and tell you which one to use when you need to set the time. So that Step 1 is more like Step 5 (or 6, if you add "Threaten to yank the thing off the wall and hook the old programmable thermostat up again" in there).

Then there's the whole craziness of the "hold" option that you can use to override the program. The screen has "Hold" in two places, both of which seem to indicate that the program is, indeed, on hold, if you read what passes for a manual. But, in practice, one "Hold" means it's on hold. The other "Hold" just means that the button kinda-sorta next to the "Hold" icon is the button you push to put it on hold.

I think, anyway. I was fighting with that part at 1:30 a.m., when I accidentally hit the Hold button and couldn't figure out how to un-Hold the stupid thermostat. We didn't freeze or roast in the night, though, so I think DH's interpretation is right.

Anyway, the results are:

1. I'm very glad we kept the old thermostat
2. I won't go out of my way to take the new one with us when we leave.
3. I know what company to never buy a thermostat from.
4. I may write a short note to our HVAC company and tell them to consider using a different company's product.
   
5. I'd better write a few notes on the "manual" because we'll forget half of this by the time the batteries run down and the settings get wiped.