Handwriting. Printing.

I love writing lists.

I love writing commentary at the bottom of crossword puzzles when I’ve finished them.

I'm good at writing. Gardening. Helping people (when asked) find solutions to issues that trouble them. Finding humor in situations. Cooking- why, I even have people here commenting on my talent for stirring pots, and it's hard to get a compliment around here sometimes.

I'm good at being a friend.

Writing. Organizing. Baking. Sewing. Cleaning. Driving. Singing. Playing multiple instruments.

Math, sewing , reading.

i'm usually pretty good sticking to my shopping list, i don't do a lot of impulse buying.

i'm a decent cook but i don't do much of that anymore. it's hard to bake/cook for one person.

i'm reeeeeally good at spoiling dogs. 😉

Music. Been in bands, been an accompaniest and performed in small groups. I don't know why or how but I remember melodies, lyrics of an innumerable number of songs. Certainly thousands. If someone mentions a song I remember (can hear in my head), I can usually play it correctly (at least approximately) the first time on guitar or piano, even if I haven't played it before. I can hear and anticipate chord changes in advance and so play them properly and in sequence. I don't know or understand how I do it.

Good at creative thinking, thinking outside the box.

Solving or managing complex problems or situations

Being a nurturing and supportive parent.

Also good at being a friend

I was a sought-after mentor during my working years. Especially by women colleagues.

Someone in the other thread mentioned being poor at navigation. I'm pretty good at it, I think partially because of having a good memory. I always glance at a map before going somewhere new to get a sense of where I'll be or where travelling through. Even though I enjoy GPS equipment when I drive, I rarely get disoriented when out on foot wandering around.

Listening and gardening.

Cooking, singing, handicrafts (mostly fibre arts, knitting, crocheting, sewing and embroidery), fixing things, being a friend, calligraphy, understanding foreign accents and money (DH doesn’t do either of these well so it’s useful when we travel, but he’s very good at making friends with the locals wherever we travel), general knowledge.

Funny story- DH and I went to a quiz night and for various reasons we ended up being a table of two (as opposed to the other tables, which had six). Both of us are lucky to have retentive memory and broad reading preferences, so good general knowledge. We won the top prize, which was dinner for six at a local restaurant. When we went up to claim it, the MC said, ”Oh, all of you should come up!” We laughed and explained that we were ”all of us”. At another quiz night, which was specifically aimed at computer nerds and our table consisted of just DH and me, our (contemporaneous) good friends and a random older guy we met at the door, we won every single round against all those sweet young things who are always so quick to assume we older folks know nothing about computers, and received ten copies of the same outdated computer manual which had been donated as a spot prize 😂

I am a good cook, a hard worker, and a good friend. I also am a great judge of character. I can pretty much read whether someone is good or bad (based on my own metrics of course) within minutes of meeting them. And I have never been wrong. I do not know how I know, I just know. Example, the last 3 people that have left my department at work, I told my boss from the start of them working here how long they would last. I was dead on all 3 times. Do not know how I knew, but I know it wasn't just a guess out of thin air, and of course all of them gave the same song and dance about wanting to stay until they retired. I just knew. That's not a good/bad measure per se, leaving a job when one wants to is not a bad thing, just an example of the intuition I am talking about. I have examples of how I have seen through the facades of people that fooled everyone and then of course, big shocker to everyone but me, they turn out to be garbage, but I won't get into any of those. They are not pleasant. But I am very very good at it, and I am grateful for it. Oh, and I am also very good at creating and executing elaborate and fun holiday decorations.

I'm good at procrastinating.

Me too, LoneJack.

I’d add some more of my strengths to this thread… a bit later!

Office politics, during my working career of 36 years in higher education administration.

Flowers (buying, planting, growing, cutting and arranging!), organizing, sticking to an exercise program, and writing.

During my career, I’d have to say I was very good at program management, engineering skills developed over time, not just what I learned in school, mentoring people, and my spidey sense of first impressions of people (hey, @amylou321, are we sisters?) have served me well, even in volunteer work post-retirement.

Others are gardening and exercising, esp weight routines and Pilates. And I’m a very good navigator. I always enjoyed looking at maps.

One more note to @amylou321, I haven’t really told anyone about my misgivings. There was one time when I really wanted to hire someone I had interviewed and felt really strongly about and my boss didn’t (he was going by resume alone). He agreed to the hire and my guy turned out to be one of our best employees and went on later to do even more great things. One of my original quasi-negative internal thoughts about someone turned out to be wrong and I was glad I had given the person a chance to get familiar with the work before being dismissive. I think he was just a little intimidated by the new work and some of the other people involved.

Hmmmm, I’m a good decorator, a good organizer, gardener, wife & mom. I’m good cook, and have even had our statewide newspaper send a reporter and photographer here to interview me and do a big story on me and my recipes. Oh, and I was a good/nice boss when DH and I owned our medical clinic. I was so proud that they used to tell me all the time, “you’re so nice and normal, and never like some stuck-up doctor’s wife!”. 🥴😋

" Office politics, "

Really? Something to be concerned with and be proud of?

Office politics as in, getting along with all kinds of people in all kinds of situations.

I discovered that the best policy is sometimes Do Not Engage. Which is what I’m going to apply here.

You describe being cordial and helpful, amenable to any and all types. That's good. To me, the phrase "office politics" describes how some people act toward others, being scheming and calculating with ulterior motives, intended to contribute to their own personal advancement sometimes to the detriment of others.

The best way to get along well in an office is to do work you're responsible for to the best of your ability, and to help others do the same when they need or ask for help.

I’m good at my job but that’s boring. More interesting, and a little suprising to me, I’m good at organizing, persuading, and leading people.

I found this out when I got involved in, then led, a neighborhood effort almost a decade ago. That ultimately involved 200 volunteers, a door-to-door campaign, lobbying state legislators, raising about $100,000, a bunch of research and strategizing, etc, and we succeeded. I was putting 30+ hours a week into that effort.

I was reminded of this recently in some other volunteer work, a President of a non-profit board. It’s been a difficult two years for the non-profit, as it has been for many non-profits, but I have the trust and confidence of my board and the staff and we have a good chance of getting through to the other side. This thing is also occupying at least 20+ hours a week.

The problem is that this stuff is very time consuming. I tend to dive into something - neighborhood, non-profit - and work hard for a few years, then get burned out and chill out until the next thing comes around. I think I have maybe one year of energy left on this go around, before I need to go chill out again.

John, I agree with your "work hard and then burn out" theory. I don't think of that as a negative. It just takes you to new places to serve and help people and that's a great thing in my opinion.

I helped buy and take over our local farmers market. It was time consuming also but we did a really good job and I was able to make us non-profit and I was proud of that. After being involved as Treasurer and volunteer for 5 years, the physical part of the job was getting to be too much. Also very time consuming. So I "retired". My friend and co starter is still with the market and tells me all the time how much they miss me. That is gratifying but it is nice to have my time back.

A comment by murraysmom on the ”What are you Bad at?” thread reminded me- apparently I am good at teaching. I guess my technique has been honed by DH, who tends to take over and do it for you, which I don’t learn from and I doubt others do. So I’m more of a ”this is the result you need to get, I’ll demonstrate a few times. Please ask as many questions as you like if I’m not being clear. Then I’ll observe you giving it your best shot and only intervene if you’re going to do something dangerous or potentially disastrous. There isn’t always one way to do something and my way isn’t necessarily the only way or the best fit for you.”

I have recently retired, having trained my replacement as a high school lab tech. Like me, she is interested in science but has not been specifically trained as a lab tech. I originally planned on going into the science field when I left school and did study science subjects at university, but tight finances led me to leave before completing my degree and accept a full time job. Eventually I drifted into catering and hospitality and most of my working career was in that sector.

I was working as a relief home ec assistant when my department head recommended me to the science department head as a suitable replacement for their soon to be on maternity leave lab tech.

I had to teach myself the job pretty much from scratch. My predecessor was dangerously lazy, and departed leaving a filthy, disorganised and hazardous work environment, and no financial records which would enable me to determine who the suppliers were, when certain items were purchased or what I could expect to pay for supplies to enable me to budget. Luckily I started in the last term of the year, typically slow for lab techs as the upper classes which do most of the lab work stop doing practical work to revise for exams, and the lower classes wind down as the students get restless in anticipation of the coming long break. I spent much of the term cleaning the lab and storage areas literally top to bottom, repairing the broken equipment (I was so thrilled when I fixed the (unfixable, according to my predecessor) Van der Graff generator 😁), orgaising the equipment so that it was where it was supposed to be and locatable, and going through the head office’s last safety audit which listed areas of concern, none of which had been addressed by my predecessor. I kept records of every invoice and made notes of any crucial information I came across so it could easily be passed on to others.

I didn’t want whoever succeeded me to have to reinvent the wheel. I have been in other roles where that happened and so would keep a notebook of information learned over the job to pass on to the next person so they would know stuff like where the emergency gas cut off was, or how we handled a particular annual event: what went well and what could be improved. I have always believed that knowledge is power, but it works best when you spread it around.

I was ready to retire, but reluctant to do so until I felt that I was leaving my job in good hands. Teaching is a very hard job these days, and I did my best to ease the burden for the teachers in my department by keeping my end of things running smoothly. I knew (and they told me) that when I had to have some extended leave due to cancer tretment, that I had been sorely missed as the work I did had to be done by the teachers themselves.

I knew the school would have difficulty finding a good replacement for me, as it’s a notoriously troubled school too far from the city for someone to commute for the pay on offer to a lab tech- and there’s a shortage of lab techs in the whole state, with plenty of easily accessed work in the city where most techs live. So I was keen for the school to find someone smart, keen and local who I could train.

Yay! We had an applicant. She came in for a trial. I was very impressed. The school approved her to come in two days a week as an assistant trainee. I did my best to teach her, and inspire her to love the job as much as I had. (Playing with the cool science stuff and being in a caring and supportive department was probably the job I loved the most out of all the jobs I have had. I have done a lot of drudgery and exhausting jobs, many in toxic work environments, because I needed the pay packet. It was great to end my career on a happy note.)

I knew my assistant was ready to take over when I had a medical emergency that kept me home for a few days. I came in to find that she had kept everything ticking over beautifully despite not even being asked to do all the routine jobs, she just did them. So when the school manager indicated that my assistant would be hired if I was to retire, I replied with my resignation.

My biggest fear was that if I retired, they would advertise my job and possibly interview someone from out of town with impressive qualifications, accept them and then have that person depart for greener pastures asap, leaving the school without a lab tech if my assistant had moved on- they did this early in my employment, giving the job to a well qualified chemist from out of state, who then quit before even starting, leaving them to circle back and re-employ me. I knew that the school’s best chance at having a competent lab tech was to hire a smart person who lived locally and was likely to be on board for a few years at least.

When my department threw a lovely retirement party for me, my assistant thanked me for being a good teacher. I was so chuffed, that was the best part of the party for me.

I guess, because I like gardening, I have become good at flower gardening, and fruit production. Pretty good at decorating a home. Both of those seem to be "instant gradification" projects. lol

I mentioned a few things I am good at on the what are you bad at thread so there isnt much left.

I am good at public speaking which was unexpected since I was very shy. I did programs at parks and was always asked for help and guidance by others which was nice to be able to do. I have the gift of gab more or less. I wasnt expecting that. My grannie called me the family ghost when I was young. Talking is a competitive sport in the south where I mostly grew up. I am a good cook for which I give credit to that same grannie. I am sure I got my genes for doing things with my hands from my mother who could fix anything including putting the TV back together after my dad tried to fix it. She also fixed the TV, repaired our watches and music boxes, the dial on the washer and wire in a new element in the oven and so on.

The ability to fix things is a great skill which sadly, in these throwaway times, is not appreciated enough.

colleenoz, you’d be proud of me. 😀

I have an electric skillet that is about 30 years old. On one side the legs broke off. I tried everywhere to get a replacement leg, including directly from the manufacturer. No luck.

I liked this skillet because it heated very evenly. I made some ”temporary” legs hoping to get some replacement legs. That was 10 years ago. I still use it every so often.

My pegleg pan. Not pretty, but it does the job.

I don't knit or crochet well; that kind of handicrafting is beyond me. My mother was left-handed; I am not. There were miscommunications along the way. We tried to make a knitted square afghan together. It was a hot mess.

Apparently, I'm a prolific letter-to-the-editor person. I found an old folder labeled "writing samples," and I had written 30 letters to our major newspaper a few decades ago. They are all so relevant for today. The subject ranged from animal abuse to overdevelopment to circus animal abuse to saving our historic houses and buildings. There were pro-choice letters and, of course, political ones. There was also a half-page spread with a huge picture of me, standing, holding remnants of pottery and bottles found in our backyard while the contractor was digging.

lily, apparently you were an early activist, even back then!! Good for you. Looks like some things never get solved.

Good at reducing word count, editing, talking to doctors, handling old people, great in a crisis, very good friend. Super hard worker. Great a getting infants to stop crying.

Making and living by a budget. When I want to. That's the key. I really don't like to.

Reducing word count is useful!

I was a lawyer, briefs have page limits, condensing the prolix was common.

May I write about what I used to be good at? Diminishing (due to macular degeneration and GA) eyesight and very shaky (due to who knows what) hands, it seems there just isn't much I'm very good at anymore.

But I used to be a very good driver. A pretty good cook and a very good baker. Very good at a number of crafts, including crochet, ceramics, sculpting with paper mache (paper clay) and wood working. I was instrumental in starting and running the largest annual arts and crafts show around ('they' laughed when I dubbed it the "1st annual", but it lasted for 25+ years!). I was also a charter member of and an officer on the board of directors of a local non-profit arts and crafts store. I also was very good at writing articles for the local newspaper about artisans featured there.

But I am still good and improving at . . . . . . . procrastination!

Rusty

Rusty, I would say you have done much more than many people! Good for you.