My wife Lois is a patient person, normally equable, but she sees red if someone puts salt on a dish she has prepared for them without tasting it first. It seems that in this she is at one with Thomas Alva Edison. The great inventor, innovator and entrepreneur would always take those he was thinking about hiring out to dinner and ensure that the first course was soup.
Anyone who added salt to the soup without first tasting it was not taken on. The great man said he didn’t want anyone working with him taking decisions based on unfounded assumptions. “Quite right”, says Lois.