Esc key vs. F1 key

How about a boring work-related story? No need to continue reading if you don't want to read one.

In AutoCAD, you have to use the escape key to deselect stuff, and as any savvy computer user knows, the F1 key is right next to the escape key. What not every computer user knows is that the F1 key is the designated "help" shortcut. I use the escape key a lot, and it's really close to the F1 key, and sometimes I hit the F1 key by mistake.

This wouldn't bother me if it was just a little window that popped up really quick and I could close it immediately, but AutoCAD is a really big, powerful, dangerous program and has an enormous help directory. So enormous that it takes several minutes to load.

I probably hit the F1 key by accident three to five times a day. If it takes an average of three minutes to load this, I loose nine to fifteen minutes of my time each day to closing the stupid help menu. During the course of a work week that's forty-five to seventy-five minutes of lost time.

I wouldn't mind if it was lost time checking blogs or reading about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and their outlandish presidential campaigns. (I have nothing against having a black president or a woman president, I just want a MODERATE president. No more political extremists!!!)

Back to the F1 key. I learned a time saving trick this morning. If I just minimize the help window, it pops up immediately instead of loading for several minutes. So I have a temporary fix until AutoDesk sends me an updated copy of AutoCAD with my new, super-awesome upgrade of having the help key on a delay requiring it to be held down for 3 seconds before loading!!!