Man oh man, you hit the nail right on the head. I learned this the hard way a few years back when I bought one of those cheapo multimeters from Harbor Freight just to save a few bucks. It worked fine for about three months, then one day I was testing a simple outlet and it gave me a reading that was off by like 15 volts. Totally useless. So I saved up and grabbed a used Fluke 117 off eBay for around $150 and honestly it's been rock solid ever since. I've dropped it off a ladder, left it in the rain, and it just keeps going. The build quality and the accuracy are just in a whole different league. You really do get what you pay for with test gear, especially if you're doing anything that matters.

Man that "interns on lunch break" line from your friend Mike is brutal but honestly pretty accurate. I had the exact same whiplash going from those first four episodes to episode 5. The colors looked washed out and the mech movements felt like they were running at half the framerate compared to before. I've been burned by this studio switch thing on at least three other shows this year, it's getting harder to trust which episodes are actually going to look good.

Trendy matte black" is spot on there. Limewash would have aged way better in the Charlotte humidity.

...and that reminds me of when I bought that expensive air purifier for my home office. I spent like $600 on one of those fancy HEPA units with the phone app and all that. Only problem was the app kept crashing and the unit itself was so loud I couldn't hear my own thoughts during calls. It took me two weeks of messing with the settings and talking to customer service to realize I just needed to put it on the lowest fan speed and stop using the app altogether. Your CRM situation sounds similar where the thing that was supposed to help just got in the way at first. Sometimes you gotta just ignore half the features and force it to do the basic stuff your old system did.

Wait @joel536, you telling me I gotta read specs now instead of just eyeballing it like I’m some kind of professional? I learned my lesson the hard way last time I ignored the print now my slab’s doing the cha-cha with the frost heave.