Man that is such a classic move. Same thing happened to me with a circular saw blade once, spent way too long blaming the motor before I looked at the teeth direction. What finally helped me was making a little arrow with a paint marker on the side of the blade housing pointing which way it spins, so I can know at a glance if something is off. Also got in the habit of checking the blade orientation as the very first step before even touching voltage or tension. Saves a ton of headache on the next change. Nobody talks about how easy it is to mount a blade backwards when you are in a hurry.

That whole thing felt so backwards. A friend of mine who does comic strips for a local paper said she saw the original sketch and it was clearly a dark humor take on Portland's potholes, not drunk driving. Seems like nobody even asked the artist what he meant before the mob grabbed their pitchforks. What gets me is how fast everyone moved, but how quiet it goes when the truth comes out. No, I haven't seen a reversal actually stick, it's like the apology never travels as far as the outrage.