pivot and manipulator need work

[Super Nintendo Chalmers]

Setting the pivot is a confusing mess when the pivot won't stay put and I can't tell what is the axis of rotation for the object.

In maya, I just hold d to move the pivot around and d+v to move the and snap the pivot.
In XSI it had a manipulator and an axis of rotation but you could tell which was which. When you had COG (center of geometry) you knew that it was offset.

I can't tell what is what. I've looked at the manual. The pivot does its own thing.

This is just strange. When I say pivot. I mean the local transform for the object itself and not a temporary modeling manipulator.

There is a pivot and several buttons at the bottom. I don't know what is going on with that. Which one is which.

[DIGITALFOSSILS LIMITED]

Here are the two tools you can use to check and adjust object pivot.

View > Object Shading > Show ObjectPivot In Object/Mesh/Subobject mode.
Manipulation > Pivot.

[Super Nintendo Chalmers]

Thanks. I figured it out. I think my problem was that the manipulation was set to pivot->Selection. I am thankful that this was easier to do than modo or blender's method.