Newbie Questions

This morning my ESP light came on for about 10 minutes while driving. I had to shut off the engine to buy milk, when i got back into the car the light did not come back on. Should i be getting scared already? FYI it is CPO car.
Secondly i have driven manuals most of my life, this car has the shifters behind the steering wheel and i have used it a couple of times, however, i feel like they dont do jack! The car still changes gears when it wants to- am i missing something here on how this works?


