A little something new that I want to try out here. The topic isn’t directly connected with admin but has many of the hallmarks of it insofar as it all might not be that necessary and just that little bit of thinking might have revealed the otherwise obvious problem.
These new things are signs. Not signs from God, the zodiac, or even of love, but simple signs that we humans have put up to ostensibly make our lives easier but, like admin, do so in an unnecessarily complex manner and thus often tend to do just the opposite. (So, more so signs of disaster.) For some reason, I’m fascinated by signs, especially how badly implemented something otherwise so simple often is. So every now and again I’m just going to post a sign that I saw where I simply asked myself what the hell the person responsible for it was thinking. As such, I’m generally going to avoid signs with typos, dodgy translations, or where any humour is mostly context-dependent to focus on the truly unnecessary ones. As well as those that invoke unnecessary self-justifications. The latter could mean that a lot of these signs might come from the advertising industry (an example of which I’ve pointed out before in my BCD subtext) who, like admin and government, often don’t seem to think too much about what they’re doing because they must assume that we as their customers don’t either.
(As an aside, the UK has been by far the absolute best source for these kinds of signs. This is both fortunate and ironic. Fortunate because the signs will be in English and so accessible to the greatest number of readers. Ironic because one of the key drivers of Brexit (beyond all the lies) was the Brits wanting to get away from the stifling EU bureaucracy. But, as we shall see, the Brits should have been largely immune to it given the amount of their own unnecessary nonsense that they already have to deal with …)
So without further ado …
… the photo on the right is “courtesy” of Belfast International Airport and immediately begs two important questions. First, given that we’re not taking about paper towels here, who doesn’t already know this? (Or, said otherwise, is this sign at all necessary?) Second, how can anyone possibly dry their hands when their fingers are sticking in their ears? As such, instead of the warning, instructions might have been more helpful. And, wouldn’t another warning about hot air blowing on your head maybe have been more appropriate? Or simply about the air possibly being reasonably hot? (And that’s “reasonably” in both a normal, day-to-day sense as well as in a idiotic, legal sense a la all the McDonald’s coffee lawsuits.) And blind people? Completely screwed. Absolutely no chance for them to shield their more acute hearing before they dry their hands.
Ok, perhaps more than two questions, and some definitely more important than others, but at least someone is doing the hard thinking around here.
The Blog About Fog 