… even if it probably isn’t
At a television news station, one of the employees put up a sign in the elevator: “The ‘7’ button is broken. Please press ‘4’ and ‘3’.” Then he stood back and watched the behavior of those people who are supposed to tell us what is true and important. [Hat-tip Mark Isaak]
Brightened my day.
Hm. John, is your philosophy dept. in a building with 7 or more floors?
Any idiot knows that pressing ‘4’ and ‘3’ will get you to ’12’.
I’d just love to do that! But it’s possibly less convincing in a building with only four floors. “The 2 button is broken. Please press 1 twice”. Well, maybe…
It could be plausible, because the lift is notorious for breaking down all the time.
Nearly as stupid is pressing the “down” button when you’re on the ground floor and want to go up.
Apparently some people (including a former NYC mayor who I watched doing exactly this) think it’s a way to summon the elevator located at one of the upper floors.
For HHGTTG nerds: “Down’s nice”
That reminds me of a supposedly true story from one of the Dilbert books.
An office installed a new photocopier which came with a wall-mounted control panel. Some wag posted an official-looking notice by the panel announcing that it was a new voice-operated machine and that all users had to do was speak their orders to it and the machine would do the rest. No doubt much sniggering ensued as frustrated users shouted orders at the uncomprehending machine.
The best story, though, was of an office where the fax machine and copier were nearly out of paper. The boss asks the secretary to get some more. The secretary phones the stationery store and orders some fresh boxes of paper. When told that they won’t be delivered until the following day she asks if they could fax over a few extra sheets to keep them going until the new supply arrives.
Those instructions are not completely accurate. You have to press the “3” and “4” simultaneously.