Multiple Choice

[jadesfire]

You guys are, generally, I have found, intelligent human beings. Therefore, let me put this question to you:

 

If you come up to a lift, and it has a large notice on it saying ‘OUT OF ORDER, DO NOT USE’ do you,

 

a) Scream “noooo!” and beat your head against the closed doors while slowly sinking to your knees

b) Go find the stairs

c) Press the button (just in case) and get in the lift when the doors open.

 

Ok, all of you who answered a), I sympathise, as I hate stairs too. If you are a sensible person, you do b). If you are a reader in my library, you do c). This leads to your being stuck in the lift. 

 

It took us twenty minutes and much running about to find the key that would override the doors and get the poor soul out. Personally, I was in favour of waiting for the lift maintenance people to arrive and letting him suffer in there, but as we are nice librarians, we didn’t do that. Shame.

 

Combined with the idiot freshers (see previous entry) I sometimes wonder why we bother…

Comments

[perspi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you totally should have let him stew in there.

Ok, I'm working, really!

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm working, really!
yeah, right. Me too ;)

[genagirl.livejournal.com]

Well, if I was going up I'd choose A. If I were going down B, if I was going to work C. But that's just me.

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

I see a future candidate for the Darwin award here... >.

[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd say, "Oh, crap," and trudge up the stairs. However, I can and will read. Most people can but will not.

I often have to post signs on the doors at the church where I work: "toilet out of order," "wet paint -- do not touch," "use other door." They are pretty much universally ignored, and then people will call me up to complain that the toilet won't flush and it's stinking the place up, the door won't open, or "do you know somebody painted the kitchen hallway?" This is, by the way, the American church denomination most likely to have college and post-graduate degrees.

After I do the *head/desk* thing, I'll always say, "Didn't you see the sign?" I swear to God, they'll reply, "Oh, I didn't think that meant me!" or "I don't have time to read." That last one was my personal favorite for sheer arrogance.

Regarding the student, once the little darling was freed from the lift, I'd have conducted a public reading lesson then and there in front of the crowd. Yeesh.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Oh, it was much, much better than that...he was a professor. Yup, degree, doctorate, faculty position, general bigwig. Unable to read. Also unable to hear us as we shouted through the lift doors, due to the alarm going off and incipient deafness. It was when he started to get ticked off at us for his being stuck in the lift that I had to walk away. He was only in there twenty minutes in the end, then we got in trouble with the lift engineer for opening the doors ourselves. You just can't win.

One of my favourite Far Side cartoons is the small boy pushing the door of 'Midvale School for the Gifted'. A door marked 'pull'. We all have Midvale moments, but there is a definite inverse relationship between intelligence and common sense!