Can someone please explain to me why consistency is such a problem? There are tons of examples of this, but I’ll give you one example that I encountered over the past few days that really got this ball rolling in my head.

I hate sensor activated things. Hate them! I would say that 89% of the time they don’t work. Hand dryers are pretty consistent, but everything else seems to not recognize that not only do I exist, but that I’m standing there like an idiot waving my hands in front of whatever it is to get the damned thing going. Automatic doors even give me trouble, but I have a theory about that for another post entirely. Automatic water fountains might as well have a sign on them that read, “Thirsty? Yeah, I bet you are. Oh, no, just wiggle a little… no, a little more… bring your face a Liiiiiitttttlllleeee closer…. HA! You thought I’d squirt you, but no… I’m not feeling much like dispensing water today. What do you expect out of something for free? You should go pay too much for bottled water…” And then just as I walk away–one, two, three steps–Water squirts out. This cycle could go on for ages. And don’t look at me like that, you know you’ve been there too…

So I generally don’t use these devices if I can help it. The absolute worst, though, are sensor activated sinks. They never work! NEVER I SAY! “You want to wash your hands? NOPE! Not TODAY!” And if you do miraculously get them to work, the water lasts only long enough to rinse off one hand, then you spend another 15 minutes trying to get the bloody thing to work again so you can rinse off the other. Ridiculous! Well, until this week I believed that sensor activated sinks were installed only to cause me irrational irritation that I’d take out later on whoever I happened to run in to after leaving the restroom. The ones in the hospitals work! All the time! Every time!

If engineers can get the ones in the hospitals to work perfectly every single time, why can’t all of the sensor activated things? What is so hard about doing something right all the time? I know, hey, let’s install a sensor activated sink just to tease people! I’m pretty convinced that there is someone, somewhere, with a camera on every sensor activated device in public places and that they’re just one huge prank on the masses. I think I’d be less irked if I never encountered a sensor activated device that worked the way it was meant to all the time. At least then it would be consistently unreliable!

Why would you spend all kinds of money to install those sinks, and get ones that don’t work the way they’re supposed to? Unless, of course, that’s the plan. I imagine it’s saving someone quite a bit of money on a water bill. But all I want to do is wash my hands… is that too much to ask?!

Write well,

Dawn