Change is bad

[indigo_rose99]

I once had a job with a desk near Document Control. I remember one of the employees of Document Control always complaining about the many ways in which people did not follow simple directions. I tried to gently suggest to her that what was easy for her, because she did it every day, was mysterious and difficult to everyone else. They were not TRYING to annoy her by not following directions, they simply had no idea what the directions meant! The directions were written by someone who KNEW what they meant, and checked by someone who KNEW what they meant. The clueless never managed to communicate how difficult it was for the uninitiated to actually follow such directions!

I find this is true in the rest of the world. I am impatient with drivers in the wrong lane. I remember only later that the first time I saw the intersection, I had no idea that lane was going to veer off in that strange direction, either.

Yesterday I went by my local library, usually a place of peace and lovely books. The ground floor was a madhouse of shrieking people less than 4 feet tall. I thought they would leave after lunch, and so hid in the slightly-less-noisy upstairs for an hour. I was wrong. I tried to check out and discovered that waves of children, no matter how cute, make me very tense. It doesn't help when their mothers cut in front of me in the checkout line.

I noticed new self-checkouts to one side, which might actually read my library card. Completely forgetting my entire reason for coming to the library (to pick up a book on hold, which requires human/librarian interaction), I went to follow the spiffy machine's large-screen directions. I convinced it to read my card. I managed to scan in my first book. Then it told me, "Please place your book on the Demyphystophiser." The what?! I looked at the picture. There was a Demysterything white sign on the counter next to the monitor. In the real world, there was no such white sign next to the monitor. "Beep beep. Please scan your next book." Ok... I picked up my second book and found a white sign on the side of the edge of the table. Not something I can put anything on TOP of. *frown* I scanned my second book. "Please place your book on the Deshumtiphyer." How do I place it on top? Perhaps the entire counter is somehow...? Oh, crap! I put my wallet down to pick up the books! Have I just demagnified all of my cards?! "Beep beep. Please scan your next book." I managed to convince the machine I was done and it printed me a reciept. I took my books and started out, threading between more shrieking children. I think they were playing tag. Hide-and-go-seek cannot be this noisy. And then, "WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP" I made all of the sirens on the exit go off.

*sigh* Evidently that Desomethingorother temporarily turns off the alarms in the books and allows people like me to exit without setting off sirens. A librarian took my books (this couldn't have happened BEFORE?! When I was trying to check out?!) and patiently explained the correct book position relative to the Deannoyingthing. "It's all very easy." Sure. If you already know the answer. And WHY it is doing it. Very easy. But if you have never heard of it, never seen it done, and you have about 2 seconds to figure out what it is talking about... Following directions in which the picture on the screen is completely different from the real world is quite difficult!

Comments

[aurienne.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything useful to say, I just wanted to say that I liked this post.

[indigo-rose99.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Better than my husband's reaction, when I told him the same story verbally. He backed away slowly and said, "Please don't hurt me."

[ironkite.livejournal.com]

This is why I send my instruction sheets out to a select group of people who do not work with the stuff I do. This is after looking at my instructions and attempting to make it easy to understand by someone completely new to the subject. And more often than not I get feedback on an item I thought was clear.