Buttons

I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Brisbane the button to change the pedestrian lights is huge. It would be about the same diameter as a tennis ball and when you press it, it makes a loud satisfying clunk. I've even seen people use their foot to press it when they've been carrying something.

I got off the bus the other day and walked to the corner of Queen Street on the way to work. Someone in front of me hit the button for the lights. I heard the clunk, not once but three times, because everyone knows that the more times you hit a button and the more violently you do it, the quicker it works.

The button pusher then looked both ways, decided she wasn't going to get run over and crossed against the lights. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, some people are in a hurry at that time of day. I wasn't, I was on my way to work and could literally see the monitors* on my desk from where I was standing, so it wasn't like I was going to be late.

So I stood there waiting for the little red man to disappear and his little green mate to take his place and someone else walked up and hit the button, you guessed it, three times. At the same time, another person did the same thing on the other side of the road.

That's nine times the button has been pushed so far.

The little man was still red and by now there were a few people waiting to cross and someone else walked up and hit the button three times.

Okay, I can sort of understand the hitting it three times thing, there's that satisfying clunk and all. But wouldn't you think that if you walked up to a crowd of people waiting at the lights that at least one of them would have already thought to press the button.


Later on during my lunch break I walked up to Ted's camera store to buy a pouch to keep my camera in. In spends a most of its time in my work bag and, since it cost me a lot of money, I was worried that with it banging against my lunch box and everything else in there that it'd get damaged.

Walking back into our building with my new purchase I bumped into Lenny who works on my floor and we both got into the lift together. Lenny hit the button for our floor and we both stood there waited for the doors to close... and waited.

The doors have a longer delay when they're on the ground floor, because more people get on there. We both knew we could hit the button to close them, but we both waited... and waited.

Eventually, Lenny weakened and leaned forward to hit the button and before he could hit it the doors closed.

It happens every time. It's like they're waiting for you to weaken, then they close.

Now if that button had had a satisfying clunk it wouldn't have been a problem. We would've both hit it... three times.

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*Yes I did say monitors, plural. We have so many applications running on our computers at work that we need two monitors. My boss has four on his, but I think he's just showing off.