Some afterthoughts....

OK, it's a noted phenomenon here that people coming to the front desk automatically flock to the person with the "Closed" sign in front of them. I mean, when you go to the bank, and the teller has a "Closed" sign in front of them, WHO goes and stands by that person anyway, not believing the "Closed" sign? I've never seen anyone not believe the "Closed" sign. Well, here, if someone is working on a report or doing something that requires your full attention, we put the very nicely glass-framed 8x10 "Closed" sign in front. And then watch how many people look right over top or around it to ask that particular person to do whatever it is they are there for. I was trying to help Sarah, who was doing timesheets for payroll. I printed another 8x10 sign that just had the one word on it, in the largest font possible, and put that over top of the nice, professional "Closed" sign that was there. And used red and everything so it would stand out. Well, before that, I stuck bright orange sticky notes all over the sign. Then put the big one in red lettering. Nothing. Didn't make a difference. In fact, it's like a magnet and more people than ever go to that station.
It was tested again the other afternoon, when there was the general cell phone outage. We printed off nice 8x10 signs to put in nice wood and glass frames, that explained the cell outage was widespread, all networks, and we had no ETA for repair. Then we made a bet on how many people were either not going to see it at all, or else read it and then ask the questions anyway. Well, actually, the bet was how many people would stop and read the sign, then just accept that that was all the information they were going to get, and move on. Taking into account rooms being changed over, and people gone on leave, there are probably approx 2800-3000 people in this building at any given time. Our guesses were anywhere from 4 people up to 16 people. Remember, we were counting only those people that read the signs, and accepted that there was no more information to be had. The time period was from the time the buses started arrived from site with the guys returning to camp after their day of work, which is around 4:30 pm, until service was restore at approx 6. Unfortunately, we didn't keep track of how many people asked anyway, but there were 4 people that accepted the info. It's there for your information, but apparently it just can't be true.
;)