People hate change, especially when it comes to their work environment.
New computer? Great, except now I have to transfer all of my old files from one to the other, re-install a plethora of software and oh, did I mention we upgraded to XP Professional? Sorry, your old software won't work anymore, so we'll have to upgrade all of that stuff, too.
Of course, it wouldn't be so difficult if your boss didn't need that PowerPoint presentation ASAP, and if the IT department let you know it would be upgrading your PC over the weekend.
Now it's Monday, and you'll be lucky if you leave before Tuesday.
It's almost easier to keep the old, slow-as-molasses computer.
Here in our building we're getting new elevators. Sounds easy, doesn't it? But it's not like we're replacing the cars themselves. No, we're upgrading the operating system.
Gone are those pesky, hard to follow Up/Down buttons.
Gone are those even harder-to-understand buttons inside the elevator. You know those confusing numbers that are supposed to indicate at which floor you want the elevator to stop? Yup, they're gone. No buttons inside the elevator. None.
Instead, we've got a new keypad located outside the elevator — in the elevator bank.
It looks like a security pad, or a telephone number pad. Here, instead of pressing Up or Down, you enter the floor number you want to go to. The keypad then chooses which of the eight elevators best suits your need, and displays a letter from A to H, telling you which elevator car to take.
So... for instance, you press the number 7 to go up to the seventh floor, and you'll get a "C" indicating you want to hop aboard elevator "C" when its doors open.
The problem with that is that most of us are so conditioned to listen for the little ding and get into the first elevator that arrives. So we board elevator "B," or "H" instead of "C."
No problem, you say? Just push a button and get off the at the next floor.
No can do. There are no buttons inside the elevator, remember? You're stuck going to the 22nd floor when you meant to go to 14, and now you have to get off and do it all over again on 22.
Other times you'll daydream or stare off into space after you press the button, and you end up missing the flashed letter indicating your ride, so you either guess which elevator is yours or you go back to the keypad.
Even then, as you're waiting for the letter to appear, somebody you know may stop to say hello and, "Dang, missed it again."
Of course, there are little red numbers on the side of each elevator door indicating which floors that car will be stopping at, but they're so small — you'll still need to know which one you're supposed to get into just to read the numbers.
So, at that point, you're just confirming that you're taking the right elevator.
I know it seems trivial to Grrr the new elevator system, and there are times where the elevator bank is full but nobody gets on my single-stop ride, so in that case, I like it.
But for the most part, it's all too much to grasp at times, especially when your mind is racing and your boss is on the warpath and the work is piling up and the deadline is looming. The last thing you need at those times is to remember which elevator you're getting into.
Especially when those pesky little Up/Down buttons were so ingrained into our brains, and, after all, they did work. Up. Down. Up. Down. No problem there.
Now, while we're still getting used to the new elevator system, word comes down that we're getting a new "State-of-the-Art" escalator. Yippee.
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