StefanJ's Journal: Bad Design

My workplace has two buildings. Physically checking on the state of a server means donning an anti-static robe and toddling over from Broadway to Hollywood. (We do movie-on-demand hardware and software, so our buildings and meeting rooms are cinema-related.) Not a long walk, but there's a bit of tedious threading through cube farm along the way.

This morning I had made it to the other building to reset a machine when I realized that I needed to check with someone who might have been diagnosing a bad drive. I made a call to him from a phone in a cafeteria.

When I was done I hung up the phone, or at least tried to. The handset flopped off the body of the phone, right into a trash can. I hauled it out to discover it covered with coffee grounds.

I dusted the mess off with a paper towel, trying to be discrete because a bunch of guests were being shown around the cafeteria.

After the worst of the crud had been wiped off I hung up the phone, taking care that the handset hook was squarely in its slot.

It tumbled off immediately. Into the garbage can.

I wiped it off again, moved the garbage can aside, and replaced the handset.

It fell off.

I inspected the little hook that was supposed to hold the handset in place; it was in the "vertical mounting" position, but was just too wimpy to do the job. I noticed that the handset had smudges of paint on it. It had, apparently, smacked into the wall on many previous occasions, when it fell off its hook when the garbage can *wasn't* there.

I finally managed to balance the handset in place, then backed away.

Time to find some velcro . . .

Stefan