The sign says “Please Return All Library Materials Here.” Really. Do not stand in front of it ask me “Is where I return stuff?” unless you just want to look like an idiot.:smack: :smack: :smack:
And this happens at the library?
How sad.
I often go to this restaurant where the unlocked door to go outside (in a set of double doors) reads “Use this door.” Almost everyone promptly pushes on the other door, which doesn’t open.
I have worked at a number of places, including my current job, where there are signs directing customers to the places they want to go or offering them important information. The majority of these signs are ignored as if they weren’t there. In many cases, customers will approach myself or other workers and ask questions the signs were created to answer.
It is my firm belief that if I hung a large sign on wires in the only doorway that customers could enter, with large electric letters on that sign spelling out vital information that new customers need to know, that people would actually enter by pushing the sign out of the way without reading it and march straight up to the nearest worker to ask a question the sign could’ve answered for them.
At my college library I always returned my books straight to the librarian at the check-out desk. Of course, that was because if you put them in the book return spot, the book would be checked back incorrectly and you would get charged late fees or a missing book charge and then you would have to go hunt the book down from the stacks and show them that it had, in fact, been turned back in and on time.
Jerks.
Oh, I had all kinds of these where I used to work…
“Do you guys have DVDs?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
“Do you see the big hangy thing right there points that says DVDs? They’re right under there.”
“…Oh”
Coworker: “You don’t have to be so mean about it”
“You would be if you got that question 50 times a day”
Another one:
Customer walks up to the information desk, places merchandise on the counter, and proceeds to stare at me. A minute passes.
“Can I help you?”
“Isn’t this where I check out?”
“Nope, you check out up there at the registers. They don’t let us have money here.”
Possible addendum
“Up where?”
“That big sign that says ‘Line Forms Here’ under the big sign that says ‘Registers’, it’s over that way.”
“Oh! And there’s a sign and everything.”
An all-time favorite. The entire back half of the store was a music section. There were listening station things, a customer service desk, tons of CDs, and a huge sign that says “MUSIC”.
“Do you have CDs here?”
“Yep, they’re over in the music section”
“And where is that? makes a huge deal out of looking around”
“That half of the store over there points”
“Oh! There should be a sign or something!”
“There is. It’s right in front of the music section. It says ‘MUSIC’ See?”
“…Oh.”
Like the hours sign we had on the door? They’d do it all the time.
“What time do you guys close, anyway?”
“11.”
“Where does it say that?”
“On the door.”
I do this from time to time. I usually have the grace to slap my head and exclaim “I’m such an idiot! Sorry.”
Wow. Whoever would have guessed people who work at the library could be so mean.
From the other side of the counter. . .
In this area, there are two options for using plastic to pay for groceries: CREDIT or DEBIT. This is what the cashier always asks when you present a card for payment. They have been asking it this way at our town’s ONE grocery store for the entire ten years I have lived here.
One day I’m getting in line and I notice a hand-printed sign above the register with the shortest line: NO QWEST CARDS AT THIS REGISTER. OK, fine, I have a debit VISA issued by my local bank; that must be referring to one of the many incarnations of plastic issued by various institutions. I get in line. When I present the card (you knew this was coming), the cashier says I can’t use it here. Why not? “Look at the sign,” she says. I say, “This is a debit card, not a ‘Qwest’ card, whatever that is.” “Well, that’s what it means, and I can’t take it.” I sigh and write a check. Then I go up to the service desk and explain that they’d better use terminology that everyone understands, or at least the prevailing, most commonly used term, on their signage. I say that I have been using various forms of debit and automatic teller cards in this area for about 20 years, and NOT ONCE have I ever heard of a “Qwest card.” The word “Qwest” appears nowhere on my card. I point out that their own cashiers routinely ask “Debit or credit?”
The next day I noticed that the sign had been changed to prohibit DEBIT cards.
Are they possibly trying to go through the door on the right? A Mc Donald’s does that over here. A door with two wings, and one locked and one open. Drives me apeshit, and I know not to use the wrong one (it is marked, and its been that way for at least ten years that I know of.)
Some places just have weird doors. Doors you pull to go out, for example.
Well, my first instinct when I see a sign on a door is that it says, “Please use other door.” I’ve yet to see a sign on a door that says “Please use this door”, so I’d probably try the other door first just on instinct.
Yes, they try to go through the door on the right, and I was thinking the same thing as BlackKnight – I guess they just read it as saying “Please use other door” on instinct and run into a locked door.
Here’s some library humor.
My favorite:
You know, it all depends what kind of a learner you are. Those who learn by doing, are more likely to ignore signs and push any door to open, those who learn orally, are more likely to ask than to read signs.
I actually had to train myself to look around train stations, airports and places such as libraries to read signs.
There have also been many occasions when the signs are obsolete and you have to ask anyway.
[hijack]
I used to work at K-Mart, and once I was assigned phone duty.
First of all, let me tell you that when you called our store, the first thing you heard was a recording. “Thanks for calling your 24-hour Super K-Mart Center. Please hold for the next available operator who will direct your call.”
I can’t tell you how many calls I got that evening asking me what time we closed. It amazed me that they would listen to the recording, hear it repeated several times while waiting on hold, and then ask me such a stupid question.
[/hijack]
I think the reason people ignore signs is related to the glut of advertising around us. To protect ourselves from the onslaught of ads we see every day, we’ve become accustomed to intentionally ignoring signs on a sub-concious level.
I am not sure of your jurisdiction or the particular situation, but that is usually against code.
In the case of a fire, a door that needs to be pulled (so that one can exit) could potentially be a death trap.
wtf?!?!? isn’t a debit card the equivalent of cash?? 
Not really. You need the proper equipment and access to the debit network in order to process debit cards. Some grocery stores will have more aisles than debit or credit terminals available, and therefore will restrict which aisles allow which payment methods.