Flawed

I'm slowly coming upon the realization that a career change is in order. Not an industry change mind you, but I think I need to mix things up a bit. My head just isn't in the hardcore developer role anymore. I'm not having fun with it, and that tells me a lot. I was spoiled with my last position by having full creative freedom over what I was doing. Now, working off a set list of specs done by somebody else, it just doesn't appeal to me. I'm so much better at details and coming up with what should be done than I am with actually doing it. To an extent anyway.

Now, I know you're wondering what sped this process along. Well, nothing really, I'm just starting to listen to the voices in my head a little more lately. Plus I've been thinking about elevators a lot. Yes, elevators.

You see, the elevators in my building are flawed and it bugs the hell out of me. There's nothing I can do about the problem, and it's not my job to come up with a solution. But I suppose it could be. You may or may not agree with my assessment, but I worked up a little demonstration so humor me if you will.

Here's the setup:

You get on an elevator and push the number for your floor. Then, just before the doors close, somebody comes running up trying to catch your elevator. Now, your first reaction is problably to wish the doors closed, but that usually doesn't work so well. So assuming you are feeling nice that day, your second reaction would be to hit the "door open" button. Ah ha! That's there the problem begins. You've only got a split second to decide which button to push. You know there are two door operation buttons: door open and door close. But which one is which? They aren't labled very well, and you don't have time to study them. As it turns out, I always push the wrong one.

I don't have a camera here, so I can't get a "real life" demo going, but I put my meager Photoshop skills to use and worked up a diagram. This probably isn't going to work very well because I can't truly recreate the conditions, but we'll see.

I'll wait until a few comments are posted before I give you my reaction and why. I know my reasoning is sound, but my reaction may not be the norm.

So put it in your mind, you want to OPEN the door, do you push the button on the left or the button on the right? Don't think about it, just pick one. Ready?

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