Please silence your cellphone.
I’m sitting in a hospital waiting area, waiting quietly (nicely exhibiting location-appropriate behaviour) for a friend to emerge from a routine test requiring mild sedation after which they cannot drive for 24 hours. I’m scanning the walls looking for interesting bits. My results so far? Not much, truthfully, but at least this sign gives me something to do.
It’s a reasonable request — not that that matters, really. Their house, their rules, yeah? Demonstrating my technological savvy, in about a dozen quick steps I silence all things that beep or ring or buzz or chime on my cellphone. But do I stop there? I do not: I scan on. Maybe there is more required of me, as a quiet and bored waiter. A girl can dream.
This is a No-Scents Zone.
Avoid wearing or using scented products.
I frown slightly. At this post-shower stage of my day, what am I supposed to do with this instruction? I glance around. Is there a public shower in which I might remove any scented products? No.
Hm.
Is it a sign only for the routine-test takers? Maybe, but wouldn’t this be better addressed in the general instructions emailed out to all routine-test takers, as it is for mammograms? Posting it on the door into the unit is late-to-need, I’m thinking.
Is it a sign only for staff? Maybe, but wouldn’t it be better communicated through a hospital-wide instruction to all staff?
Is it a sign only for waiters on their second (or more) waiting trip? Maybe, but this sort of admits defeat, no?
We can stand some scent,
but for goodness sake don’t do it again.
Hm.
There was no hospital staff member who had the time or, I’m sure, the interest to discuss this with me, so it will have to remain one of life’s little mysteries. But it got me thinking about the timing/placement of signs and instructions. In general I think we do pretty well.
“No U-turn” signs appear at the intersection, not just past it on the reverse side to catch your eye after you make a U-turn.
In public-facing workplaces, “We don’t tolerate abuse of staff” signs stand on the desk of the first person you see, not on the inside of the front door, to be seen only as you leave.
“Pack it out” signs adorn trailheads, not the last 5 metres of the trail. And so on.
Let me be clear. I get that scent can be a problem. Me, I can’t walk into most candle shops or into many soap shops and many people are more sensitive-to-scent than I am. But if you have a special requirement — any requirement, really — then tell me about it. So that I can see or hear it. So that I can understand it. And so that I can still accommodate it.
