Wednesday, July 25, 2012

When Automation Is Annoying: A Tale of Toilets (and Sinks and Soap)

Here's the thing, I am a fan of modern conveniences, fun new trinkets, and the latest in technology.  I'm currently a little weirded out by the touch pad in my rental car this week, but that's a different post for a different day.  Today I want to talk about the bathroom.

Here's the thing, it's swell they figured out how to automatically flush a toilet.  It's not swell that they always seem to flush when you're still sitting on them, and yet either don't flush at all when you go to exit the stall or they flush too quickly and you're all "EW, this just spewed on the back of my clothes, backpack, purse, etc."

So you vacate the stall and walk to the sink, only to find the soap and water are also automatic.  And they don't work.  Or maybe the soap works at the sink you've approached, but the water won't spit out.  So you're walking around trying to find a sink that will give you water.  While balancing a backpack and a carry on.  And if you're really lucky in order to activate the sensor you have to practically touch the back of the sink to get the water to come.  UGH...not cool, automation people, not cool.

Finally you have clean hands...and now you have to wave them in front of a paper towel dispenser to get something to dry them with. And 99.9% of the time this actually works.  Thank you paper towel companies for being superior to toilet and sink companies.  Oh, and Dyson, your hand dryers are so futuristic and awesome, but I wonder if you aren't blowing dirty, germy, unclean air onto my just cleaned hands.  Please tell me you're using a filter and that it gets cleaned regularly, unlike the air filter in my house or at the laundromat.

Note: Props to O'hare for having automatic toilet seat covers.  I wave my hand, the seat cover spins around and my bum sits on a nice clean piece of plastic.  I hope.  

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