The doctors were baffled. They had just moved into newly built offices and couldn't find the light switch to look at X-rays. They buzzed for the office manager.
"The new light system runs by sensors," she told them, not quite making eye contact. "The lights turn on by themselves when they sense it is dark outside." Oops.
She did not need to add they'd be viewing the X-rays at night.
The public library's water bill tripled. The sensor flushing toilets "perceived" a need to flush before, after and during usage--as well as when the stall door opened or an air current hit.
The electricity bill at the library went up too thanks to sensor-controlled hand driers which set off every time a woman walked past them with a 747-like noise.
In fact the only sensor-driven appurtenances in the library's state of the art bathroom which weren't overly anticipatory were the faucets. Women stood in front of them--setting off the hand driers--and tried their entire repertoire of hand signals from papers, scissors, rock to the drying-the-nails wave to get them to give up a little water. Sometimes the faucet did but it was either too hot or only a dollop (or both) leaving soap on women's hands as they proceeded to dry them with toilet paper which everyone does when there's only a hand drier.
Which facilities purchasing genius made the decision to save women the "labor" of turning on the faucet or hand drier or flushing the toilet while wasting untold gallons of water and kilowatts of power? Who saved the doctors the "labor" of flipping on a light switch?
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
