Technology - Simplifying your life!

The company I work for is always on the look out for ways to fight global warming. After all, Al Gore is on the board of directors.

It was decided to pick on lighting in this latest round of enhancements. Actually, not the lights so much as the light switches.

You see, this company may have noble goals with respect to the environment, but many of its employees are stupid, ignorant, clueless, lazy bums. You can set two containers - one for trash and one for recyclables right next to each other, and many people STILL won't take the time to put their empty soda can in the right container. They just cannot be bothered. I hate them.

Similarly, a lot of employees cannot be bothered to turn their lights off when they head home. So we now have enhanced lighting switches with motion detectors that can tell whether there is someone in the room or not.

Only the switches do not look even vaguely like light switches. Look at the picture - this is a typical conference room. The stuff on the left controls a variety of lights in the room. The stuff on the right controls the projector screen and the massage features of the chairs. (Kidding! Of course each chair has their own controls!)

If you want to use the projector, the first thing you have to do is spend several minutes pushing random buttons until finally the lights go off. 

In the offices things are also odd. Window offices (like mine) are programmed to leave the lights off whether I'm in the room or not. I can force them to be on, but the assumption is that I'm getting enough light through the windows to not need the overhead lights - which is correct.

If you do not have a window office however, the lights are programmed to come on whenever you enter the room, whether you want them on or not. Many people have other, less harsh lights that they use. They hate that the overhead lights come on all the time. You can call facilities and they can send someone over to reprogram your switch, or as a resourceful individual figured out, you can put a post-it note over the sensor - the equivalent of poking its eye out.

In any case, this is all probably for the best. But it is odd to walk down a hallway in the morning and be greeted by random offices and rooms lighting up as you pass. 

Technology indeed.

That's it - move along...