Things I Hate #2

The word "Crisis" is being thrown around an awful lot these days (even by me - if slightly tongue in cheek), and I have become increasingly interested in the true meaning of this word. Largely this interest has been driven by the fact that I am becoming increasingly aware of how my word choice, written or verbal, can shade the way people feel about not only what I am saying, but about me as a person. I find it genuinely interesting how a single word choice can sway a large group of people from panicked to reassured and back again. I have always had a clear sense of what I felt crisis meant based on the context in which it is most typically used, but I have never actually looked the word up in the dictionary. I still have never technically looked the word up in a dictionary, but I did use dictionary.com to read up on the definition of this word. The definition that I think most consistently is used by the many dictionary sources that feed dictionary.com is the following:

crisis - An unstable condition, as in political, social, or economic affairs, involving an impending abrupt or decisive change

Based on this definition, I have grown hateful of the way the word crisis has been used in the news over the past year. Again, I understand that the news must do things to capture our attention and the "crisis" has a certain morbidly romantic allure, but imagine if all the CNBC headlines declared "The Financial Unstable Condition" or "Wall St. Decisive Change". Not quite as captivating or terrifying. A crisis sounds like imminent implosion, and using the word in this way, as opposed to a time of instability, contributes to one freaked out consumer and emotionally-based decisions like making a run on a bank.

I don't want to become one of those people who is always harping on responsible journalism and on small decisions like diction, but right now everyone needs to calm the hell down, and everyone has a responsibility to contribute to the level-headed thinking we require to move past this difficult time. This applies to Michigan and to the United States. Advertising and promoting chaos never helped to fix anything.

Things I Hate #1

A new and negative semi-regular installment. Can you feel the excitement? No?

In many ways, blogging is very cathartic. It gives me the opportunity to dump my mind about things I love, find interesting or funny, hate, and enjoy eating. Like that one time that I ate one of those candy Valentine hearts with the message "I dump you."

Today I decided that I want to dedicate "Things I Hate #1" to one of the greatest injustices to the human race ever invented - the non-functioning elevator close button. There are some elevator close buttons that when you press them, the elevator doors magically react and close, and the elevator is kind enough to expediently take you to your desired destination. There are other elevator close buttons, however, that are worse than one million hellfires.

Here I am, a regular guy in a hurry, trying to get up to the 18th floor for a meeting. There it is, the button that could make this all possible. I press the button, and press it again and again and again, and absolutely nothing happens. Why? Because the elevator close button in this elevator was never intended to make the elevator close. It is the promise of a time-saver which only makes me look stupid while I repeatedly press the button with clearly no reaction from the doors. Then, when it is time for me to go back to the first floor, I get into the elevator after my meeting, hit the elevator door close button again and again and again, and of course, no response. Since it is lunchtime, the elevator stops on every floor, people get on, hit the elevator close button, and wait looking foolish as the Otis Elevator gods laugh at them from their perch at the top of the great golden escalator (escalators and elevators were created from the same larger subset of movement-device gods).

Is it possible that there is only one template for elevator button creation and that this template always includes an elevator close button, even if this button is not actually wired to close the elevator? What is the possible benefit of not including a functional elevator close button in an elevator? If this button works at the Holiday Inn in Backwater, South Carolina, can it be that hard to wire the button to freaking work everywhere else in the world? If you're not going to give me the option, don't even include the button.

"We sell Big Macs, but only to not anyone." Screw you, Otis Elevator.