Thursday, August 07, 2008

Lift the Toilet Handle For Goodness Sake!

One of the restaurants I eat at quite often has a problem in one of the women's toilet stalls. The handle you press down to flush the toilet gets stuck in the down position. This happens each and every time the toilet is flushed.

Many times I have opened the door to that stall to find that someone has used the facilities, but has not flushed, because the handle is in the 'down' position (and there is nowhere to go from there!)

I'm astounded by the fact that the people who are encounter this 'problem' do not think to lift up the handle. That is all that is necessary to restore the toilet to working status. Yet, people try to push 'down' (on the handle that is already down), it doesn't work, and they abandon their endeavor, only to leave a mess for the next person.

I know that these folks are not doing this intentionally. To them, they believe they have encountered an unsolvable problem. Yet, the solution is so obvious, and is staring them in the face.

I'm also amused that the restaurant managers haven't thought to put up a simple sign to explain this to people.

The shower curtain article I posted yesterday talked about 'simple solutions' to problems that we see as complex. This posting is another such example.

Sometimes the answer is easy and obvious, yet we believe ourselves to be trapped or stuck. Think outside the box. Sometimes you have to 'lift up' instead of 'pressing down.' :)

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