NICE ACTION!

People often ask me; OK sometimes ask me; OK, they asked me once, “what is your very favourite gadget?”  Now I love a gadget, and would like to think myself a peer of that fellow gadgeteer, Sir James of Mayes.  However, my answer may not even qualify as a gadget, per se.  The award for this category goes to my solid bamboo “soft-close” toilet seat. This "gadget" has actually changed my way life, to the extent that I can’t imagine being without it.  No more banging and clattering of seats in my house (with 3 sons), but instead a concomitant accidental crashing of seats everywhere else I go.  This is because I forget that other places rarely have them, and thus embarrass myself in the homes of friends.

Ask any guy, who was around in the 1980’s, about Hi-Fi, and they’ll tell you that the soft-eject mechanism on cassette players was the THE most important feature, when it came to sales. My friends and I would often visit Woolworths and Currys just to declare “nice action” when pressing eject on every tape deck in the store.  It looked like a little miracle, and pleased the eye every single time.  In its own way, my toilet seat elicits the same feeling of bewildered awe.

So I love it when things “just work”, effortlessly, and impressively. And when they do, I instantly believe that the world should be reset to this new standard.  That’s why I accidentally slam other people’s toilet seats.  That’s also why I have to go back over anything I type in non-iOS devices, to put in the apostrophes that my iPhone usually inserts for me.

Of course, the opposite of this grates and frustrates in equal measure.   Take for example BT (or British Telecom for us over 40’s).  When calling them with a minor query, the automated system asks “So that we can direct your call to the most appropriate advisor, are you calling from the number, about which you are enquiring?” No number needs to be pressed; you simply reply "Yes".  After the usual further questions, and hold musak, you have the honour of addressing a real person. Wouldn’t you know it, the very first question they ask is “What is your telephone number?”  Never mind that you gave, and confirmed this number, don’t they have any form of caller display?

This kind of illogical clumsiness not only jars, but diminishes any confidence you had in an organisation which professes technological prowess.  We see the same cool intuitiveness form the likes of Amazon, and similar awkward ineptitude from so many others, including job boards.  Is it really too much to ask, that having searched for Sales jobs in Manchester yesterday, a job board would start from that point when I visit again today? Must the transition from a slick employer’s website to a clunky ATS really resemble driving from a five lane motorway onto a muddy country lane?  How about the brain-numbing, stupefying abomination that is Linkedin Groups and forums?

Which brings me back, full circle, to my toilet seat. I love it when technology “just works”.  I really love it when I can step back and declare, “Nice Action!”