I blogged last week that I had been to see the new Nottingham Trent University refurbished buildings – I thought they were great. One of the things we saw, but honestly didn’t ‘get’ at first was the lift control buttons.

The buttons for where you want to go are on the outside of the lifts! There is no button inside. It was only when the ‘guides’ explained the issue that we realised the cleverness of the solution. There are six lifts – and at peak times there can be hundreds of students trying to get to different floors in the (tall) Newton Building. So what happens is that you press a button on the outside and the ‘system’ directs you to the next suitable lift which will transport you quickly and efficiently.

So there is no getting in the lift and everyone pressing ‘their’ floor – thus making the lift stop at every floor! It takes a bit of getting used to – but is quite clever and a real attention to detail. I like it!

So, liking attention to detail, I was amused in the week when one of my colleagues, Nick Hammond, sent me a picture which is perplexing. It suggests that an order was placed over the telephone with ASDA for a cake, the conversation went something like:

Customer – Hi I’d like a cake with writing on – it’s for a leaving present.
ASDA employee – ok, thats fine – what would you like on it?
Customer – “Best Wishes Suzanne” and then underneath that “We will miss you”

An easy mistake?

p.s I accept this might not be ASDA who did this! But I did check on Hoax- Slayer – and no sign of it there!