Under the topic of "Who Knew?" comes a pretty funny little interaction this morning. Last night, new keyless entry digital keypads were installed to access one of our office buildings. Part of the installation is having everyone create a personalized pin who needs access. This includes several Papua New Guineans as well as expats.
Most everyone was able to follow the instructions with ease.
-press a 4 digit code
-press the unlock button
-wait 30 seconds
-press your 4 digit code again
That was it. One of the men, Asi, was having a hard time with the concept that the 4 digit pin you input, is YOURS and you should remember it. And then, it should be the same 4 digit pin you enter every time. But, the guy who was explaining it to him, is still getting better at his Tok Pisin and didn't mention that you had to remember the code and use the same one. Why? Well because we all take it for granted that most people understand that concept. Only Asi didn't.
So what was happening was a sort of 'who's on first' dialogue.
"Push 4 digits"
he pushes 4 digits
"now we wait... okay now push 4 digits"
he pushed 4 different digits
"that didn't work... push 4 digits again"
he pushes yet a different 4 digits
"hmmn, I wonder what is wrong."
they repeated this over and over until the lock master realized Asi was pushing a random and different 4 digits every time.
"okay, now.. let's try this again. push 4 digits"
he pushes 4 digits
"now push the same 4 digits as you did the first time"
"I don't remember those 4"
"okay let's start over, this time remember the digits you press the first time.... and push 4 digits"
he pushes 4 digits
"okay now push the same 4 digits again"
he pushes 4 digits again
..it works!
it was a fun few minutes as they were figuring that out together... but what I am looking forward to is tomorrow when he realizes that he needs to remember those 4 digits EVERY day, and not have to do this procedure every morning.
I got a good chuckle from that. You never know what information you take for granted until you run across someone else who doesn't take that for granted.
-chad
