You know, it never ceases to amaze me just how dumb some of my coworkers can be sometimes. A fair number of these people are certifiable geniuses, well trained computer programmers and engineers, but you give them one practical, common sense problem and it's like the world is coming to an end. Today's case in point, the coffee makers in our building. These are the coffee makers where you stick a cup under the spout, choose what size coffee it is, and whether you want caffeine, decaf, or a mix of the two, and then hit "start" and it grinds the appropriate beans and brews a cup of coffee for you. Once a day or so, depending on how many cups of coffee we go through, the machines have to rinse themselves out. When the need arises, the little LCD displays put up a notice that says "please press rinse." People will stand there, dumbfounded, trying to figure out why the coffee machine isn't working while they're trying to do the normal "short, left, start" sequence that produces a cup of caffeinated coffee; and when it doesn't work they'll move to the next machine (there are two). If that one doesn't work either, they mill around waiting for someone to fix the machines, or they go look for someone higher up the chain of command to ask them how to fix the coffee maker. And on the rare occasion that one of them finally realizes that the machine says "please press rinse," they'll press rinse and then freak out when water starts draining out of the machine into the shallow tray under the nozzle, because apparently it never occurred to them that if a machine is going to use water to cleanse itself, the water has to discharge somewhere.
Luckily, it wasn't very crowded in there today when I noticed both machines needed to be rinsed, so I was able to get to the machines, stick a cup under each one, and press rinse; while three engineers stood around flabbergasted that I know how to fix such a technological marvel.