The First Facility Management Blog

The follow images were sent to me by two different people this week. They illustrate the creative adaptation of objects once they’ve reached the end of their original useful life. In the first instance, the objects have been transformed into an interesting art exhibit. In the second instance, well, see for yourself. Coincidentally, both examples come from Germany.

Every one of these sheep is made from telephones and cords…check out their feet! (Source: Museum of Communications in Frankfurt)

From the London “Metro” paper…
The unusual urinals at a pub in Freiburg (apparently, an “eco-city”), south Germany, were put in by landlord Martin Hartmann.

“Most people see the funny side. But, we’ve had a few complaints from musicians. They are called ‘tenor horns,’ and will hopefully never again be used for their original purpose,” according to Hartmann.

The offending sign. (Source: BBC News)

Earlier this year (April 2009), I wrote an article about a spelling error regarding Webster Lake, better known as Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaug-gagoggchaubunagungamaugg. This alphabet soup of a name is the primary reason tourist visit this quaint, but rather typical Connecticut town; they want to be photographed by signs displaying the words Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagog-gchaubunagungamaugg. Unfortunately, in several instances, the name had been spelling incorrectly. The original post is available here.

In Wales, the message conveyed in another road sign has caused a bit of a scandal. This is a classic case of taking something far too literally.

Here’s a summary of the story, courtesy of the BBC:

All official road signs in Wales are bilingual, so when a local authority for the Swansea Council e-mailed the following message, “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only,” to its in-house translation service it received the following in Welsh: “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

When officials thought the reply was what they needed. So that response was what went up in Welsh under the English version which barred trucks from the road. All seemed well, until Welsh speakers began pointing out the embarrassing error.

“We took it down as soon as we were made aware of it and a correct sign will be re-instated as soon as possible.”

The blunder is not the only time Welsh has been translated incorrectly. In 2006, cyclists between Cardiff and Penarth in 2006 were left confused by a bilingual road sign telling them they had problems with an “inflamed bladder.” In the same year, a sign for pedestrians in Cardiff reading ‘Look Right’ in English read ‘Look Left’ in Welsh.

I’m just not feeling very funny today. But more than anything, I could use a laugh right about now. So here are some of the top jokes from different parts of the world, courtesy of Peter SJF Bance and his Friday Funny Web site.

In an experiment conducted in Great Britain, people around the world were invited to judge jokes on an Internet site as well as contribute their own. Dr. Richard Wiseman’s LaughLab research resulted in a ranking of jokes from many countries. Here are some of the top laughs by country.

– Top joke in the United Kingdom
A woman gets onto a bus with her baby. The bus driver says, “That’s the ugliest baby that I’ve ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her, “The driver just insulted me!” The man says, “You go right up there and tell him off. Go ahead, I’ll hold your monkey for you.”

– Top joke in the United States
A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes and bows in prayer. His friend says, “Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man.” The man then replies, “Yeah, well we were married 35 years.”

– Top joke in Canada
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 Celsius. The Russians used a pencil.

– Top joke in Australia
This woman rushes to see her doctor, looking very much worried and all strung out. She rattles off, “Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What’s wrong with me, Doctor?” The doctor looks her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly says, “Well, I can tell you that there ain’t nothing wrong with your eyesight …”

– Top joke in Belgium
Why do ducks have webbed feet? To stamp out fires. Why do elephants have flat feet? To stamp out burning ducks.

– Top joke in Germany
A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly. The soldier would pick up any piece of paper he found, frown and say, “That’s not it” and put it down again. This went on for some time, until the general arranged to have the soldier psychologically tested. The psychologist concluded that the soldier was deranged, and wrote out his discharge from the army. The soldier picked it up, smiled and said, “That’s it.”

– Top joke in the world
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”

It’s the end of Summer ‘09, and people are starting to get back to reality. Kids are going back to school, manufacturing is gearing up for a tenuous economic recovery, and engineers are doing what they do best–”MacGyver”-ing whatever they can to keep things chugging along.

Check out these humorous examples (from ThereIFixedIt.com):

Many thanks to Kirsten Roos for providing this collection of images.

From Salon.com

On its Web site, the Standard Hotel in New York City’s Meatpacking District boasts of “337 guest rooms with insane views” and “wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling windows that open.” And with prices that start at $320 per night (and go up to $705), guests expect to be treated like royalty. Except for one thing: they’d rather NOT be treated like the emperor (or empress) without clothes.

But when the High Line park opened earlier this summer (June 9, 2009), Standard Hotel guests were inadvertently providing “views” of their own by parading in various stages of undress in front of those open, glorious windows. Little did they know that those folks in the High Line park could see everything.

And despite being tagged “a brawny exhibitionist” by Justin Davidson in the February 2, 2009 issue of New York, the Standard Hotel is asking guests to take that tag a bit less literally.

From the August 25, 2009 Associated Press:

Guests at the Standard Hotel in Manhattan keep failing to close the curtains as they frolic naked in front of their rooms’ floor-to-ceiling windows, easily viewed from the High Line park below. The park recently opened atop an abandoned elevated rail line.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has called the hotel’s window action “unacceptable.”

Aaron Lipman works in the neighborhood and says the shows are “healthy and fun.” He says they’re like TV’s “Wild Kingdom.”

The hotel issued a statement Monday saying its managers will try to “remind guests of the transparency” of the windows.

The hotel won an award from the Municipal Arts Society of New York for best new building erected last year.

I think that says it all, but just in case you need something a bit more visual…

Source: Continental inflight magazine

From the BBC Web Site, published on 16 June 2008 (by way of Peter SJF Bance)…

Management speak - don’t you just hate it? Emphatically yes, judging by readers’ responses to writer Lucy Kellaway’s campaign against office jargon. Here are 50 of the best worst examples.

1. “When I worked for Verizon, I found the phrase ‘going forward’ to be more sinister than annoying. When used by my boss - sorry, ‘team leader’ - it was understood to mean that the topic of conversation was at an end and not be discussed again.”
Nima Nassefat, Vancouver, Canada

2. “My employers recently informed staff that we are no longer allowed to use the phrase brain storm because it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really.”
Anonymous, England

3. At my old company (a U.S. multinational), anyone involved with a particular product was encouraged to be a product evangelist. And software users these days, so we hear, want to be platform atheists so that their computers will run programs from any manufacturer.”
Philip Lattimore, Thailand

4. “Incentivise is the one that does it for me.”
Karl Thomas, Perth, Scotland

5. “My favorite which I hear from the managers at the bank I work for is ‘let’s touch base about that offline.’ I think it means have a private chat but I am still not sure.”
Gemma, Wolverhampton, England

6. “Have you ever heard the term ‘loop back’ which means go back to an associate and deal with them?”
Scott Reed, Lakeland, Florida, US

7-8. “We used to collect the jargon used in a list and award the person with the most at the end of the year. The winner was a client manager with the classic you can’t turn a tanker around with a speed boat change. What? Second was we need a holistic, cradle-to-grave approach, whatever that is.”
Turner, Manchester

9. “Until recently I had to suffer working for a manager who used phrases such as the idiotic ‘I’ve got you in my radar’ in her speech, letters, and e-mails. Once, when I mentioned problems with the phone system, she screamed ‘NO! You don’t have problems, you have challenges’. At which point I almost lost the will to live.”
Stephen Gradwick, Liverpool

10. “You can add challenge to the list. Problems are no longer considered problems, they have morphed into challenges.”
Irene MacIntyre, Courtenay, B

11. “Business speak even supersedes itself and does so with silliness, the shorthand for quick win is now low hanging fruit.”
Paul, Formby, UK

12. “And looking under the hood.”
Eve Russell, Edinburgh

13-14. “The business-speak that I abhor is pre-prepare and forward planning. Is there any other kind of preparedness or planning?”
Edward Creswick, Exeter

15-16. “The one that really gets me is pre-plan - there is no such thing. Either you plan or you don’t. The new one which has got my goat is conversate, widely used to describe a conversation. I just wish people could learn to ‘think outside the box’ although when they put us in cubes what do they expect?”
Malcolm, Houston

17. “I work in one of those humble call centers for a bank. Apparently, what we’re doing at the moment is sprinkling our magic along the way. It’s a call center, not Hogwarts.”
Caroline Garlick, Ayrshire

18. “A pet hate is the utterly pointless expression in this space. So instead of the perfectly adequate ‘how can I help?’ it’s ‘how can I help in this space?’ Or the classic I heard on Friday, ‘How can we help our customers in this space going forward?’ I think I may have caught this expression at source, as I’ve yet to hear it said outside my own working environment. So I’m on a personal crusade to stamp it out before it starts infecting other City institutions. Wish me luck in this space.”
Colin, London

19. “The one phrase that inspires a rage in me is from the get-go.”
Andy, Herts

20. “‘Going forward’ is only half the phrase that gets up my nose - all politicians seem to use the phrase go forward together. ‘We must… we shall… let us now… go forward together’. It gives me a terrible mental image of the whole country linking arms and goose-stepping in unison, with the politicians out in front doing a straight-armed salute. Is it just me?”
Frances Smith, Toronto, Canada

21. “I am a financial journalist and am on a mission to remove words and phrases such as 360-degree thinking from existence.”
Richard, London

22. “The latest that’s stuck in my head is we are still optimistic things will feed through the sales and delivery pipeline (ie: we actually haven’t sold anything to anyone yet but maybe we will one day).”
Alexander, Southampton

23. “I worked in PR for many years and often heard the most ludicrous phrases uttered by CEOs and marketing managers. One of the best was, ‘we’d better not let the grass grow too long on this one.’ To this day it still echoes in my ears and I giggle to myself whenever I think about it. I can’t help but think insecure business people use such phrases to cover up their inability for proper articulation.”
Leon Reilly, Ealing, London

24. “Need to get all my ducks in a row now - before the five-year-olds wake up.”
Mark Dixon, Bridgend

25. “Australians have started to use auspice as a verb. Instead of saying, ‘under the auspices of…’, some people now say things like, it was auspiced by…”
Martin Pooley, Marrickville, Australia

26. “My favorite: we’ve got our fingers down the throat of the organization of that nodule. Translation = Er, no, WE sorted out the problems to cover your backside.”
Theo de Bray, Kettering, UK

27. “The health service in Wales is filled with managers who use this type of language as a substitute for original thought. At meetings we play health-speak bingo; counting the key words lightens the tedium of meetings - including, most recently, my door is open on this issue. What does that mean?”
Edwin Pottle, Llandudno

28-29. “The business phrase I find most irritating is close of play, which is only slightly worse than actioning something.”
Ellie, London

30. “Here in the U.S. we have the cringe-worthy and also in addition. Then there’s the ever-eloquent ‘where are we at?’ So far, I haven’t noticed the UK’s at the end of the day prefacing much over here; thank heavens for small mercies.”
Eithne B, Chicago, US

31. “The expression that drives me nuts is 110%, usually said to express passion/commitment/support by people who are not very good at math. This has created something of a cliche-inflation, where people are now saying 120%, 200%, or if you are really REALLY committed, 500%. I remember once the then-chancellor Gordon Brown saying he was 101% behind Tony Blair, to which people reacted ‘What? Only 101?’”
Ricardo Molina, London, UK

32. “My least favorite business-speak term is not enough bandwidth. When an employee used this term to refuse an additional assignment, I realized I was completely ‘out of the loop’.”
April, Berkeley, US

33. “I once had a boss who said, ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it, so you have to step up to the plate and face the music.’ It was in that moment I knew I had to resign before somebody got badly hurt by a pencil.”
Tim, Durban

34. “Capture your colleagues - make sure everyone attends that risk management workshop (compulsory common sense training for idiots).”
Anglowelsh, UK

35-37. “We too used to have daily paradigm shifts, now we have stakeholders who must come to the party or be left out, or whatever.”
Barry Hicks, Cape Town, RSA

38. “I have taken to playing buzzword bingo when in meetings. It certainly makes it more entertaining when I am feeding it back (or should that be cascading) at work.”
Ian Everett, Bolton

39. “In my work environment it’s all cascading at the moment. What they really mean is to communicate or disseminate information, usually downwards. What they don’t seem to appreciate is that it sounds like we’re being wee’d on. Which we usually are.”
LMD, London

40. “At a large media company where I once worked, the head of human resources - itself a weaselly neologism for personnel - told us that she would be cascading down new information to staff. What she meant was she was going to send them a memo. It was one of the reasons I resigned - that, and the fact that the chief exec persisted on referring to the company as a really cool train set.”
Andrew, London

41. “Working for an American corporation, this year’s favorite word seems to be granularity, meaning detail. As in ‘down to that level of granularity’.”
Chris Daniel, Anaco, Venezuela

42. “On the wall of our office we have a large signed certificate, signed by all the senior management team, in which they solemnly promise to leverage their talents, display and inspire ‘unyielding integrity’, and lots of other pretentious buzz-phrases like that. Clueless, the lot of them.”
Chris K, Cheltenham UK

43. “After a reduction in workforce, my university department sent this notice out to confused campus customers: ‘Thank you for your note. We are assessing and mitigating immediate impacts, and developing a high-level overview to help frame the conversation with our customers and key stakeholders. We intend to start that process within the week. In the meantime, please continue to raise specific concerns or questions about projects with my office via the Transition Support Center…”
Charles R, Seattle, Washington, US

44. “I was told I’d be living the values from now on by my employers at a conference the other week. Here’s some modern language for them - meh. A shame as I strongly believe in much of what my employers aim to do. I refuse to adopt the voluntary sectors’ client title of ’service user’. How is someone who won’t so much as open the door to me using my service? Another case of using four syllables where one would do.”
Upscaled Blue-Sky thinker, Cardiff

45. “Business talk 2.0 is maddening, meaningless, patronizing and I despise it.”
Doug, London

46. “Lately I’ve come across the strategic staircase. What on earth is this? I’ll tell you; it’s office speak for a bit of a plan for the future. It’s not moving on but moving up. How strategic can a staircase really be? A lot I suppose, if you want to get to the top without climbing over all your colleagues.”
Peter Walters, Cheadle Hulme, UK

47. “When a stock market is down why must we be told it is in negative territory?”
Phil Linehan, Mexico City, Mexico

48. “The particular phrase I love to hate is drill down, which handily can be used either as an adverb/verb combo or as a compound noun, ie: ‘the next level drill-down’, sometimes even in the same sentence - a nice bit of multi-tasking.”
B, London

49. “Thanks for the impactful article; I especially appreciated the level of granularity. A high altitude view often misses the siloed thinking typical of most businesses. Absent any scheme for incentivitizing clear speech, however, I’m afraid we’re stuck with biz-speak.”
Timothy Denton, New York

50. “It wouldn’t do the pinstripers any harm to crack a smile and say what they really felt once in a while instead of trotting out such clinical platitudes. Of course a group of them may need to workshop it first: Wouldn’t want to wrongside the demographic.”
Trick Cyclist, Tripoli, Libya

This piece originally appeared on CNN.com, which has a business partnership with CareerBuilder.com.

Attempting to beat the clock isn’t always an option, but using creative and funny excuses is. There is no worse feeling than waking up in the morning, rested from good night’s sleep, and glancing at the clock, only to do a double-take: You’re late!

For most people, knowing they’re running late for work strikes the fear of God within them, and as a result, they move like there’s a fire under their feet to get ready. They hustle, scramble, frantically throw things into a bag and are out the door to ensure a timely—though unkempt and graceless—arrival at the office.

But for a smaller group people, knowing they are running late for work does absolutely nothing except stimulate their creative juices in order to make up the latest excuse as to why they are late for work—again.

Twenty percent of workers said they arrive late to work at least once a week, according to a February 2009 CareerBuilder.com survey of more than 8,000 workers. Twelve percent said they are late at least twice a week.

One-third (33%) of workers blamed traffic for their tardiness, while 24% said lack of sleep was the culprit. Ten percent of workers said getting their kids ready for school or day care was the main reason they ran late in the morning. Other common reasons included public transportation, wardrobe issues, or dealing with pets.

“While some employers tend to be more lenient with worker punctuality, 30% say they have terminated an employee for being late,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder.com.

“Workers need to understand their company’s policies on tardiness and if they are late, make sure they openly communicate with their managers. Employers have heard every excuse in the book, so honesty is the best policy.”

Creative Excuses
If you’ve decided honesty is not the best policy for you, don’t try using any of the following excuses as the reason why you’re late—they’ve been heard before.

Here are 12 of the most outrageous excuses employees have heard for being late to work:

1. My heat was shut off so I had to stay home to keep my snake warm.
2. My husband thinks it’s funny to hide my car keys before he goes to work.
3. I walked into a spider web on the way out the door and couldn’t find the spider, so I had to go inside and shower again.
4. I got locked in my trunk by my son.
5. My left turn signal was out so I had to make all right turns to get to work.
6. A gurney fell out of an ambulance and delayed traffic.
7. I was attacked by a raccoon and had to stop by the hospital to make sure it wasn’t rabid.
8. I feel like I’m in everyone’s way if I show up on time.
9. My father didn’t wake me up.
10. A groundhog bit my bike tire and made it flat.
11. My driveway washed away in the rain last night.
12. I had to go to bingo.

Follow the Culture
The general rule is that you should be in your desk, working by your designated starting time. Technically, even if you’re at your desk “on time” but you’re still booting up your computer, saying your hellos, and making a cup of coffee—you’re late.

Though you should always try your best to be punctual every morning, sometimes it’s safe to observe the company culture. If you arrive to work every morning to find all of your colleagues diligently working while you shuffle in on your own accord, your tardiness will probably stand out. On the other hand, if most people filter in at their own paces—within reason—an occasional late arrival will probably go unnoticed.

To be on the safe side, try your best to be on time for work every day. Your boss, co-workers, and reputation will thank you for it.

Several months before President Obama proposed a Happy Hour Summit to resolve racial issues stemming from the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, a local furniture store in High Point, NC area embraced the concept as a way to drum up business during the down economy. The Red House Furniture Store has developed a marketing campaign that illustrates the company’s philosophy: “Where black people and white people buy furniture.”

Here’s the video:

Yes, I checked. It’s real.

“For a while, we couldn’t do anything but answer the phone. ‘Yes, we’re a real store. Yes, that’s a real ad,’” said Vice President and Manager Steve Patalano.

Martha Waggoner of the AP writes:

The ad, which debuted April 20, 2009 and is only available online, has the grainy feel of a homemade late-night TV spot. Employees and customers haltingly read lines off cue cards, occasionally attempting to gesture as they talk.

The Red House, in business for about 50 years, hooked up with the singers, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal (owners of a video production company) after a company it uses to extend credit to customers offered to pay for a free Internet ad. Patalano accepted and Neal and McLaughlin showed up.

“We thought the idea was hilarious to use race and racial reconciliation as a marketing angle,” Neal said. “We also knew it would raise eyebrows and spark discussion.”

The way the creators explain it, every edit was made and every line written with the intent of making the ad popular online.

Hill and Pina — who have been asked for their autographs — say the theme didn’t pose a problem.

“The way we did it, it didn’t seem like nothing bad,” said Hill, 43. “We’re just like family around here. And the customers are like family to us. I just didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

Patalano says complaints have been few and far between, and the ad has brought more than page views. A couple from Georgia who bought furniture at the store Saturday told workers they were there because of the ad. Patalano has received e-mails from people as far away as Australia. One woman from Tennessee wrote to say she was thankful once-divisive race relations now can be treated in a lighthearted way.

Pina, 50, said he likes the ad because he “knew it was real.”

“We deal with all characters, a mixture of people,” he said. “We are blessed to have this customer base because some stores are shutting down.”

Hmmm…I wonder what beer they drink?

This Friday Funny comes from Peter SJF Bance.

Law of Two Tools
You only need two tools in life - WD40 & duct tape.
If it doesn’t move and it should, use the WD40.
If it moves and it shouldn’t, use the duct tape.

Law of Mechanical Repair
After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you’ll have to pee.

Law of Gravity
Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Law of Probability
The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

Law of Random Numbers
If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

Law of the Alibi
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.

Variation Law
If you change traffic lanes, the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (so true; happens in checkout lines too).

Law of the Bath
When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

Law of Close Encounters
The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.

Law of the Result
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won’t work, it will.
Antithesis
When you try to demonstrate how something works to someone, it won’t.

Law of Biomechanics
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the length of the reach.

Law of the Theater
At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

The Starbucks Law
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Murphy’s Law of Lockers
If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

Law of Physical Surfaces
The chances of an open jam sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet.

Law of Logical Argument
Anything is possible if you don’t know what you are talking about (often used by all levels of management).

Brown’s Law of Physical Appearance
If the shoe fits, it’s ugly.

Oliver’s Law of Public Speaking
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Wilson’s Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy
As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

–

While this originally circulated as a true story, it is really an Urban Legend that evolved out of a simple three line joke that has been around since the late 1990s. Here’s the joke:

There’s word in business circles that the computer industry likes to measure itself against the Big Three auto makers. The comparison goes this way: If automotive technology had kept pace with Silicon Valley, motorists could buy a V-32 engine that goes 10,000 m.p.h. or a 30 pound car that gets 1,000 miles to the gallon—either one at a sticker price of less than $50. Detroit’s response: “OK, but who would want a car that crashes twice a day?”

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives (or those who have followed the painful death spiral of the U.S. auto industry), read on. It’s funny even if it’s not true.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.” In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: “If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash……..twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only 5% of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation” warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask “Are you sure?” before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna. (In essence, ctrl, alt, del .)

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

Thanks to Luann Rathemacher for submitting this.