How we get there

Some months back in the parking structure of the building where I spend a significant portion of the daylight hours some new overhead signs were placed to direct people and cars. Okay, fair enough; drivers need to know things like the fact that there's two-way traffic coming down the middle lane.

One sign indicates the direction to where one can find the escalators. Again, understandable; people need to be able to get out of the garage after they've parked, and given that said escalators are (on this particular level) through a door and down a hallway, the direction surely comes in handy for the unfamiliar.

The signs have symbols or pictures on them, which too is worthwhile in a multilingual mecca like L.A. The two-way traffic sign has up- and down-pointing arrows. Okay. The escalator sign has a image of the sort of thick stick figure people that tend to represent humans on such signage. The image is of three figures side-by-side-by-side: two males on either side of a female.
(At least, I presume the middle figure is intended to represent a female; it could simply be a male in a skirt, with dots by the head indicating he has long hair. Certainly that's not out of the question.)

The thing is: The escalators only have two sets of moving steps--one for up, and one for down. And the width of each one is only wide enough for a single person; even two very thin people could not occupy the same step for the ride. Even if the steps were wide enough for two at a time, I'm not clear how three figures convey the sense of moving stairs going two possible directions. Yes, there's only two arrows, but there's three people.

(And if the figures are supposed to represent an elevator, why does the only text on the sign say "Escalators"?)

Now, I know where the escalators are without the signs, so this is of no consequence to me. My mind does not appease itself with merely concerning its thoughts to that which is of specific consequence to me.

Thus I continue thinking: Clearly someone put some level of effort into said sign. Clearly the figures were included in the configuration and number that they were intentionally.

It's not that I have a specific problem with not being able to understand what the person who designed the sign had in mind. Still, I like to believe I have a reasonable imagination, and with some effort can discern some logical pattern (or identify the intentional lack of logic).

The thing is: I presume that before someone went to the trouble and expense to produce the actual, physical sign with the design, that someone else—or possibly a committee of others—had to approve it. And clearly they did.

With what I post on the blahg here, there's no editor or other supervising entity; if I don't catch it, it doesn't get caught. But I would think that there's a longer chain of command with such an endeavor.

Then it occurs to me: The original design probably was just two figures. Then someone on the committee insisted that both sexes be represented. But then it looked like a couple. So there had to be two males and a female (the sexual overtones of which just hit me now); it became a competition between the males for the attention of the female—would she go up or go down? (Yes, that was intentional.)

Soon, to appease all the members of the committee the logic of the original design was chucked out the window and the sign had an inadvertent narrative that may or may not ever indicate to non-English speakers which way the escalators could be found but which would reveal a great deal about how sign designs get decided.

And thus I find some modicum of appeasement. I'm also reminded that although having no one to satisfy with the blahg other than myself means that I do all the work, it does allow it to be what satisfies me, not some ramshackle compromise that really satisfies no one.

~

It should be made clear: Not only is it not expected that anyone else thinks this way, but anyone who does has my sincere sympathy.