Engineering Humor

I was returning back from a business trip in Portland, Oregon, and I had to make a pit stop before waiting in the security line at the airport.  While in the bathroom, I couldn’t help but admire a sign placed on the wall inside the bathroom stall promoting the hottest new technology in toilets.  The sign was well intended to instruct users on how to use the new toilet technology from Sloan.  The technology was the new two directional flusher created to reduce the average amount of water used per flush.

The humor (all be it sophomoric) comes from how Sloan instructs users to use the new toilet technology.  The sign (I believe unintentionally) uses American bathroom jargon to communicate how to appropriately flush the toilet to conserve the maximum amount of water.  Simply put, the sign instructs you to lift up for #1 (liquid waste), and push down for #2 (solid waste).  Enough said.

So then I got to thinking.  I bet the person who created this sign (most likely a mechanical engineer) probably inadvertently described the instructions using “#1” and “#2” to explain the various processes without thinking of the secondary meaning—the American bathroom jargon for #1 equaling urine and #2 equaling stuff that comes out from around the corner.  However maybe I’m not giving Sloan’s engineers enough credit—perhaps they did this to have a little fun.  After all, the #1 and #2 explanation really was redundant to the description in parenthesis (See photo).

I could just see the documented formal technical design specifications reading something like, “To operate the Sloan handle flushing technology, you lift the handle to initiate flushing process #1, which the toilet will flush 25% less water to dispose of liquid human disposal.  However when the user pushes the handle down, flushing process #2 will occur, in which the toilet will have a stronger stream of water to remove more solid waste, and use the standard supply of water.”

Thanks for giving me a chuckle Sloan, even if it was unintended.

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