I’ve commented before on Canada’s signage, but by far my favorite are the penalty signs for going 50 KPH over the speed limit. They include notes like “10 year loss of license”, “$15,000 fine”, “1 year in prison”, which all seem reasonable but I think one could capture a more visceral fear with ones that say “Go 50 KPH over the speed limit and your name is Peaches”, “Go 50 KPH over the speed limit and you’ll learn what a black bear in estrus can do”, and “Go 50 KPH over the speed limit and you will be hit by a cruise missile”.
Ambiguous signs combined with a few other strange map moments lead me to drive straight to work and where I arrived at 9 AM as I had told someone that I’d have something done by 10 AM and I had no intention of failing. I hadn’t shaved, I was wearing day old clothing and my eyes were a spot red but I got the task done after which I triumphantly reported to my boss:
Me: I had a rough weekend and only came in to take care of a quick thing for a requester, do you mind if I leave now?
Him: Can you take care of just one thing before you go?
Me: Sure.
Him: Could you test fluid infiltration on these three different pouches, with two different challenge fluids at these 5 different conditions?
Me: That’s 90 pouches if you assume 3 per condition and that would take… many hours.
Him: I’d get started, then.
Lesson Learned: Old Boss – Analog, could match task to ability to do them. New Boss – Digital, you are either present and working, or not.