Stupid Guest Tricks

This is so out there I can't even come up with a witty title for it.

Anyway, a kid spilled his soda by the door. I get a mop, wipe it up, and put out a wet floor sign. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. I counted at least 65 people who walked into and knocked over that sign in the span of two hours.

I mean, come on, it's a big yellow sign with CAUTION! written in 4 languages, and a picture of a guy slipping. How hard is it to miss it?!

I think we need a sign warning of the upcoming sign.

Wait... that would only work if guests READ!

glendalais wrote:This is so out there I can't even come up with a witty title for it.

Anyway, a kid spilled his soda by the door. I get a mop, wipe it up, and put out a wet floor sign. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. I counted at least 65 people who walked into and knocked over that sign in the span of two hours.

I mean, come on, it's a big yellow sign with CAUTION! written in 4 languages, and a picture of a guy slipping. How hard is it to miss it?!

This could make an interesting study. Set up a hidden video (or multiple videos to capture multi views) and study where the people who do and the people who do not hit the sign are looking. Maybe a simple modification such as making the sign taller to put it at eye level.

This could also extend into merchandising to figure out what specific display(s) capture the eye of the guests to the point their mind excludes every thing else. Then in issues of safety (like this) knowing what is capturing the attention could allow a temporary blockage of view of that display from the angle that the safety issue is. Or if it is archetectural, a lowering of highlight spots to make the guests more aware of their surroundings temporarily. Heck even flashing chaser LEDs surrounding the sign might draw attention to its presence.

On the other hand, knowing what items or display effects (color, lighting, etc) can draw attention can be used to subtly lead guests to specific displays or display areas when no safety issues are in play.

Such a study wouldn't require tons of expense or time. A few hidden camcorders and the 2 hours it takes the floor to dry (or whatever the dry time is) and then one person to study the recordings and to doccument the findings.

Go ahead and report your observation and throw out the idea of studying the phenomenon. Who knows you may get to conduct the "test" and get lots of points with the managers and bean counters.

Randy

Geez Randy, your industrial engineering tendancies are showing. ;) Disney only intentionally blocks views if it interfers with the show or it's involved with maintenance. A yellow marker for a wet floor should be sufficient for the time it would take for the soda to dry.

I feel your frustration; it seems guests are always in a hurry. (Except when I'm walking behind them...then they take their time.) Or maybe the sign needs more languages? You never know for sure!

We had a "We'll Be With You Shortly" or whatever it was sign at check-in and I swear that thing got knocked over every single day. One day (after about 6 months of this) I thought to myself: "Self, that sign needs a bigger base." What an epiphany. We requested a better base for it. Problem solved.

glendalais wrote:This is so out there I can't even come up with a witty title for it.

Anyway, a kid spilled his soda by the door. I get a mop, wipe it up, and put out a wet floor sign. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. I counted at least 65 people who walked into and knocked over that sign in the span of two hours.

I mean, come on, it's a big yellow sign with CAUTION! written in 4 languages, and a picture of a guy slipping. How hard is it to miss it?!

The guests at Disneyland must be even more blind than the ones at WDW. There was one very rainy day I was working in the Confectionery. The floor is tile in there and all the people coming in made the floor quite wet. We set up a few wet floor signs around the store and they only got knocked over a few times.

The floor was so slippery I was afraid a guest would fall even with the signs warning them the floor was wet. I asked a coordinator about a mop and he said we didn't have one so I called custodial who came out and mopped up the water.

I ws doing some research for work on getting some safety equiptment for some of the employees, and had several catalogs on my desk. The one thing that jumped out at me was a warning sign, made of plastic, that was about 4 feet tall, and shaped like a guy in a hard hat, and bright yellow or green. you could hve various sayings printed on it. (wet, slippery floor, overhead loading, SG crossing, etc.) the thing is, they really catch your eye. Perhaps WDW should consider this. (also, if you knocked it over, it would make a rather loud sound!)

Plus it put the warning almost at eye level, and really in almost everyones field of vision!

See, we have that problem ALL the time at the hotel I work at. Our pool is outside and where is the elevator? Uhhuh, inside a hallway that's tiled. We constantly have guests complaining that it's wet. Even when we have three signs saying CAUTION.

I'm sorry, what are we supposed to do? Have a housekeeper sit by the elevator 24/7 with a Swiffer or something?

you should put in a suggestion to put down those huge rubber mats with the drain holes in them for safety, if it is always wet like that!

Interesting that this comes up. A local website has a thread about someone falling at a major hardware store ( they dont mention names but since we only have one here--lowe's , not hard to figure out) Supposedly this person fell over a cart. My first thot..how on earth does one fall over a shopping cart? They are kinda tall and noticible, to to mention bright silver and orange.

Then I realized they were talking about the ones that are meant to carry large objects like pieces of wood, and appliances. LIke a pushcart. I can see this for that fact that our Lowes employees have a tendency to walk right by one and leave it in the middle of the aisle.

I have to say I have almost tripped over some WET FLOOR signs on occasion myself when I was distracted. I liked the ones they had at the AMC theater I worked at in TX. They were about waist high to me. (I am 5'8") We never had ppl falling over them. They were neat too. They were like a tripod and just folded up compact and didnt fall over by someone bumping them or breathing on them the wrong way like those simple plastic tent kind.