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A man enters the lobby on a mid-January morning, looking first to the site of the gift shop. The site is clearly completely empty; the walls are bare, the floor hosts no furniture or products, and the lights inside are off (though the space is still well illuminated by lights without).
Him: "Oh. Is the gift shop closed?"
Me: "Yep. They're renovating. Under new management. Nothing'll be there for the next week or two, is what I'm hearing. Maybe a month."
Him: "So it's not gonna be open?"
ME sighs at having to repeat himself, but presses on.
Me: "Not for a couple weeks, no."
Him: “I mean today. Are they going to be open today?”
Me: “...no. They’ll be closed while renovating for a while.”
Him: “Why?”
Me: “Because they’re RENOVATING. Clearing everything out, top to bottom. No one’s there now, and won’t be until February.”
Him: “Oh.”
A pause as he casts his eyes back to the empty room.
Him: “So, like, I’ll be back at three. Can I get flowers in there or something?”
Me: “February is more than five hours away, sir.”
Him: “Oh, okay. I’ll just check back in the morning.”
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Him: “Excuse me, sir. Where is the designated smoking area?”
Me: “There is no smoking permitted anywhere on campus. You’ll have to make your way down to the street.”
The man gestures to the patio.
Him: “Out here?”
Me: “No, that’s still on campus. If you walk out and turn left, you can take the driveway down the hill to the street.”
Him: “All right. Nowhere closer, huh?”
Me: “Sorry, no.”
The man proceeds to exit the front doors, walks about ten feet, sits down at the fountain, and lights up a cigarette right under a “No Smoking” sign. I stare at him for a moment, then walk around my desk and out the doors.
Me: “Sir, you’re still on campus. I have to ask you to go down to the street if you’re going to smoke.”
Him: “What do you mean?”
Me: “I mean you’re still on hospital grounds, where smoking is prohibited.”
I gesture to the sign, which he looks at, after which he looks angrily back at me.
Him: “What?! Why am I always the last to hear about these things?!”
Me: “I ask myself the same thing every day, sir.”
The man saunters down the hill, returning some twenty minutes later, smelling something like an industrial smokestack and wheezing profusely.
Him: “That hill is murder! You should have a smoking area on this level!”
Me: “It had occurred to me. I blame tectonic activity for the objectionable topography of the region, myself.”
Him: “What?”
Me: “That hill is murder.”
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Her: “Where’s the cafeteria?”
Me: “On the ground floor.”
Her: “How do I get there?”
Me: “By taking this elevator down to the ground floor.”
Her: “And then?”
Me: “And then you’ll be at the cafeteria’s entrance.”
Her: “Now hold on. Say that again?”
Me: “Elevator down to G.”
I don’t continue talking, but she replies quickly as if to cut me off from continuing to speak.
Her: “Wait a minute. I know I’m going to forget. Can you write it down?”
Me: “Oooooh-kay.”
I write, as neatly as I’m able in large letters, “Elevator Down to (G)round Floor” with a circle around the G, indicating the elevator button one must press to complete the trip. She inspects the note closely once I hand it to her.
Her: “Now wait a minute. ‘Elevator.’ That’s THIS elevator?”
Me: “Yep.”
Her: “And ‘down to (g)round.’ So what do I press?”
Me: “First you hit the ‘down’ button. When you’re inside, hit the button marked ‘G’.”
Her: “And then?”
Me: “And then you wait until the elevator’s on G, for ‘ground’, and then when you step off, the cafeteria will be right in front of you.”
Her: “Oh god. I’m gonna get lost.”
She dashes off to the elevator, hits the “up” button, and is gone. Half an hour later, she returns, note in hand and looking distressed.
Her: “I never found it!”
Me: “The cafeteria you mean?”
Her: “Yeah! This place is a maze! I wound up in the emergency room!”
Me: “How’d you get there?”
Her: “I did what you said! I went up to B...”
Me: “Down to G, ma’am.”
Her: “...wh... what?”
I point to the relevant lines in the note I wrote.
Me: “Elevator down to G. You went one level too far.”
She stares dolefully at the note for many long seconds before finally renewing eye contact.
Her: “Now wait a minute. Can you tell me that again?”
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A woman enters when I am feeling mischievous.
Her: “Hi. Does this elevator go down?”
Me: “No, actually. The car on the right only goes up, and the car on the left only goes down.”
Her: “Oh. Makes sense.”
Taking my jest entirely seriously, she hits the down button, staring at it contemplatively for a few long seconds.
Her: “I guess the buttons should be side-by-side, then, rather than up and down.”
Me: “...I honestly hadn’t thought of that.”
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Them: “I’m looking for room 803.”
Me: “There’s no room 803 here.”
Them: “They told me it was room 803.”
Me: “Well, give us the patient’s last name and I can look them up.”
The visitor tells me the patient’s name, which I can’t find.
Me: “Not finding the name here. Are you sure it’s here and not at [the very similarly named hospital on the other side of town]?
Them: “No, they never go there. She said she was at [completely different hospital with an entirely dissimilar-sounding name in a totally different direction].”
Me: “Yeah, that’s... not here.”
Them: “...well why would they lie to me?!”
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