Directions

I’ve been ruminating on how instructions and directions are given these days. While Bruce and I were in England last May, we kept driving around a lot of traffic circles, or round-abouts as the British like to call them. Partly because there’s a round-about ever mile or two in England, but mostly because once we got in one we just kept going round and round trying to figure out where to get out! And even when we did finally get out, we were usually heading in the wrong direction.

In England road signs just didn’t say what I was expecting them to say. To start with, they were usually right after the turn, which wasn’t quite enough warning for us. They also rarely told the road number or the direction. Instead there was an arrow and the name of a town down the road. It wasn’t always the next town, or a very large town, which meant it often wasn’t on the map. So the signs really didn’t help if you had no idea where you were going. They were designed for people who already knew where they were.

Instructions are often like that too. They are written by people who already know how to do what the instructions are designed to tell you how to do. As I see it, that means instructions and directions are written for people who already know how to get where they are going, or how to do what needs to be done. They aren’t written for those of us who are lost or learning. I like to think of us as the explorers in life, but maybe we are just the terminally clueless.

This all came home to me when I was downloading the Adobe software needed to be able to check out the library’s downloadable media. I followed the directions from the online catalog and a window popped with a choice of selections. I could check “authorize software now (strongly suggested)” or “use software without authorizing (you can authorize later).” Authorizing required having an adobe account, which I didn’t have, so I decided to download and authorize later. Of course that was a mistake, because even though I later went in and created an adobe account and authorized the software, it wouldn’t work. It seems to me that it really shouldn’t say “authorization strongly suggested,” when in fact it won’t work if you don’t authorize as you download. The message should be more like “listen up; you need to do this now!”

Sometimes, I wonder if we are so concerned with having a choice and not sounding like we are commanding someone to do something that we can’t bring ourselves to say “you have to do it this way.” “Should, have to and need to” are some of my favorite words. As in “you should, I have to and we need to.” A friend told me once “Priscilla, if you didn’t say ‘should’ you’d have nothing to say at all.” So, I’ve been trying to be good and not ‘should’ all over myself and everyone else. But really I’m beginning to think there are times when we just ‘should.” It’s like watching college students run around in tee shirts in zero degree weather. I think about saying “wouldn’t you be warmer in a coat?” And then I think what I really need to be said is “put a coat on!”

So here’s my ‘should’ for the day. If you are downloading the Adobe digital editions software to use the library e-books, Adobe may ‘strongly suggest’ you authorize the software at the time of downloading, but I’m saying you “should, have to, must” do it. It’s not a suggestion, it’s a requirement. Otherwise it won’t work!