We just got a new sign next to the elevator at my apartment building with an amusing new take on the stale old graphic of the guy walking down the stairs away from the flames. This new sign shows the stick person walking down the stairs into the flames (!). Now, I don’t know if this was incompetence or boredom, but whichever it is, it’s certainly more entertaining than the old sign! But all the same, I’m not so sure this sign will encourage people to use the stairs in case of fire. (Maybe they’re trying to kill us?)
Here’s the new sign, showing you what to do in case of fire (walk into the flames):
And here’s what the old sign used to look like (which looks a lot safer and more desirable! Except that it looks like the fire has decapitated this guy. Or maybe his head came off while scrambling to get to the stairs. Oops! Well, at least it’s still on his shoulders; um, sort of…):
http://www.simplyexitsigns.com/img/lg/S/Use-Stair-NFPA-170-Sign-S-5599.gif
And you know, there's another fun thing about this old sign that I had forgotten about: it looks like the fire is saying: "No" (!). So I guess the fire wanted to burn this guy up, but he followed the directions on the sign, and so the guy is escaping, and the fire is expressing its disappointment. Anyway, that's what it looks like. Or else the sign is trying to say: "Don't walk into this stuff (the fire)" by having the fire look like the word "No". But the idea of the crestfallen fire, denied of its prey, is the more fun option, at least to me. Because after all, if the sign was trying to say "don't walk into the flames", wouldn't it have just put a red circle with a line through it over the flames? All they would have had to do is to change the flames to orange, or change the circle with a line through it to black (which would make sense anyway, since the fire would have charred and burnt it, right?).
And you know, there's another fun thing about this old sign that I had forgotten about: it looks like the fire is saying: "No" (!). So I guess the fire wanted to burn this guy up, but he followed the directions on the sign, and so the guy is escaping, and the fire is expressing its disappointment. Anyway, that's what it looks like. Or else the sign is trying to say: "Don't walk into this stuff (the fire)" by having the fire look like the word "No". But the idea of the crestfallen fire, denied of its prey, is the more fun option, at least to me. Because after all, if the sign was trying to say "don't walk into the flames", wouldn't it have just put a red circle with a line through it over the flames? All they would have had to do is to change the flames to orange, or change the circle with a line through it to black (which would make sense anyway, since the fire would have charred and burnt it, right?).
