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Thursday, November 04, 2004

Metier

"Did you push the button?"

I snapped out of my morning haze to see a middle aged woman walking towards the elevator call button. I nodded and shrugged at her meaningless question, the lit button obviously indicated that I had pushed it.

"You have to push it like this," she said, pressing the button no differently than anybody else in the world. And, quite similar to how I just pushed the button a few minutes ago. "See?" she said, triumphantly, although nothing had happened.

A few quick thoughts ran through my head, followed by a few acromonious repartees that I chose to keep to myself. Strange to think that this woman would believe I had gone through life (and received a degree in medicine) without ever knowing how to work an elevator.

We waited in silence until the elevator arrived several moments later.