Signs That Scare

By Alex Allen

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Have you ever seen a sign or a certificate that was obviously designed to reassure or convey some kind of positive intention but had completely the opposite effect? That's probably quite a in concise way to express that thought, so let me give you some examples. On the bus today there was a sign which read, 'safety is important to us, that's why we enter our drivers for safe driving awards'. You enter your drivers? I'm sorry, but that really doesn't mean anything. That's like me putting myself forward for the job of senior surgeon at BUPA and then opening my own drop in health clinic in the local shopping mall and performing surgery on strangers while telling about my extensive healing credentials. A complete nonsense. For the record the bus driver was not a safe driver and almost caused a collision on a roundabout, I suppose that illustrates the point. The fact is that, to me, 'we've entered' translates as 'didn't win'. It's a bit like when you see 'Oscar nominated' on Tom Cruise DVDs. What does that mean? Again, 'didn't win'. Bad luck Tom, I can see why you're trying to sell this film as Oscar worthy, but it wasn't and you aren't fooling anyone.

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But let's not turn this in to some kind of crusade against Tom Cruise, there examples closer to home, too. I've seen a local takeaway that has a certificate for 'basic food hygiene level 1' in the window. What the hell is that? It doesn't exactly inspire confidence does it? That this place has managed to certify that, as a general rule, they've managed to avoid poisoning anybody. I suppose that there's a chance that there are other takeaways that don't have this certificate, but to be honest until I saw it in the window I wasn't even thinking about food hygiene. It was that unnerving certificate that made me begin to think 'hold on, level 1? How many levels are there? Is this actually cooked?' It isn't as if I'm up to date with takeaway hygiene awards, not really my forte, someone could have just knocked this 'award' up in 5 minutes on Microsoft Publisher who am I to know? Bottom line, do I feel more reassured after seeing the certificate than I did before, probably not.

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It's not just a written thing though, have you ever heard someone say that for all another person's faults, as least 'their heart is in the right place'? This, to me, seems like the least you should expect as a functional human. If it weren't true you probably wouldn't be functional at all, you'd be dead. So if the absolute best thing someone can think to say about you is that, physically at least, you're capable of operating correctly on a day to day basis even though the things you are actually doing are probably pretty despicable, that really doesn't say a great deal about you as a person. You're greatest asset is something that a, is true of the majority of other people, and b, is something you had absolutely no control over in the first place. Finally, have you ever been walking somewhere quite innocently when someone's massive dog jumps on you and the owner, usually called something like Sheila, tells you that 'he likes you'. I'm sorry, but that clearly is not the case, your dog is biting my leg. I like people, I don't bite them. You have no idea whether your dog likes me, you or the brand of dog food you feed it, it's just a dog. Let's not go mental. Rather, let's stop laughing like this is a hilarious turn of events and get rid of this dog. Not necessarily from the Earth altogether, but at the very least from my leg.