welcome, again! and again! and again!
welcome, again! and again! and again! originally uploaded by steelmonkey
every time the hotel staff clean my room during the day, they reliably place this welcome package on my bed even after i repeatedly move it to a remote corner of the room, as if to insist that i read this stuff. presumably this happens because they have been given instructions as to what a clean room should look like, and go about replicating it regardless of the circumstance?
what happens when the instruction designers are not also the instruction performers? how do service patterns migrate through an organization? how can situational/contextual thinking be formalised or reified? how can formal systems can be made fluid?
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It's no less tolerable but perhaps easier to understand if you consider that all the crap placed strategically throughout the room is there for persuasion, to "sell" something to you. I don't think it's about welcoming at all. Here's my example http://www.portigal.com/blog/forced-engagement/
I would almost agree, except that the thing they seem to be selling is themselves: the shell is one of the hotel's insignia, and the magazine has completely GQish content in it. I couldn't figure out what it was I was supposed to buy or buy into, other than some strange new age-y feel-good about the hotel.
[After the third day, when I placed the tray aside and put a book on top of it, it was not moved back to the bed. I wonder if there's an instruction somewhere that says "don't touch their stuff"]