Good morning, World!  It’s Friday! What is the value of a well designed facility? I recently learned how much difference there can be between something slapped together and something designed and built to be high functioning. On our latest road trip, we found ourselves changing plans at the last minute due to an equipment malfunction.  I’m a planner and prefer to have things laid out but hey, stuff happens. We were fortunate to find a similar hotel in a nearby city and we settled in about 10:30 pm.  I got up to use the facilities before nestling in and…the bathroom was locked!  I could see my lovely wife and the dog laying in bed so I wondered, who’s in the biffy?! I called down to the front desk and got a chuckle out of the gentleman who picked up who said he’d be “right up”.  Huh. Fifteen minutes later, an elderly gentleman with a walker (uh huh) knocked on the door with keys, an apology and a desire to help out.  Momma is laying in bed so I held him up for a minute.  I couldn’t get his assortment of potential keys to work so I ultimately had to let him determine which one would unlock the water closet …and off he hobbled. During the what-just-happened? investigation,  (to keep from having this happen again at 4 am) I noticed the door swung in toward the bathroom wall indicating it wasn’t plumb and where the push button lock meets up with the doughnut style rubber stopper, it isn’t centered (pictured).   As soon as you finish your business, you step out, open the door and … it resets itself for the next unsuspecting guest who likely has a sense of urgency and no sense of humor. There are a number of fixes for this issue, only one of which seemed to be evident to the hobbler; *remove the lock *center the stopper *plumb up the door *put up a sign *wait for the next unsuspecting guest A well designed and well constructed facility makes all the difference in the world.  You stay at a motel to … sleep.  When Mother Nature calls, you…answer.  When a poorly designed facility gets in your way, you… *wake the neighbors? *break the bathroom door down? *call 911? *run out in the hall, maybe trip over Captain Obvious, find the hobbler and hope he remembers what key he used earlier? * leave the light on, fan running (because they are on the same switch), door open so there are no more incidents and remember to never, ever stay in this facility again. When things “just work”, it isn’t by chance, it’s by design.  Someone with a high standard of care and pride in what they design, own, operate or maintain figured out what could go wrong and they took the necessary steps to prevent or correct things quickly if/when they do go wrong. The road between inception and occupation or utilization is littered with well intended but poorly implemented plans. Stick with the professionals, unless you don’t give a crap, or in this case unless you don’t have to. Have a blessed weekend.