Although I'm certainly not as regimented in my thinking as an engineer, I like to think that I have a non-zero ability to look at a simple mechanical process and figure out how it works ("Oh, I see....when you pull on this, that makes this other thing spin which hooks onto that..." etc.). That self-perception was sorely tested during a recent hotel stay.
I was staying in a very nice room in a conference hotel. When I first got to the room after checking in, I saw that the amenities had been recently upgraded, including a very fancy looking shower setup. Instead of the usual small, round shower head, there was a massive flat square with lots of little water jets. Very posh. Next to that was something that resembled chrome TV remote attached to a flexible tube, which I assumed was a handheld shower extension. In between the two was a large handle that seemed to have three positions, which I took to be off, handheld, and main shower. In my mind's eye, I was already envisioning a refreshing shower the following morning.
But it was not to be. The next morning, I stepped into the shower, turned on the water, grabbed the large handle, and moved it from the 9:00 position to the 12:00 position and waited for the blast of warm water on my face.
And waited.....and waited.....and waited. Water was still flowing out of the faucet, not the shower head.
I moved the lever back to the starting position and tried again, feeling a very distinct click along the way (presumably for the hand held attachment) as I moved the handle from 9:00 to 12:00. Still nothing from the shower head, as water streamed out of the faucet and began filling up the tub.
"Perhaps they were a little too aggressive in their remodeling schedule and forgot to make sure everything works," I thought to myself. I moved the lever back and forth several times, but nothing seemed to divert the water from the faucet. Not wanting to be late for the first conference session, I made do with the water that had collected in the tub to get clean.
As I was walking back to the hotel after the morning sessions, I asked myself whether it was worth making a fuss to the hotel staff. I know that times have been tough for the service industry due to the pandemic, and didn't want to come across like some entitled jerk. Besides, there is an ice bucket in the hotel room, and I could just use that for my next shower and let them know about the issue when I check out. As I mulled the issue over, I noticed that there was no one in line at the front desk, and decided to just give them a friendly heads up.
I told the woman at the front that there was something wrong with my shower and she said that she would send someone up immediately. It was literally only a few minutes after I got back to my room that I heard a knock at my door and opened it to find a maintenance man saying that he was here to check on a faulty shower.
After letting him in, I retreated to the main part of the bedroom to put on my mask (hotel Covid 19 protocols and all). Seconds later, I could hear the shower running in the bathroom. This led to an exceedingly embarrassing "What seems to be the problem, sir?" moment as I entered the bathroom.
Long story short, I was right in thinking that the lever controlled which shower head to use. However, it doesn't actually divert the water from the faucet to the shower. On most showers, there is a little handle on top of the faucet that you pull to divert the water. But on this super snazzy posh shower, the diverter handle was actually "hidden" in the curve of the faucet -- you pull on the "elbow" in the faucet to activate the shower. I was so sure that the lever was the main mechanism for the shower, that I neglected to carefully inspect the faucet.
I thanked the maintenance guy while sheepishly mumbling something about "user error."
On a positive note, my shower the next morning was much nicer than it would have been with the ice bucket. Live and learn, I suppose.
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