We Waited By The Door

For the company's December gathering, we installed a Late Bell at the front of the office and instructed the caterer, who arrived at 5:14 PM, to ring it upon arrival. She did. None of us heard it. 0.8 seconds later, all of us heard it. The caterer had, by this point, taken approximately one step backward to reconsider, and was in the process of reaching for her phone when I opened the door.

There was a moment, standing in the doorway, where her expression moved through a sequence — first confusion at the delay, then recognition, then a kind of quiet accommodation. She did not ask about the bell. I did not explain. She wheeled in the cart of canapés.

Three observations from the evening. First: the 0.8-second interval behaves, in a real social context, exactly as the spec predicts. It is long enough to be noticed. It is short enough that recovery is not really possible. Second: the caterer, by the end of the night, had become our warmest advocate. She asked where she could purchase one. Third: several of our own team members also rang the bell, out of curiosity, on the way in. Every one of them waited.

I am not sure what this suggests about the product. I think it suggests that the bell does a specific thing and that the specific thing is, in context, what one hopes it will be.