Guide to operating a safe

I spotted this “how to” guide in a hotel this weekend. It tells you how to use the mini safe in your room. My first thought was, “Wow, that’s a long guide for a simple procedure”. Then I started reading it, and my thoughts changed to, “Wow, what a complex procedure”. Out of interest, I followed the steps. They worked like a charm. Aside from inviting debate about the use of quotation marks 😉 the guide is interesting as an example of a document that makes possible a task that would otherwise have been unfathomable.

This is the safe, with a partial view of the guide at bottom right:

Here’s a closer view of the keypad:

This is the guide:

For easier reading, here’s the guide in text form. I’ve changed all text to sentence case, but left the punctuation, spelling and wording as is:

To operate safe

1) Press “red” buttonbehind safe door. A “yellow” light will come on indicating you can now reset your new code.

2) Input your new code and press “A or B” the safe will beep if the code has been accepted. However if the “yellow” light and the buzzer beeps 3 times the code is invalid and you will need to start again.

3) Once your safe has been re-coded close the safe door and turn the knob “anti-clockwise”.

4) To open your safe: input your code followed by the “A or B” button and turn the knob”clockwise”.

The first step is to find that red button. After a slight hesitation, I opened the safe, and saw this handy contextual help:

The angle was difficult and the lighting bad, but I could just spot the button on the inside edge of the door:

The camera’s flash illuminated the scene:

My only other hesitations were:

• Where is the yellow light?
• Where is the “A or B” button?

After pressing the red button, I spotted the yellow light at top right of the keypad:

For the “A or B” button I chose the “A” at bottom left, which worked just fine.

So, a few typos, but a good guide that got me safely through a tricky procedure. 🙂