The wisdom of going gnostic, purpose driven, gideon, and the experience dialog

The "down", broken position

When I first tried to get some soap from this soap dispenser (left), I thought it was broken.  I pushed down on the top and nothing happened.  There was plenty of soap in there, but for some reason the pump wouldn't work.  I was about to chalk it up to not working and of course fill out the requisite work order to replace the soap dispenser in men's room 047 when I perchance tinkered with the pump.  When I pulled up on it, I came to realize it wasn't broken, it was just in the down position (right).

The "up", working position

When I pushed down on it after pulling it up, soap came out.  It then remained in the down "broken position".  I thought about it for just a second and pulled the pump up and left the soap dispenser in the "up", working position.  For now, I haven't put in the work order to replace or repair the soap dispenser, but I am making sure that I leave the soap dispenser in the working position every time I use it.  I'm interested in the social experiment to see if other people are able to solve the riddle of "what works when it's left in the up position, but is broken when it is left down?"

Is it better to leave it in the down position?  This works to reward the people who take the time to investigate the situation and learn that it works when you pull up on the soap dispenser.  This approach increases my value as soap dispenser knowledge holder.  Or is it better to leave it up so it works for the next guy, but then he won't know about the soap dispenser code and will likely leave the soap dispenser in the broken position for the guy who comes along after him?  I guess I should really just put in the work order.  But that sure takes a lot of the fun out of it.

So, OK, enough with the soap dispenser.  At times as faith sojourners, we know the secret to how something works and hang on to it maybe for self serving reasons (perhaps some of our Gnostic friends qualify?).  At times we do our absolute best to make sure everything works to its absolute efficiency and we put in lots of work orders for the facility staff (maybe the Purpose Driven Church route?).  What about if we just hang a copy of the soap dispensers owner's manual over the top of it (my uninformed understanding of the way of the Gideons?).  At other times we try to share our knowledge in the most effective way so that others can get satisfactory results.

Maybe if I really played this out, I'd hang a sign on the soap dispenser that reads:

I have found that the best way to get soap out is to make sure the pump is pulled up before you push down on it.  Let me know how it works for you forrestcate@mariettafumc.org.

But sometimes I tend to overanalyze things.

Maybe it's just a broken soap dispenser.