IN

Our survey office is in this building. It's called LCORE (Language Collaboration, Opportunities, Resources and Encouragement) and it has lots of offices where lots of brilliant linguists work.
We have all been to university, and our jobs often involve solving difficult cultural or linguistic problems. People in LCORE can help you analyze a tonal grammar, identify an uncommon sound, evaluate language vitality, understand a puzzling cultural practice, or use the latest linguistic computer software. Just don't ask us to turn on an electric kettle, because apparently we all skipped that class during our linguistic training.

Our old electric kettle was easy to use. When you pushed the little switch down it turned on, and the little switch flipped back up once the water had boiled. But one tragic day, that kettle broke and we had to get a new one. The first time I tried to use the new one I was dismayed to find that pushing the little switch down did not work. Every time I pushed it down it would immediatley flip right back up. So I began standing there and holding the switch down while the water heated up . . . a bit dull when no one's around, but not that bad if there are people to chat with while you are thus bound to the kettle. One day, as I stood there with my finger on the switch, I asked Anonymous Colleague One if she knew how to turn the kettle on without holding the switch down the whole time. "No," she replied, "The guy who does the yard work showed me one day but I've forgotten." Anonymous Colleagues Two and Three, who were also present, remarked that they had never been able to figure it out either, but that surely there must be a way.

Thankfully, during my switch-holding ritual the next day, the lady who cleans the building happened to walk by and she shared the secret with me: you have to push the switch in! Not down! This discovery totally revoltionized my office life. As in the days of the old kettle, I could now push the switch in and do all sorts of things while the water boiled. And don't worry, I have been faithful to share this nugget of wisdom with the rest of my anonymous colleagues. Just the other day I was chatting with Anonymous Colleauge Four, and in the middle of our conversation he put his finger on the switch and stood there holding it down as we talked. I showed him the technique of pushing the switch in rather that down, and he was amazed and delighted. And yesterday Anonymous Colleague Five pushed the switch down and didn't even notice that it flipped right back up. Today I need to share the magic word with her: in!