Yvonne LamShared whiteboard markers as synedoche for what happens when people don't take care of a shared common resource.
(No, I don't know why people don't throw out the markers that don't write, but they don't.)
I don't think it's inevitable, but I also have no idea what is going on in people's heads when they put the non-writing markers back on the whiteboard tray.
Preston Austin@yvonnezlam Oddly, I looked into this. I ran a co-working office in Madison for a decade and buildup of dry markers was a chronic nuisance. Ultimately I resolved it by just testing them all on the regular, but I did ask around and it came down to "I wasn't sure others wouldn't use it still" plus there wasn't a place to put it other than the trash 🗑️
Everyone had a personal standard for "this marker sucks" that they believed too strict, so they didn't want to trash markers good enough for others
Marsh Gardiner 🌱🐝@gl33p @yvonnezlam While I'm pretty reliable about throwing out dry markers when I find them, I usually catch myself wondering if they're actually out of ink… or maybe there is some kind of disruption in a capillary chain that might be restarted, like with isopropyl alcohol?
I can imagine others having to overcome that friction of giving up hope of possible repair.